I'm a newer grower, and I need an expert's opinion for further work. I thought cultivating dispensary quality bud needs a greenhouse and $1000's of dollars of apparatus. Now, I realized that it's more applicable for larger-scale operations and the legal limit of 5 plants in a home will take up less than 4x4 feet of space, and could yield 8-16 oz every 3 months. Then one of my friends working in a cannabis store helped me with a few suggestions. A 4x4 tent with humidity and temp sensors, an LED quantum board from china which is best for the money, pots with soil, a ph tester kit, humidifier/dehumidifier, an exhaust fan, and a filter to eliminate the issue of smell are his suggestions. If I have missed anything, please help me to include those items. Also, your suggestions are invited.

We Solidarity said:

So here's a shot of a dudded out plant next to a healthy one


View attachment 406818

And a close shot of a healthy top (left) and a dudded top (right)
View attachment 406820

Notice how the dud leaves are all the same size, shiny, and have very deep serration on the margin. Stems are weak and break easily if flexed. Node devolpment is twice the average but is weaker and smaller.
View attachment 406821

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I have 4 plants from 2 seperate grows that are stunted and the new groth look just like this...ive just killed them when they stunted in the past but im curious and decided to flower the 4 stunted plants. Have you harvested from these stunted plants? What did you notice ? Yeild size,smell,flower time,color ect? I will post pics as i progress thru flower phase. Im hoping they will be lil gems ....

I always assumed it was genetic, with the access to breeding so simple everyone can do it and im sure the they eventually mix and spread a certain set of genes that seem to mesh well the first few generations but later down the line the genes dont mesh well. Thats why i killed them all but now i will run these stunted plants and see if the stunting increases in frequency or severity.

Keith34.ur said:

I'm a newer grower, and I need an expert's opinion for further work. I thought cultivating dispensary quality bud needs a greenhouse and $1000's of dollars of apparatus. Now, I realized that it's more applicable for larger-scale operations and the legal limit of 5 plants in a home will take up less than 4x4 feet of space, and could yield 8-16 oz every 3 months. Then one of my friends working in a cannabis store helped me with a few suggestions. A 4x4 tent with humidity and temp sensors, an LED quantum board from china which is best for the money, pots with soil, a ph tester kit, humidifier/dehumidifier, an exhaust fan, and a filter to eliminate the issue of smell are his suggestions. If I have missed anything, please help me to include those items. Also, your suggestions are invited.

Click to expand...

Its an investment that keeps paying off and a wonderful hobby

After combing through this thread and others like it, I am starting to question if mines may have or are showing symptoms of this disease.
I’m no expert, but for those who are could you chime and weigh in on if they are or not.
thanks in advance.

Bump because i spent the last 2 days reading this entire thread and now don't know what to do with myself

Updates hplvd

Once your strain has it you are screwed. Best thing to do is just get rid of the strain and start from scratch. But what to do if it’s a strain that you can’t get? The only solution is to send it to the lab for a tissue culture and have it cleaned out. But I’ve found. hack that helps manage the virus and keep it at bay. Few rules you have to follow.

1) Do not grow mother plants. The virus moves through the stem from oldest growth to newest growth. Plants that dud are usually plants that have been stressed and growth has slowed down where the virus has caught up to the stressed plant and then duds. That’s why when you have mites or russet mites you see dudding. Because the mites slow down your plants and it gives the virus a chance to catch up to the plant. Understanding this concept will help you control it. This is why you don’t want to have mothers because the more you take cuts the closer you get to the virus. Having a great start in veg by using microbials and flouraliscious helps you out run the virus and stay ahead of it enough so your plants don’t dud.

2) only clone from lush vibrant tops from your veg. Do it after the veg plant has started rapid growth. Usually by week 2-3 of veg. The faster and healthy the top is the further away it will be from the virus. Hence you would have way less virus over an inch length of foliage or stem.. don’t clone from the bottom branches of your veg plants. Since these branches have not grown as fast as the tops. They contain higher concentrations of the virus per inch of stem. I bet if you take those branches most likely they will snap and not bend. Because they are more brittle.

3) use 100% alcohol or 10% bleach solution to dip your scissors after you take tops from each veg. I usually use a few pairs of scissors as they get to sit in the solution longer.

4) if the virus load is bad meaning that u have 20-30% of your plants dudding. Then dip the cuts in the 10% bleach solution for about 5-10 minutes. Then rinse them out with ro water. It’s going to damage your leaves a bit but it will lower the virus count in the cut clone and help you get less duds next round. If the next veg cycle you get 5% or less duds then stop the dipping.

