Leaves started developing holes, now redness near stalk and burning

nunzgrow · Jul 24, 2019

Hey guys,
This is my first grow and I decided to go with purple glue and BC god bud in a coco coir + 30% perlite medium in a 2.6'x2.6'x5.25' tent. Lighting the tent is a Mars Hydro TS1000 150 watt and two China 100 watt cobs. For nutrients I am using the Emerald Harvest 2 part kit along with Dutch Nutrient CalMag and Advanced Nutrients Rhino Skin (SiO2). I generally stay between a pH of 5.6-6.0 and 500-600 ppm (although I did have a few feedings at 800-900 ppm but noticed some stress so I dropped it back down immediately).

Everything went well from germination aside from a few small discolored/yellow spots and some leaves became a bit bloated with a crinkled appearance and a few even started to twist and bend (I believe this was due to heat stress and possibly excess nutrients so I bought an intake and set it near my portable AC and began feeding at a lower ppm).

Since then I've done my best to keep the temps at 70-80 degrees with 40-50% humidity. About a week ago I noticed some of the newer growth under the large fan leaves were struggling to grow and growing very tight to the main stem so I decided to defoliate and clipped about 4 leaves from each plant. A few days after that I noticed small holes developed on leaves in the lower region of the plants and on newer growth under some large fan leaves as seen in the pictures. I thought it could possibly be due to stress from the clipping so left it for another few days and a few more holes appeared. I never actually saw any pests within the soil, airborne or on the leaves but I did notice some small brown grains on the tops of the leaves and underside but after inspecting them it didn't look like they were moving or doing much of anything. To be safe I ended up treating the coco medium with a few tablespoons of diatomaceous earth, a good spray down with safers end all miticide/insecticide/pesticide, and installed some yellow sticky strips around the grow tent.

After the treatment the plant seemed to be very stressed and resulted in wilting and discoloration of a good portion of the newly developing foliage (especially the foliage under the large fan leaves that get very little direct light from the LEDs). I ended up flushing them early this morning with softened tap water, GH Bio Root, and a few drops of hydrogen peroxide at approx 250ppm and pH'd to 5.6. The discoloration turned a lighter shade but hasn't seemed to developed in new areas and the wilted leaves have began to look slightly fuller and more hydrated.

Now, I'm not even sure I had pests to begin with and thinking all my problems could have been related to pH or the ppm of my feed. I'm not really sure where to go from here but if anyone could offer some advice I would greatly appreciate it!

Some picture do look a bit glossy but they were just taken after I applied some safers foliar spray

Thanks for any and all of your input!

Edit: tested the run off this morning after the tap water + bio root at 561 ppm and 6.2 pH
Also pics range from July 17th-24th

Jimster · Jul 24, 2019

I use Promix, which is different than your method, but I see two possible problems. The dark green leaves and the twisted shape tells me that there is too much P or K in the feeding. The holes are probably some sort of critters... the "grains" are probably poop from whatever is enjoying your plants. Doesn't look like spider mites... something bigger, maybe a grasshopper or something along that line? If it was nutrient related, the damage would be brownish and more widespread. The holes look like surgery, hence a bug that likes to chew. I would consider flushing the medium to reduce the nutrient load, depending on how much stuff is coming out of your runoff.. Did you measure the runoff on your feedings?

nunzgrow · Jul 25, 2019

Yea it could definitely be over feeding, I wasn't entirely sure but started with filtered water as a seedling then ramped up over the days and weeks and nearly hit 850-900 ppm following the ratios for the nutrients I got. I was testing run off from about a week into planting and kinda messed up right from the start and didn't flush the coco which tested at 1100-1200 ppm. Ended up flushing a few times and it's been between 500-600ppm and 5.6-5.8 pretty well until the treatment yesterday and tested at 560 and 6.3 ph
I'm not too sure I'm on the 3rd floor of an apartment building here. I did see a brown looking moth in here the other day but nothing in the tent yet. I've checked everything and bleached the tent down so maybeit died when I sprayed everything down?

nunzgrow · Jul 25, 2019

Was just checking things out and noticed this specs on the undersides of the leaves. It looks like they are oddly shaped and just stick in the big hairs

Jimster · Jul 25, 2019

Those look like bugs of some type, maybe mites? The damage on the leaves seemed to big and clean cut for these little guys, or whatever is on the bottom of your leaves. I battled spider mites my last grow and they are very hard to detect at first. I noticed tiny dots on some of my fan leaves. You had to have the light reflecting off of it just right to see them, but that was my first sign, the little tiny, barely visible dots. Even after looking closely, I still didn't see them. Finally I saw a few but couldn't believe how tiny they were. But I digress... your damage doesn't look like that, more like a surgical cut.
Now that you have your nutes under control, I would address the bugs. The holes in the leaves look pretty small and harmless for the most part, but it is important to monitor your plants for additional signs of damage. Good Luck!

