S.O.S! Plant dying after severe nutrient burn. Can I trim?

Yeah... So my unknown sativa dom lady looked really healthy and hip at 2.6ft tall and 14 days into flowering, growing in soil with 75% peat content.

Then I read it'd be a good thing to add molasses, so I added some to a nice 8-12-36 fertilizer and watered with it. Three hours later I found her doing the Nitrogen Claw. Imagine the horror! But I kept my calm and hoped she could just be in shock from cold water or something. Next morning all the leaves looked retarded. It wasn't just a claw, it was a freaking nitrogen curl! So I flushed. That was a week ago and I didn't feed her since then, waiting for the soil to dry out.

Today the soil looks about the right moisture, but my lady is not well at all. She smells like a sweetened stack of hay and all the bigger leafs burned up and dried out. Most of them remained green with dark edges and some are even turning yellow, but they're equally dry and all remained curled.

My question is, can I trim the necrotic leaves and start adding nutrients when watering in about two days or should I leave them on? Aren't they drying out the plant or maybe they are killing it by releasing back what killed them? I'm asking, because I trimmed some big leaves in late veg stages on her mother and she died. This is now her clone in trouble. I tried to clone this one too, but no luck so far. Is it even possible to clone a stressed plant in flowering stage?

Give me hope! I just can't seem to stop killing my weed, man! I think I need therapy!

Pics please.

Damn sorry to hear about that bro but don't give up, trial and error is the best way to learn and you won't make the same mistakes in the future.
What type of molasses did you use? It's hard to say without pictures but when the fans die off like that its usually because the soil is locked out and the plant is getting all of its nutrients from the leaves.
How long has it been flowering? It's probably too late to take clones but trimming the dead leaves won't hurt. I don't remove the entire leaf I just snip the dead parts to try and stop it from spreading.

Definatly pictures, it sounds like you fried the thing though

Pics would help, but in their absence you can leave the necrotic leaves alone -- they'll fall off when they really aren't helping the plant any more. They just look horrible. But leave them be, as your poor plant may need the last 15% that they have to give. They're not going to make anything worse.

You're going to need new growth to take over and help your plant get back to something close to normal. However, I'm not sure how much new leaf growth you can expect two weeks into flowering. With my plants, once they went into flower, there was very little new leaf growth up top -- there was some below on the lower third, but not much up top. All the energy was going to bud production (flowering) not leaf growth (vegetative growth).

For now I'd say leave her alone and see if she can recover.

A word to the wise -- if your plant is looking great, DON'T ADD ANYTHING, especially if you've been having trouble getting to harvest on past grows. You were obviously doing it right. If you've got your basic nute bases covered, and she's healthy, that's all you need. Honestly...

I don't know anything about cloning, so hopefully someone else can answer that for you.

Attached pics to the original post. While I was typing my brother actually cut off the biggest leaves. As a token of my appreciation I may soon go and cut his air supply. All depends on the answers I get here.

this is bad twice... nute burn then you flushed ALL the nutes outa the soil so shes been starving. dont trim shit that isnt 50% or more brown/yellow/dead. if or when u nute burn again.. dont flush keep watering normal and ride it out. NUTES should be given to cannabis at 50% strength or lower. every plant is different but some strains or even a phenotype among strains burn easier then others. start weak and build to full strength nutes . resume watering and nutes ar 50% right away.

i wouldn't clone it at all now or ever. after leaf curl that bad plants jus dont ever recover 100% youd be better to start a new grow rly leaf curl that ugly will give off plants with small yields and poor potency. somtimes plants dont recover from it or stop doing it ever.. all the same if you keep growin keep as many fan leafs on there as you can. i clone and trim my plants after one week of 12/12... this stresses the plant and slows growth but it can be done. in your case the clones would pry die... sry for the bad news friend. keep trying and maybe pick up a grow book or something.

tetrahydrofail said:

Attached pics to the original post. While I was typing my brother actually cut off the biggest leaves. As a token of my appreciation I may soon go and cut his air supply. All depends on the answers I get here.

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what a dick.

I'm not sure what to say, other than I found it funny that his brother is trusted with the grow operation information, and shocking the shit out of plants isn't wise before you then go leaf choppin', or more. Good luck.

$waGgEr said:

what a dick.

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Yeah, but he's still my brother. Anyway, thanks for the info. What should I do then? I cannot water yet. The soil is still quite wet and I don't want to drown the roots again. Would a weak fertilizer solution be OK to spray onto the plant?

Figong said:

I'm not sure what to say, other than I found it funny that his brother is trusted with the grow operation information, and shocking the shit out of plants isn't wise before you then go leaf choppin', or more. Good luck.

