ELEPHANTS FOOT BEWARE. ALL TOP DRIP USERS and fungus gnat havers.

[Capulator]

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/hs206

I just lost 2 large trees from this bullshit. I suspect that my drippers were too close to the stem, and were salting the stem, causing it to crack right at the base (I thought it was because they were growing too fast). The crack in the base invited a fungus that made the entire core of the trunk look like mucus and smell like sewage. . . JUST BELOW THE SURFACE LEVEL.

My drippers were on 24/7. I will not do this again, and will move the drippers at least 3 inches from the base of the stem and have the basket drippers going in to the sides of the rockwool cubes instead of the top. I will also be incorporating a weekly flush at the stem by hand with plain water.

The plants showed no signs of stress, just completely wilted and died in one day (at day 32 bloom)

fungus gnat larvae can also cause this symptom.

the ways to prevent: do yourself a favor and read the above link.

 

[Aerojoe]

Good to know cap, I have a similar but different problem, I just xplanted some plants into bigger pots and moved em into hid lighting and they all came out fine except for 1 plant that wilted over and looks over watered. I stopped watering her in hopes she'd dry out a bit and come back but as of right now it looks like a no go.

 

[fishwhistle]

damn cap some bad luck lately.

 

[Capulator]

Good to know cap, I have a similar but different problem, I just xplanted some plants into bigger pots and moved em into hid lighting and they all came out fine except for 1 plant that wilted over and looks over watered. I stopped watering her in hopes she'd dry out a bit and come back but as of right now it looks like a no go.

that sucks. did you check for elephants foot? This shit is real. half of my plants have it. I think I may end up losing them. I scraped out all the rockwool around them, and cut the water completely after doing a long flush.

 

[Capulator]

damn cap some bad luck lately.

This is very bad. I may lose half a room full of trees that would have easily done 1.5# each one. BEst way to learn is to fuck something up though. The only brightside is that this will not happen to me anymore.

I am sure that a lot of people who top feed are prone to this. I always thought that keeping my drippers close to the stem was the right thing to do, but in fact it is a major cause of the dreaded elephant foot.

No mas.

 

[deacon1503]

Nice find on the U of F research but im glad u id'ed the issue.

 

[Burned Haze]

That's good info, exp for dripp operations, I hand bucket all my soilless and I always use dripclean every watering/feed. Keep it up!

 

[Goodsen Cranium]

Thank you for sharing the information. Hope things get better for your garden, cap.

 

[Papa]

geez. i'm sorry for your loss cap.

i noticed how my top-feed 24/7 kept things too moist for my liking around the trunk. i pulled mine out and hand-water until the roots hit the water. i also pull the rockwool away from the trunk as soon as those roots hit the water. i take a couple of handfulls off of each cube . . . . it just seems so much safer to have as little moisture as possible around the trunk.

 

[click80]

Here are two links. Following that I will paste in an abstract taken from the paper the first link refers, the second link goes to an easier to read handout from the Florida Extension Service that came from the same paper but has some pics and is easier to read...

http://www.hos.ufl.edu/protectedag/pdf/ElefootReport.pdf


Additional index words. Capsicum annuum, physiological disorder, basal stem rot, irrigation,
fungus gnats.
Abstract. Sweet pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) is currently the vegetable crop with the
largest acreage under protected agriculture in Florida. The growing system for pepper is
characterized by the use of soilless media and frequent irrigation with a complete nutrient
solution. A physiological plant disorder not known to occur in soil-grown plants was
observed in two hydroponic greenhouse crops at Gainesville, FL. The stem became swollen
below the cotyledons node level, where longitudinal cracks developed on the epidermis.
Rotting occurred in these wounds and reached the internal stem vessels. Adventitious roots
abscised leading to a major reduction of water absorption. The affected plants wilted
suddenly with no diagnosable pathogenic disease. In other countries (i.e. Spain and
Canada), where greenhouse sweet pepper has been grown in soilless media, the disorder has
been termed “Elephant’s Foot”, based on a description of the stem appearance. Locating
irrigation emitters close to the stem may be directly related to a cause for this disorder.
Moving the emitter gradually away from the stem base partially helped to alleviate the
problem. In Spain and Canada the “Elephant’s Foot” disorder is avoided by transplanting
a young seedling up to the cotyledonary level into a rockwool block. The block is later
placed over a soilless media bag or rockwool slab. The irrigation emitter is moved from the
top to the base of the block once the roots grow into the container media. Factors other
than emitter location, such as irrigation and fertilization frequency, and/or the use of
certain soilless media per se might also lead to the development of “Elephant’s Foot”.
Additional research related to these factors is presently being conducted to determine the
cause and solution for the disorder. More information and knowledge about the factors
that cause the “Elephant’s Foot” disorder will help avoid this problem.

