Help needed diagnosing sick plant

My plant is not doing so hot. Recently the leaves have begun drooping, and have a periodic claw here and there. The tips of some leaves look burned, and there are discolored spots on others. Bud production seems to have come to a crawl. I water with 1/2 strength Super Bloom two part formula (NPKs are 2.0-0-2.0 & 1.0-0.6-2.0). The medium is 50:50 sphagnum moss/vermiculite. The strain is unknown, but it’s a sativa dominant bagseed. I have read numerous sites that diagnose plant illness, but mine seems to run the gambit on symptoms. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

I wouldn't be surprised if it is root rot.

Should I treat it with H2O2, or do you have any better suggestions?

I think you went with too wet of a mix 50/50 peat/verm. I never really had good results with H2O2, when I did a 5 gallon bucket DWC the H2O2 seemed to make things worse for me. I hear Aqua Shield is supposed to be better for root rot, but I think its discontinued. Is this a planter sitting inside a garbage can? If that's what you are doing then I would say at the very least take the planter out of the can so the planter can get air. Maybe even add some more holes so the planter can breath better.

This appears to be out door. I think you would have been better off with a coco coir mix. Coco holds water better than peat, and coco has less effect on ph. If this is OD then I would recommend going with a top layer of mulch to help hold moisture in, and if you are going to use mulch then go with a cedar mulch because bugs hate ceder. Specifically moths, which you want to ward off moths because it is the moths that lay eggs under the leaves which will hatch into caterpillars. The caterpillars can wreck havoc on crops. Eating the bud's and eating into the stalks and then everything from that point up rots.

Nah, the planter is sitting in a separate planter, because I flushed it with PH'd water thinking it was some sort of nutrient accumulation causing toxicity. I put it in the other planter so the holes wouldn't be sitting on the ground, so it would drain a bit quicker. I've read mixed results about using H2O2. Some people swear by it, and others say it's a temporary fix at best. I assumed that the awesome drainage properties of vermiculite, and the airiness of the mix would prevent over watering issues. Boy is my face red.

Edit: I also only water when the top inch or so of the soil is dry. I guess that with such an absorbent medium that isn't a good enough indicator though. It is entirely feasible that even though the surface is dry the core has held onto a good deal of water.

By the way, thank you.

Think I saw a video once of a guy doing a three part of Coco coir from blocks, and a part of vermiculite, and one part perlite. I seem to think he also used some portion of potting soil too, but that may have been a different video so his mix may have been just one part coco, vermiculite, and perlite. I actually used some Sunshine Advanced Coco Coir Ultra Coir this grow for my base soil on top of some TGA Super Soil and the Coco Coir has been doing well. Much better rooting than some other base soils I've used.

http://sunshineadvanced.com/sunshine-advanced-ultra-coir-tech-talk

When my clones are ready I'll probably grab a bag of coir. I thought I was clever using a completely inert medium that would allow me to have full control over the nutes. Perhaps I was a little naive. Lesson learned. I did take your advice and drill around a hundred holes around my planter. Hopefully I can get the rot under control. Thanks again.

How do I "like" a reply? I want to give credit where due, and appreciate your hasty response to my post.

Actually that coco coir is inert as well, not sure if that's why you mentioned it. ;D
The like button is on the right side, next to reply.

BurritoBandito said:

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My plant is not doing so hot. Recently the leaves have begun drooping, and have a periodic claw here and there. The tips of some leaves look burned, and there are discolored spots on others. Bud production seems to have come to a crawl. I water with 1/2 strength Super Bloom two part formula (NPKs are 2.0-0-2.0 & 1.0-0.6-2.0). The medium is 50:50 sphagnum moss/vermiculite. The strain is unknown, but it’s a sativa dominant bagseed. I have read numerous sites that diagnose plant illness, but mine seems to run the gambit on symptoms. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

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over watered with root rot

I'm not seeing the like button. May be because I'm using safari.

For my indoor I've been doing pretty decent using smart pots that are fabric and can breath. I use them out door too. Some people say that the roots are like us. Especially for the OD. You wouldn't want to be out in the sun on a warm summer day wearing a plastic rain coat, the way a plant doesn't want to be in a plastic planter.