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I shouldn't have mentioned that. I's our lady, not just mine. We didn't know what to do, it was time to act, we read some shit, and while I went for advice he went for the scissors lol
It's sad as work, but it's done now.

tetrahydrofail said:

I shouldn't have mentioned that. I's our lady, not just mine. We didn't know what to do, it was time to act, we read some shit, and while I went for advice he went for the scissors lol
It's sad as work, but it's done now.

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Do not do any more trimming/pruning.. keep an eye on pH and stick to pH'd water for at least 2-3 days.. then slowly reintroduce nutes at 1/2 of what you were per schedule until the ladies are back to normal.. then go with your normal nute schedule

My .02

Figong said:

Do not do any more trimming/pruning.. keep an eye on pH and stick to pH'd water for at least 2-3 days.. then slowly reintroduce nutes at 1/2 of what you were per schedule until the ladies are back to normal.. then go with your normal nute schedule

My .02

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Now I'm even more confused. $waGgEr said it's bad that she's been starving for a week and now you are saying let her starve a couple more? I'll do anything that helps, but whom should I believe? Can I just spray a weak fertilizer solution on her?

BTW, I tested the soil and there's no nutrients in it now except for some Phosphorus. For some reason it didn't flush like the rest.

I see a few deficiencies feeding shouldn't hurt anything but don't foliar feed it will only make things worse, I never mist the leaves with anything but plain water and I only do that very rarely. The plant looks over watered to me and 8-12-36 sounds a little high, the molasses might not be the cause of the problem. How often have you been watering/feeding?

majek said:

I see a few deficiencies feeding shouldn't hurt anything but don't foliar feed it will only make things worse, I never mist the leaves with anything but plain water and I only do that very rarely. The plant looks over watered to me and 8-12-36 sounds a little high, the molasses might not be the cause of the problem. How often have you been watering/feeding?

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11-3-5 during veg and during 12/12 until the first pistils showed. Watered with it once a week. I was also misting with distilled water once a day. PH was quite stable for soil between 6.0 and 6.5, which was the maximum during veg. Used plain water a couple of times and PH stabilized below 6.5. The plant looked beautiful and had a very regular shape and foliage. Then we switched to 6-3-7 for 1 week and 8-12-36 for another and the plan was to keep this up until 2 weeks before harvest. The developing buds looked denser than most sativa strains at 14 days of flowering I've seen. Then, last weekend, we added molasses to the 8-12-36 fertilizer and that was the end of it. We may have gone too hard on the fertilizer too, as I've just learned.

I don't quite see how there could be other deficiencies. All three fertilizers we used contained micro-nutes. I think all went wrong last week. The mix was just too strong. Maybe molasses also blocked the nutes intake or something?

tetrahydrofail said:

Now I'm even more confused. $waGgEr said it's bad that she's been starving for a week and now you are saying let her starve a couple more? I'll do anything that helps, but whom should I believe? Can I just spray a weak fertilizer solution on her?

BTW, I tested the soil and there's no nutrients in it now except for some Phosphorus. For some reason it didn't flush like the rest.

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The thing is all curled from nitrogen overdose. Now, why would you give a junkie who is smacked out another hit?

hotrodharley said:

The thing is all curled from nitrogen overdose. Now, why would you give a junkie who is smacked out another hit?

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That's why I said pH'd water only until the N-tox worked itself out, then could go 50% of the normal feeding schedule, but.. as with anything - people are free to do what they wish. Good luck with the plants. As for 8-12-36.. are you trying to spike azaleas / rhododendrons with potassium? Was sure we were discussing a cannabis growth, but want to make sure we're on the same page.

Seen this before and had nothing to do with nute burn.My experience is that is caused with is ph being way to high locking out the nutes. That and it looks over watered anytime leaves curl under either over watering or ph problem.

ThegrowerMOJO said:

Seen this before and had nothing to do with nute burn.My experience is that is caused with is ph being way to high locking out the nutes. That and it looks over watered anytime leaves curl under either over watering or ph problem.

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Dunno about your experience, but all symptoms point to N burn. Dark leaves, serious curling, started 3 hrs after last watering with fertilizer when 2inch of top soil was totally dry and the pot was light enough, indicating dry soil.
I monitor PH all the time. It once went to 6.5 in during veg. Usually it moved between 6.0 and 6.4.

EDIT:
As somebody said here the leaves show nutrient deficiency issues. After a week of starvation in flushed soil it is no wonder they do. All that was left was Phosphorus for some reason. Everything else got completely flushed out.

Anyway, I started watering last night again with a very diluted fertilizer mix. Cut most burned leaves and dead parts of all affected leaves too. The hay smell is gone and new growth at the top seems OK so far. I'll update next week with pictures.

Damn that looks all F'ed up.. Less is more in the future. Pitch that broad!!