Can These Plants Be Salvaged???

This is my buddies two AK's. He is too paranoid to post shit online so I am uploading the pics through TOR to see what yall think. We went on a 4 day fishing trip..... left two beautiful plants that had the entire SCROG filled and came back to utter destruction.....

Grow Specifics:
2 gallon root pouches w/ 50-50 coco and perlite
Temps @ 77-82 F
600 watts of T5 4" above SCROG screen (4x6500k bulbs and 2 redsun UVB bulbs)
He pH's water and nutes to 5.8
Using Age Old Organics "Bloom Food", molasses, CalMag & Superthrive

IMO he doesn't run enough water through his medium. He stop watering/feeding as soon as a little dribble out the bottom of his root pouches. Only other wierd thing preceding this was he thought he switched to 12/12 when he popped in the redsun bulbs but after 5 weeks without showing sex he checked the timer and it had been bumped and the timer was running on 16 on 8 off. He was panicked because his entire SCROG screen was filled and he thought the stretch was over.... until he saw the faulty timer and realized his plants were still just vegging along. So he tried to force flower by turning the lights off for 48 straight hours..... don't ask.... After the lights came back on of course they were yellowed out and he said he was going to give em a shot of bloom food to give them a P & K kick and I advised maybe letting them recover for a week.... but he fed anyway. When we left to go fishing they were looking as if they had bounced back well. Return home to this nightmare. Then he said he had fed full strength bloom nutes twice in a row. Is this just a horrendous case of nutrient burn?? Is there and hope to salvage? Personally I think they are toast. I am curious because we were running clones off the same mother under the same conditions only he is feeding Age Old and I am using AACT's.

Yes it looks like nute burn a bit. Tell your buddy that he should be watering to the point where 10-15 % of the water has gone through the coco at least, more wont hurt. This prevents salts from building up in the root zone.cif salts build up it causes burn and lockout. Before you make up your mind as to the fate of this plant you should check the ppm of the runoff. Id guess its around 3000 ppm. After the water drains through empty it out so it doesnt reabsorb into the plant or simply get the plant off the tray its in by putting blocks under it so the water evaporates rather than reabsorbing. I dont know what to tell ya about the plant. Its pretty rough lookin. Id ball tag your buddy for suckin at growing and tell him to at least read through RIU files for long enough that he doesnt do that again.

I think having two plants he has pampered from seed since January croak is worse than a ball tag. He was under the assumption a ppm reading wouldn't be reliable since he was using organic nutrients. Same with the salt buildup..... he just assumed it wouldn't happen because he isn't using salt based nutrients. I don't check the ppm's of my teas..... but I feed a diluted tea with every watering. My plants are doing fine... no burn at all. Probably have 3 weeks left on mine to harvest. Sad thing is his plants look so much better than min in veg....

Not having run off isn't the issue. My bedroom is carpet so I've never felt like the effort to water till some drips.. and yes I've taken plenty to harvest this way I even do my long term mothers like this... just saying

ouch! hard lesson in overfeeding. I believe those plants could recover, but I sure wouldn't flower them out in that condition. if that was me, I'd take those two out and start over immediately. if the genetics are so special as to be preserved, I'd relocate them to underneath a t-5 or some cfls until they bounce back - which I bet would take weeks. feed water feed water feed water, not feed feed water

qwizoking said:

Not having run off isn't the issue. My bedroom is carpet so I've never felt like the effort to water till some drips.. and yes I've taken plenty to harvest this way I even do my long term mothers like this... just saying

Click to expand...

Not having run off is a huge issue. Especially if your pushing ppm limits with synthetic ferts. Salts stick to salts and help leach the root zone of buildup. Maybe you havea system that works for you but dont go preaching that shit all over to inexpirenced growers cause theyll kill their plants that way. Run off is a good thing. 95 out of a hundred growers would agree

Yup which I am. Also use a 1:1 ratio of African violet miracle grow and perlite and only their bloom booster(and Epson). Not to mention I've never ph'd or let chlorine evaporate. Also no 2 week flush...I'm not preaching any of this simply that its possible and that it can be done and give you quality bud, not trying to argue or start something. I'm not a commercial or professional grower. Just that if you have to have run off its probably a symptom of some other issue. Peace

I just shot a text to my boy. He's already swapped out the Redsun's and put his 420nm bulbs back in and kicked the lights back up to 18-6. He flushed Sunday night and they at least haven't gotten any worse. He is just going to water for a week then ease back into 1/4 strength Age Old Organic "Grow" every other watering. He's been chatting up some growers online who use Age Old and they all say Age Old liquid nutes are really strong and it's pretty much a certainty that he is looking at a serious case of nute burn. Live and learn. If they don't recover I have more of the same strain cloned and ready to go. He will just have to buy weed to stay in smoke until he grows some.....