The pots being fabric all the way around with no holes in the bottom provides a barrier to keep bugs out of the soil. I also top my soil with some Gnat Nix to take the bug barrier idea to the next level and cover the top. Having diatomaceous earth in the soil helps too. Getting a little off topic, but still something to think about with your next planter or medium that you go with. Also the roots can grow right through the bottom of a smart pot if you place it on top of soil or the dirt in your yard. In fact, when you transplant you can leave the plants in a smart pot too because they only air prune the roots when the air is around the planter. With a smart pot you can plant the whole smart pot in a bigger smart pot and the roots will grow right through the sides into the bigger pot with more soil.

TwistItUp, somehow I missed your last two replies until today, so sorry for the delayed response. I certainly appreciate the advice.

As an update; I removed as much of the old medium as possible, and cleaned the roots with a very dilute H2O2 solution. I then transplanted into a different planter. Unfortunately, I had to stick with the vermiculite medium (no peat moss), because it's what I had on hand. This is a secret garden that my wife does not know of. She handles our finances, and justifying the purchase of a different medium would be difficult at this time of year. To (hopefully) mitigate the water retention issues I was previously having I added a ton of holes to the planter, and will not water until the plant shows signs of being under-watered.

I lost about 1/3 of my leaves, and the plant looked pretty scraggly to begin with. There were several obvious issues with my grow. For example I did not plant the seedling until almost October, my medium was a poor choice, my 1 gallon planter was too small, I over-watered, poor genetics (bagseed), etc. Suffice to say, I don't expect a very great yield, but it does look like she's going to pull through.

After winter I'll try again. It will be much easier to explain why I need to buy worm castings, soil, and the like. I'd like to try subcools super soil out, but don't really care to make a metric ton of it. I think it would be wise for me to work on my own deficiencies as a gardener before investing so much in supplies.

I do have a couple of clones, and seedlings vegging under a CFL, but don't think I'll be able to keep them there all winter. The area I have dedicated to growing indoors is far too small to really do anything more than rooting clones, and the light is just pathetic. I'll have a much better run when it warms up, and I can rely on the sun.

haha, I don't even use the email address linked to my account. The only alerts I get are from the alert system on the RIU site. I too seem to be missing a bunch of alerts, but do my best to keep up with the threads I do want to follow. Sometimes I get a alert for 4 messages or whatever the number will be. So then I go to click one and go to that thread, only to get back in the thread I was following to find a bunch of new posts since I was last there. Its like some threads I only get alerted once every 4-5 posts have been made in a thread, or the system decided to dump me from the threads I follow. I'm not too sure the reason why though. I've noticed some other odd things going on here too though. Like I was making some entries in a notepad journal I have going. And then I get on RIU to find someone posting about the same things I was writing about in my journal. This has happened enough now, and I wrote enough things that I was going to see if anything came up after writing while not online, and too many times shortly after writing in a journal someone makes a post about what I wrote, or responds in a thread when I never even clicked post. But somehow people know what I'm typing. I believe I've been key logged by someone on here, but can't prove it. I saw a post that someone else believed the same thing not too long ago there was a post warning others about people trying to get their info. I never read the other post and can't find it now. Makes me wonder about just how safe it is here.

It may not be an awful idea to scan your computer with Hijackthis. If you are not familiar with the software, I'd be more than happy to give you a walkthrough of how to use it. Just let me know.

what temps are your plants at?

For the most part the flowering one is in the mid 60s to low 70s, but there have been a few colder nights. When it gets below 50 I move it into the garage. Hoping it finishes budding before the winter really hits here.

BurritoBandito said:

For the most part the flowering one is in the mid 60s to low 70s, but there have been a few colder nights. When it gets below 50 I move it into the garage. Hoping it finishes budding before the winter really hits here.

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your leaf droop is possibly due to the cold, get a heat mat for your roots and the foliar will withstand colder environments.

My plant went from green and healthy to showing all of the symptoms depicted above over the course of a few days. I'm sure the cold doesn't help, but since the transplant there have been no new or worsening symptoms. This leads me to believe that TwistItUp was correct in his assertion that it was root rot. I would love to give the plant warmth, but a heat pad is not an option in my situation.

Im looking forward to more conducive growing weather. Got a 5 gallon bucket fermenting some fish hydrolysate, and a compost heap getting ready for spring. My next run will be much better than this one was. I didn't expect much planting so late, and to be honest I don't even know why I did it. Boredom I guess.