5) how can you tell where the virus is in higher concentration within the stem? The higher concentrations of the virus usually sits at the lower part of the cut where you can literally bend the bottom of the cut and it will snap not bend.. Hence in the oldest growth. Cut that piece off. Don’t add any stem that snapped as part of your clone. The bottom of the clone must be maleable. By doing this continuously over time. You will push the virus further and further down the stems of your cuts over time. In the beginning you might see the cut snap right at about the middle of its stem. As you start to gain control of the virus, you will see the stem snap at lower levels of the branch of a given cut over time. Assuming you take cuts about the same size. This tells you that you are making progress. You won’t see any more dudded plants in your crops anymore but the virus is still there but in smaller concentrations which are not strong enough to dud your plants. Stop these practices and you’ll
see it come right back and you will start to see the duds come back at higher rates. So it’s key to practice these fundamentals.

6) always clean your trays with 10% bleach after every change of veg. Always clean your veg and flower rooms thoroughly and develop protocols to minimize plant to plant contact contamination.

7) Do not recirculate veg water. Run to waste when feeding veg. Keep the environment ideal for veg and your plants will grow fast and lush. Always take the most vibrant tops when taking cuts after pruning your veg.

If you do this, you will beat the virus and your plants won’t dud. I did this for over a year and did not get any duds anymore. But it did not get rid of the virus. I knew it was still there because the lower branches and the bottom of my cuts still snap after bending. But you will be fine because the virus is at bay. Not strong enough to get your plants sick. But the minute I could replace my og cut with a brand new one from Josh D, I then threw my old cut away..

Good luck

MurdochJones said:

Been seeing this at the farm i'm working at for years and could never find out any thing about it. Brought it up to coworkers but they don't seem to believe its anything more than a possible pH issue. Clones have been taken off infected plants and used as moms later and has ruined some of our strains in the garden. I've also noticed incredibly brittle plant tissue from the stalk to the tops, what seemed like discoloration of the plant tissue within the branches (although i did not have a healthy plant to compare tissue with), significantly stunted leaves where the leaf blades will started to twist and overlap eachother. Fan leaves sometimes get especially dark near the petiole and fade to the tips with a odd sheen over the darker areas. Bud production is typically stunted by up to 2/3 of its typical growth. trichome production is almost non existent, smell and flavor profile are in the same boat. the branches also tend to get reallll light green, which doesn't seem too odd until i saw it happen to a gods gift. this has been eating at me for years, and itd be nice to finally bring some answers and possibly a solution to the problem back to the garden.

Click to expand...

Read my advice it works. Much more controllable for smaller grows. Big farms need to take extreme protocols like isolation of possible contaminations. Continuous testing. Getting rid off strains that test positive and starting from scratch. It can easily get very expensive but if you don’t do. nothing about it, it can probably put you out of business. With the current cannabis market conditions and over supply . You can’t afford to assume and hope. Take action asap.

palm eezy said:

i had trouble with finding pests that needed heavy magnification, or weren't obvious. even with a quality scope, like a stereoscope, i never managed to get a positive id on typical samples. but i did learn a trick: put leaf, stem or stump samples into decent quality ziplock baggies, sealed tight and flat, and let them sit for a week. like an entire box of 100. you can then go over them with a loupe and a white surface to quickly find anything that might be of interest. or look for, and attempt to classify bacterial or fungal growth. if you have particular plants that have struggled without obvious explanations, this is a good method. the time in the sealed bag helps to separate anything that moves or crawls from the plant material.

with clean genetics and low pest pressure, quality marijuana is extremely easy to grow. i'm not saying the best of the best, but i fully attribute the blandness of the past decade or so not to influx of growers, legalization, etc, but numerous rampant diseases, pests in the cuts being (openly) passed around.

if you have grown good stuff before and have been struggling with what worked, clean house and stay away from clones. it sucks going from seed when you don't have multiple grows, but if you are a half-ass decent grower you can definitely save yourself the headaches of the how's and why's.

Click to expand...

Mites russet mites and all other pathogens do not make your plants dud. What they do is slow the growth of your plants and make the plants immune system weak therefore allowing the virus to multiply to levels where Dudding happens.

Welcome back @Judaz havent seen you around in a couple years i think

Aqua Man said:

Welcome back @Judaz havent seen you around in a couple years i think

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Hi you doing man… It’s been a while. I usually come back when I have new info to share.

Hello fellas
this thing is definitely real 100%
happened to my old cut of cheese and it was worth nothing in the end
afghani types (OG, cheese..) looks often affected
there is definitely a link with some viroid
in my case there always was some mosaic on one leaf here and there, but rarely
not enough to awake my suspicion
some strange crooked top leaves during stretch also ..

veg is pretty lushy and plants get thats creeper pattern
also these witch brooms on the lower parts .. very strange
initially i though i was phenotipical, absolutely not
judaz comparison with natural occuring creepers is a very interesting theory

past week 3 flower all king of deficiencies appear, final product is unsmokable
plants produce a forest of lanky branches close to the ground .. many buds but final product will have that horrible smell. just good to finish in the bin, and im not joking at all

also bottom branches clones will ALWAYS yellow at the top/ get deficient
It root but produce poor plants that will only grow 5 leaves and stay dudded. the top cuttings (meristemal apex) will contain (i think) a lower viroid charge
once you were plagued enough time you will get a bad thrill when seeing this disease

definitely some kind of hplvd virus involved .. staying dormant until environnemental stress trigger the disease.

exactly like this (found on internet)

(sorry for the link can't find a good photo)

this 1 looks E.X.A.C.T.L.Y like my old exodus infected mutant:

nightmare sh!t

if you see this, RUN!!!!

Quick one. Could a kind soul tell me what are these? Hermie? Horny female? It's early flower

just a preflower

Howdy fellow farmers. First time posting.


Attached are a few pics from my Black Domina photoperiod.



Shes sitting in a 40L container of Biobizz All Mix Soil. I stopped using Biobizz Bio Grow and Biobizz Bio Bloom about two months ago which is when the first leaves started getting speckled. I suspected it was nute burn (was only doing half recommended doses, i.e 1ml/2L water, sometimes even less) and light stress. Therefore, I stopped using ferts all together, reduced the LEDs to 30% (its a 23w LED, I think comparable to a 110w fluorescent) and moved the lights significantly higher. I will say that the speckling seemed to stop and the speckled leaves below are ones that have been there since they first got burned. But the yellowing, mutated, and crunchy looking fellas are an evolving problem.


Despite these measures, she sadly still seems to grow these mutated and discolored leaves. I mean, she is beautiful on the inside, but externally she looks rather frightening.


Some things to know: I live in the city and the water is very hard here. I also flushed it already once about two weeks ago. She normally gets 100ml water every 3 days. She has been getting ONLY distilled water for the last two months, no ferts, and the lights are on easy mode and moved higher above (about 16in) from nearest leaf. I prune once in a month, perhaps less. Checked soil PH, it was solid around neutral. I've been trying out some stuff with LST and this girl has a fun little bonsai aspect to her. She was never topped, rather laid down straight to the perimeter of the container and the lead along the outside using rubber bands to fastener to the container. I also train her by tying down growthtips with soil stakes and rubber bands to spread them out along the area of the container. Its been fun, this is only my third plant. The genetics are solid too (sensi seeds). It also started off as a very normal looking ganja plant.


I have noticed that SOME but not all of the new growth is looking more natural and with fewer mutations. However, I believe over time the normal looking leaves will get this weird cupping and discoloration as well. Some growth tips on the other hand are looking very strange.


Even stranger, I just pulled and harvested her sister about a month ago. She was an autoflower Purple Skunk #3. She received the same nutes and was in the same soil mix, size container and was watered at the same time with the same amount as the Black Domina. She finished with about 13g dry weight. Only a few of her leaves were lightly speckled and none of them were mutated. Unlike the Black Domina.



So, any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

Trotsky said:

Howdy fellow farmers. First time posting.


Attached are a few pics from my Black Domina photoperiod.

View attachment 2013370

Shes sitting in a 40L container of Biobizz All Mix Soil. I stopped using Biobizz Bio Grow and Biobizz Bio Bloom about two months ago which is when the first leaves started getting speckled. I suspected it was nute burn and light stress. Therefore, I stopped using ferts all together, reduced the LEDs to 30% (its a 23w LED, I think comparable to a 110w fluorescent) and moved the lights significantly higher. I will say that the speckling seemed to stop and the speckled leaves below are ones that have been there since they first got burned. But the yellowing, mutated, and crunchy looking fellas are an evolving problem.


Despite these measures, she sadly still seems to grow these mutated and discolored leaves. I mean, she is beautiful on the inside, but externally she looks rather frightening.