Enforcer · Jul 25, 2019

nunzgrow said:
Hey guys,
This is my first grow and I decided to go with purple glue and BC god bud in a coco coir + 30% perlite medium in a 2.6'x2.6'x5.25' tent. Lighting the tent is a Mars Hydro TS1000 150 watt and two China 100 watt cobs. For nutrients I am using the Emerald Harvest 2 part kit along with Dutch Nutrient CalMag and Advanced Nutrients Rhino Skin (SiO2). I generally stay between a pH of 5.6-6.0 and 500-600 ppm (although I did have a few feedings at 800-900 ppm but noticed some stress so I dropped it back down immediately).

Everything went well from germination aside from a few small discolored/yellow spots and some leaves became a bit bloated with a crinkled appearance and a few even started to twist and bend (I believe this was due to heat stress and possibly excess nutrients so I bought an intake and set it near my portable AC and began feeding at a lower ppm).

Since then I've done my best to keep the temps at 70-80 degrees with 40-50% humidity. About a week ago I noticed some of the newer growth under the large fan leaves were struggling to grow and growing very tight to the main stem so I decided to defoliate and clipped about 4 leaves from each plant. A few days after that I noticed small holes developed on leaves in the lower region of the plants and on newer growth under some large fan leaves as seen in the pictures. I thought it could possibly be due to stress from the clipping so left it for another few days and a few more holes appeared. I never actually saw any pests within the soil, airborne or on the leaves but I did notice some small brown grains on the tops of the leaves and underside but after inspecting them it didn't look like they were moving or doing much of anything. To be safe I ended up treating the coco medium with a few tablespoons of diatomaceous earth, a good spray down with safers end all miticide/insecticide/pesticide, and installed some yellow sticky strips around the grow tent.

After the treatment the plant seemed to be very stressed and resulted in wilting and discoloration of a good portion of the newly developing foliage (especially the foliage under the large fan leaves that get very little direct light from the LEDs). I ended up flushing them early this morning with softened tap water, GH Bio Root, and a few drops of hydrogen peroxide at approx 250ppm and pH'd to 5.6. The discoloration turned a lighter shade but hasn't seemed to developed in new areas and the wilted leaves have began to look slightly fuller and more hydrated.

Now, I'm not even sure I had pests to begin with and thinking all my problems could have been related to pH or the ppm of my feed. I'm not really sure where to go from here but if anyone could offer some advice I would greatly appreciate it!

Some picture do look a bit glossy but they were just taken after I applied some safers foliar spray

Thanks for any and all of your input!

Edit: tested the run off this morning after the tap water + bio root at 561 ppm and 6.2 pH
Also pics range from July 17th-24th

My recommendation based on your info:

1. You don’t mention how often you water, but it needs to at least be daily in straight coco/perlite.

2. Reduce the nutrient strength at least by half.

3. Raise the light about a foot for a week to reduce stress on the plant while she recovers.

4. Keep pH between 6.0-6.3. The leaf twist is from low pH. I know common knowledge for coco is 5.8-6.0, but after 2 years of perpetual coco grows I have found that to be a bit low.

nunzgrow · Jul 25, 2019

Hey guys thanks for your replies. I checked on the plants again today and took another picture of the underside of that one leaf and the small particles haven't changed at all and haven't moved so I'm thinking they are just grains of coco blown up by the fan? I've been keeping a close eye on them and right now the damage has not been getting worse but has really slowed growth down.

In regards to watering I was watering when I started noticing the top of the coco drying out and looking lighter in color which was usually every daily but sometimes in the morning afternoon or night depending on how it looked. Right now I'm being very modest with my feeding until they start looking healthier and i will try increasing the pH 6.0-6.3. I've also raised the light to the top of the tent.

I'll montior the plants for the next few days and see what happens and update the thread accordingly.

Thanks!

Terpeneluv · Jul 30, 2019

Wow, besides the holes from the pests, they look just like mine a couple of weeks ago. Went through the same thing. I found solutions here on this forum that helped immensely. This is what I did:

1. Turned the light down a tad

2. Watered/fed twice a day and lowered ppm's to about 400.

3. pH to 6.1, then 6.0, then 5.9 throughout the week.

I've been ticking up the nutes little by little. I'm at about 650 and they seem to over it. The advice I got on here was accurate!

Found my first bug this morning, so I'm fairly unclear on what to do about that at this point.

I'm curious to see your girls recover. Keep posting pics. Looking forward to it!

Good luck!

Leaves started developing holes, now redness near stalk and burning

Leaves started developing holes, now redness near stalk and burning

nunzgrow

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Jimster

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Leaves started developing holes, now redness near stalk and burning

Leaves started developing holes, now redness near stalk and burning

nunzgrow

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Jimster

nunzgrow

nunzgrow

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