 

[click80]

I was actually originally posting the above information in another thread last night as some FYI for whoever was interested, it was after I noticed for the first time ever this term "Elephants Foot". Today I actually started reading the one with pictures and let me tell you something I had some very good insight.

I have been positively freaking myself out and bugging the shit out of some very tolerant/cool folks here on the farm about some seemingly unrelated problems with three different grows. They ranged from wilt off of plants in no discernible pattern, root problems, and stunted plants. One I blamed on Perlite, because i was trying to grow in just perlite. The other problems I was just stumped on and jumped to wrong conclusions.

I am now almost positive that a light but persistent fungus gnat problem that I thought I was dealing with was causing the problem. I wasn't too worried because I didn't think they could really cause any "real" problems. The best control I got was just keeping them to a low population. The reason was that I was using first Mosquitoe Dunks and then Microbelift. The Microbelift is designed for ponds and water gardens but by following the directions on bottle I finally come to find out that the rate for mosquitoes and the other larval insect types is way too low to fuck up the Fungass Gnat Larvae. Its the difference between 2.5 ml/2000 gallons, yes that's right, for mosquitoes. I just happened to find out because I thought maybe it had gone bad and I called tech support and i found out it takes 1TBL/Gallon for medium to light infestations of fungus gnat larvae.... She also said that Mosquito dunks would have less efficacy unless you really upped what most peeeps use. I would guess like maybe 7 dunks per gallon? You get my point.

So, to try and make this short, I did not see the main symptoms of this Elephants Foot and maybe what was happening was not technically Efoot, but I am almost positive now that fungus gnats should never be taken lightly. I am almost positive that between running floods too close together, which before I had fungus gnats worked fine, I usually get 3/4 gm/ watt, and not eliminating the gnats COMPLETELY at first and not becoming aware of the pathogens they can introduce either directly or indirectly, and switching to a sterile res combined to give me the basal stem softening which allowed larvae entry and although not killing two grows caused problems that did not make me suspect these little bastards. I am calling them "The Flying Borg" from now on.

If anyone is wondering, I have almost gotten rid of them, haven't seen one in about two-three days now. Been using Caps Bennies, the Foliar Pack, when I first got it in mail I mixed it up to use immediately...and since I have been using the Root and Foliar Pack as a tea for drench, and the Foliar as a Foliar. I just got through checking my stems, I made scalpel slices in Rapid Rooters at base of main stem and looked and all is well. Stem Bases are as hard as Bill Clinton at an intern convention.

 

[Capulator]

fungus gnats are the worst. People take them way too lightly. The larvae will burrow in to the stem and they are a cause of elephants foot, and "instant death". I lost a bunch of plants similar to the way you were losing plants. One here, one there,,, no rhyme or reason. Then I autopsied one and found a gnat larvae burrowed in to the base of the trunk. It was this little fucker that was causing infection.

The recent episode is without a doubt watering too frequently and too close to the stem. Got the crack, the foot, and the instant death. No fungus gnats in sight really. I have been extremely diligent with my IPM. Mad foliar tea, and spraying pyrethrins all over the room any time I see even one flyer.

 

[click80]

btw...thanks for that...Kind of a Pyrrhic Victory on figuring this stuff out. Lol...but a victory nonetheless I guess. :mad:

 

[Mississip Hip]

fuckin goddam ELEPHANTS FOOT?!?!?!?

Really?!?

WTF is next?.....

Cancer and diabetes of the Weed?

 

[cheaplastic]

isnt this called dampening off?

 

[Smokey503ski]

Gnatrol will works great to get rid of the fuckers. Also having sticky tape or bug traps close to the stalk will let ya know how bad of a infestation is.
Either way it sucks balls that you are losing plants.

 

[click80]

isnt this called dampening off?

not really but it still amounts to pathogens or pests at the medium line. Ornamental and Vegetable growers minimize the risk of this a lot by placing the plant deeper into the medium, in other words up past the point of the original cotlyedons or by trenching, like they do with tomatoes...this is planting the tomato seedling horizontally...they take all leaves off up until the last two or three sets. That not only allows the medium line to be on a tougher part of the stalk, but also new roots will develop along the stem you placed into the medium when transplanting this way. I think thought that since beneficials have so many other uses you might as well use technique along with microbes.

 

[oscar169]

fuckin goddam ELEPHANTS FOOT?!?!?!?

Really?!?

WTF is next?.....

Cancer and diabetes of the Weed?

X2......:p

 

[Prime C]

Yet another reason to get my Halos! Thx for the info Cap and sorry for ur loss.

 

[Anjelfarmer]

So what does elephant foot look like? Withering stalks?