Some things to know: I live in the city and the water is very hard here. I also flushed it already once about two weeks ago. She normally gets 100ml water every 3 days. She has been getting ONLY distilled water for the last two months, no ferts, and the lights are on easy mode and moved higher above (about 16in) from nearest leaf. I prune once in a month, perhaps less. Checked soil PH, it was solid around neutral. I've been trying out some stuff with LST and this girl has a fun little bonsai aspect to her. She was never topped, rather laid down straight to the perimeter of the container and the lead along the outside using rubber bands to fastener to the container. I also train her by tying down growthtips with soil stakes and rubber bands to spread them out along the area of the container. Its been fun, this is only my third plant. The genetics are solid too (sensi seeds). It also started off as a very normal looking ganja plant.


I have noticed that SOME but not all of the new growth is looking more natural and with fewer mutations. However, I believe over time the normal looking leaves will get this weird cupping and discoloration as well. Some growth tips on the other hand are looking very strange. View attachment 2013369
View attachment 2013372

Even stranger, I just pulled and harvested her sister about a month ago. She was an autoflower Purple Skunk #3. She received the same nutes and was in the same soil mix, size container and was watered at the same time with the same amount as the Black Domina. She finished with about 13g dry weight. Only a few of her leaves were lightly speckled and none of them were mutated. Unlike the Black Domina.

View attachment 2013363

So, any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

Click to expand...

Ohh.

Trotsky said:

Howdy fellow farmers. First time posting.


Attached are a few pics from my Black Domina photoperiod.

View attachment 2013370

Shes sitting in a 40L container of Biobizz All Mix Soil. I stopped using Biobizz Bio Grow and Biobizz Bio Bloom about two months ago which is when the first leaves started getting speckled. I suspected it was nute burn (was only doing half recommended doses, i.e 1ml/2L water, sometimes even less) and light stress. Therefore, I stopped using ferts all together, reduced the LEDs to 30% (its a 23w LED, I think comparable to a 110w fluorescent) and moved the lights significantly higher. I will say that the speckling seemed to stop and the speckled leaves below are ones that have been there since they first got burned. But the yellowing, mutated, and crunchy looking fellas are an evolving problem.


Despite these measures, she sadly still seems to grow these mutated and discolored leaves. I mean, she is beautiful on the inside, but externally she looks rather frightening.


Some things to know: I live in the city and the water is very hard here. I also flushed it already once about two weeks ago. She normally gets 100ml water every 3 days. She has been getting ONLY distilled water for the last two months, no ferts, and the lights are on easy mode and moved higher above (about 16in) from nearest leaf. I prune once in a month, perhaps less. Checked soil PH, it was solid around neutral. I've been trying out some stuff with LST and this girl has a fun little bonsai aspect to her. She was never topped, rather laid down straight to the perimeter of the container and the lead along the outside using rubber bands to fastener to the container. I also train her by tying down growthtips with soil stakes and rubber bands to spread them out along the area of the container. Its been fun, this is only my third plant. The genetics are solid too (sensi seeds). It also started off as a very normal looking ganja plant.


I have noticed that SOME but not all of the new growth is looking more natural and with fewer mutations. However, I believe over time the normal looking leaves will get this weird cupping and discoloration as well. Some growth tips on the other hand are looking very strange. View attachment 2013369
View attachment 2013372

Even stranger, I just pulled and harvested her sister about a month ago. She was an autoflower Purple Skunk #3. She received the same nutes and was in the same soil mix, size container and was watered at the same time with the same amount as the Black Domina. She finished with about 13g dry weight. Only a few of her leaves were lightly speckled and none of them were mutated. Unlike the Black Domina.

View attachment 2013363

So, any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

Click to expand...

This looks exactly like broadmites or rustmites and id order some avid and spray everything.

Man, what a thread. It reads like World War Z

Some updates on how to manage plants infected with hop latent viroid. 1st of all make sure you have a clean and pest free environment. Like I mention prior it’s like having HIV. With the right medicine you can live fine and healthy as long as you don’t get aids. keep the viroid levels low. How do we do that. Cloning only tops from healthy veg plants not moms. and use 10% bleach to sterilize scissors. Never clone from bottom branches they have the highest concentration of the viroid and your plants will easily dud if they get stressed. The key is a clean and stress free environment so the viroid stays latent. If you are recirculating nutes use oxiphos to keep any pathogens at bay. Also you can use Bio520 to keep them healthy and happy. Even if you have the viroid you can manage it like this by keeping the viroid dormant. Stress from pathogens and environment is the reason why your plants dud.