Mangled and deformed leaves

[MisterAvocado]

Some sets of leaves are extremely deformed, almost look like they have been chewed on by a dog. Other sets of leaves look ok.

Are you growing from seed or clones?
clones ("American Dream"). A guy gave me 10 clones in beer cups with soil. I planted 5 in soil (FFOF) and 5 in Royal Gold Coco plus some perlite. #2 pots.

How old are your plants?
I got them 3 weeks ago. I think they were a few weeks old when i got them.

How tall are your plants?
18-24 inches.

What brand/type of nutrients are you using?
The soil plants are fed with FF Grow Big and Big Bloom, recommended conc and schedule (always feed and water at pH 6.2). The coco plants are fed with Botanicare PBP @pH 5.7. both groups get: feed-water-feed-water...

How often do you water and what type of water do you use?
pH-adjusted tap water. growth media is allowed to dry completely between waterings.

What is the pH of your water?
Water comes from the tap at pH 7.5 and PPM 20. I have no filter, but always adjust pH.

Do you foliar feed or spray your plants with anything?
no foliar feed.

What kind of lights do you use and how many watts combined?
1000W MH bare bulb, 18/6.

How close are your lights to the plants?
24-36 inches currently. 12-18 inches before.

What size is your grow space in square feet?
140 sq feet

What is the temperature and humidity in your grow space?
lights on: 74-78 F, 32-36% RH
lights off: 68-72 F, ~50% RH
CO2: 1200ppm during lights on.

What is the pH of the soil?
unknown.

Have you noticed any insect activity in your grow space?
not since I neemed the mites that came with the clones.

How much experience do you have growing?
none.

Other notes:
The plants in the coco group got stressed (pale, droopy) after transplant. They have improved substantially in the last 10-14 days, since I have upped their nutes. The soil group has been charging from the start, but coco guys are now catching up.

The deformed leaves are present in some plants of both groups, but problem is much more severe in a few plants in coco group.

I started adding botanicare calmag plus (1 tsp/gal) with nutes a few days ago.

I added a humidifier to the room tonite, since humidity was typically in mid-30s during lights-on period..

The first 3 pics are of plants in the coco group. The last pic is a plant in the soil group (note the deformed leaf on the right side, about halfway up).

 

[Seamaiden]

First, that feed's pH needs to be brought up. Stay religious about keeping it in the range of 5.8-6.2, and I do mean RELIGIOUS. Second, you may very well need to filter the water you're using to feed the coco girls. Coco is a different beast than most other mediums and it's important to understand how to work with it. Can't say much more without seeing the problem itself.

What do you need to know about how to attach photos? Two ways to do it as attachments, either up top of the dialog box where you have all the symbols, you just use the paper clip. Or underneath the dialog box, Manage Attachments, then attach that way. Or, upload to a photo sharing site and link.

 

[MisterAvocado]

Thanks Seamaiden for the info on pH. The soil group have been getting nutes/water at 6.2, the coco group has been getting nutes/water at 5.7. Should I just bring up the pH on the coco group to match the soil group?

 

[Tobor the 8th Man]

Maybe they were cuts from flowering plants and just need to reveg. Sometimes when you get cuts you just have to get those plants reveging. When they don't have single blade leaves and when there starts to be branches that get 3, 5, 7 and more bladed leaves or at least gets 3 then 5 and stays there, then you take cuts of those branches and clone them. Now when they root you have clones that are in veg. They might (probably will) always have some pistils on them but they will be vegging.

You can get some twisty, sickly and crappy looking leaves when slightly flowering cuts are rooted and get going again.

Stick them under florescent tube shop lights. IMHO and many others florescent tubes have the best revegging success. They will reveg under whatever light you use though because they are rooted clones. It isn't the same as revegging a harvested plant. That can be trickier. Don't start chasing your tail and give them too much love. You do need to have good ph, good drainage and proper nutes as you always do. So check and double check but give them time and don't force it. It needs time to get back into vegetative mode.

 

[purpleberry]

This is just a wild guess, but that american dream could have some blueberry in it, and BB strains can do wierd stuff that looks like that.

 

[Seamaiden]

I want an old-timer to see this. Mangled and deformed is about right. Looking at these pix (while trying to have a convo, sorry, leaving town soon, gotta do it this way) I see a couple of issues, one of which are those purple petioles.

As I said previously, keep pH in the coco 5.8-6.2. I would use, if you're not already, filtered water that then has some minerals replacing what's stripped, i.e. Ca & Mg.

Read this to get your head wrapped around coco: Integral Hydroponics Page Coco Substrate Science.

If the soil kids are doing this, I'm already of the opinion that your soil pH is on the low side. I would back off the FF nutes and top-dress with some dolomitic lime, just use water for a little bit. If you can, let them spend a little time out in the sun, too. Tobor's given some great suggestions, but there is something about the look of these leaves that's different from what I've seen that he's talking about. Maybe that's the genetics purpleberry mentions.

 

[turfz]

the most deformed plant i have ever grown was a diesal ryder that didnt autoflower, the first leaves came out unuserly big and stuck together the leaves afrterwards more resmbled kushadelic... it doesnt look bad atall now its flowering

 

[MisterAvocado]

I had root aphids. They were probably only in some of the clones when I got them, but they spread to the others eventually. My humidity was sometimes getting up to 90% (veg cycle, small room) and my coco was too wet. I thought I had fungus gnats but a close inspection with loupe showed them to be adult aphids. I cut down all the plants and decided to start over. I'm bleaching my grow space now and will crank CO2 to 10k PPM for a couple hours to kill anything flying around in there.

this thread, and others mentioned within, were extremely helpful to me: