Losing round after round..what is it?

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Easy420420

Easy420420

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Originally thought I only had root aphids. However clones and teens arent growing well since treatment and cant find any RAs. This seemed to spiral out of control when the brand of coco and place of purchase changed.
I have thrown out 3 rounds of veg plants going on 4 and the 5th round (clones) are looking the same. I have been taking cuts off of the mothers which had RAs. The veg room has been emptied, sprayed and mopped with bleach, several times over the past few months.The mothers were separated from the veg room after 2 months of continuing to see a few crawlers around the black pots and on top of coco after a multitude of treatments. Those mothers have finally been dumped now, but I still have clones from them as it was my only option at the time. I went from a 100% clone rate (120+/round) to maybe 50% by the time they seem ready for potting. The bugs and treatments beat up the mother plants. I have tried both treating clones for RAs and not with the same end result. I started taking more clones to combat the depleting survival rate but even though they have roots, the plant growth is severly lacking. These are dialed in strains and know to the day what kind of progress they should make.
They have roots within 14 days, at least the ones selected for potting, then are put into 4" squares in coco/perlite under the same lights.
The plants are slow to drink from this point. I figured it is because they arent rockstar's to begin with anymore. Staring at the calendar, the 4" squares are stepped up into 1 gallon pots of the same coco/perlite as soon as they dry out the squares. This is pretty much the point that they stop drinking and growing. They act light sensitive, and I start playing the "get them to look good for a day game." Slow growing beanstalks, I top them and they barely move on from there, only getting a little taller. The stems get purple and woody, followed by red veins and off color fading leaves, then the splotches on the older leaves. Some leaves start falling off, with no major growth and thats about 6 weeks since clone. They show classic root rot symptoms despite what they were fed and how often. At that point the plants are tossed in hopes that the new round of clones will be better. Which they are not.
I see leaf twist, angry new growth often light green, and red veins creeping in sometimes. The stems get purple and leaves droop sometimes. Yellow sticky pads also catch a fungus gnat here and there, which may have come from contaminated bags of coco. The suspected coco has all been thrown out and replaced with the former bags from the original hydro store. Which is now what the latest round of clones were just potted in.
The plants in the 1 gallons are in the suspected coco and not making progress.
 
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Losing round after roundwhat is it 4
Mr.GreenthumbOG

Mr.GreenthumbOG

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I’m not a fan of transplanting rock wool into anything but more rock wool.
looks awful green on top the cubes.
not sure how your watering? I would be watering the coco only, and not soaking the cubes too much, need to encourage roots to search, which can be challenging sometimes with multiple growing media’s used.

You probably have fungus gnats, but I have a feeling your watering practices are encouraging the problem.
 
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PauliBhoy

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I believe that’s a common practice done to clones to reduce moisture loss. I’ve seen other cloners do that.
It is when doing high density cloning because the cuttings are packed in pretty tightly (like doing 72 clones in a 10"x20" tray) but if you've got plenty of space, trimming the leaf tips is not necessary and there is evidence that leaving the tips actually improves rooting rates a bit.
 
Kanzeon

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It is when doing high density cloning because the cuttings are packed in pretty tightly (like doing 72 clones in a 10"x20" tray) but if you've got plenty of space, trimming the leaf tips is not necessary and there is evidence that leaving the tips actually improves rooting rates a bit.

Indeed. I've had the best results cloning when removing as few leaves as possible. IMO, more stomata for transpiration = faster rooting.
 
Dirtbag

Dirtbag

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What did you use to treat for RA's? Have you treated this round or just the previous?

I'd get those pots up off the floor for both sanitation reasons and the fact that a concrete floor can cause the roots to get cold, which can cause... you guessed it, Purple stems and slow growth, chlorotic leaves..

Also Mr.GreenthumbOG made a good point about rockwool on dirt like that, not a great combo.
 
Dirtbag

Dirtbag

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In addition to getting them off the floor, I would recommend using something like a unislab beneath the delta block rather than the pot of coco/verm. They're sterile and bug free and super easy to grow with since they have no cec which makes it very easy to "know" what is in it for food as long as you have quality ph and ppm pens.. which you should anyways if you don't already. And regardless whether it's coco or rockwool used you should absolutely have a system setup to collect runoff nutrient solution for testing and proper media maintenance. You should always get about 10-15% runoff using rockwool or coco to remove excess nutrient salts and pull in some oxygen.

What are your numbers like? Ppm and ph in and out? How often do you feed the plants? I don't see any drippers anywhere.

The other big consideration is rockwool and coco both require a high irrigation frequency. Several feeds a day, BUT, when using rockwool, only once it's fully rooted the wool. Watering it too often before its rooted can stunt them.. And I don't think your roots will explore a pot of cold floor coco if it's got a wet wool block to keep its roots in.

This is 3" delta blocks on unislabs.
20210305 204503


And like 2 weeks later. These were still just being hand fed once per day at this point.
20210316 225400
 
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Easy420420

Easy420420

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I’m not a fan of transplanting rock wool into anything but more rock wool.
looks awful green on top the cubes.
not sure how your watering? I would be watering the coco only, and not soaking the cubes too much, need to encourage roots to search, which can be challenging sometimes with multiple growing media’s used.

You probably have fungus gnats, but I have a feeling your watering practices are encouraging the problem.
Why are you leaving the wrapping on the rockwool when you pot them up into the coco mix? I would take them off so roots can grow out the sides too.
You should cut the plastic off the cubes before transplant.
Thank you for all the suggestions. The pictures were for reference of plant health. The cloning technique that can be witnessed in the pictures is a result of taking 100+ cuts/month since '08. Rockwool cubes into coco is nothing new, just not IG pretty. I think the green growth is from a lot of action in rhizosphere mixed with 100% humidity under the dome, we're not feeding these things plain water. More frequent fresh air dome lifts would help, maybe I should be more vigilant about the green growth on top of the cubes. Like someone mentioned, 50+ cuts in a 10x20 heated tray domed 24/7 gets a bit balmy. The domes come off as soon as possible and then get spread out 18 to a 10x20 in 4" square pots which is what stage is pictured. When the cubes are uppotted into the square pots, most of the root mass is still in the Rockwool, which dries just a bit faster and requires more frequent watering for first few days, the wrapper helps it retain moisture closer to rate of the coco, and also promotes the roots down into the media to spread under the surface of the coco rather than across til top and down. None of this matters once your uppotted into 1 gals or whatever for vegetative state. They used to talk pre-veg, now just buy products to help speed it up. I have a big ezcloner that produces root mops in 2 weeks that you just plop right in coco 1gals. What's pictured is the tek that seemed to produce the highest success rate of these clones.
This is original "crop-steering" tek, "drybacks" and what not. Now a days genetics are bred to root strong, that was not always the case.
 
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Easy420420

Easy420420

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I'd find a different starter... thise clones are taken from a plant under stress?

They start with the purple stems?

To much light and no domes.

What are your temps and humidity at?

Phing the blocks?

What are they soaked in
I beg and pray for clean clones everyday. Last 2 guys with clean clones were root aphids and thrips, respectively. I'm still waiting on a Rec guy that shut down for russet mite test results. They said everythings back from microprop/culture lab, just these are all favors from people who dont need money anymore and I cant press them at all for stuff they dont do anyway.
The blocks are always on point, new meters regularly. Soaked in 300 ppm Canna cogr A/B and rhizo. They go in a heated dome, heat mat on a thermometer set to 80. Dome gets cracked at Day 3, open at 5-7 and domes off 10-12 days ready for pots.
 
Easy420420

Easy420420

21
3
In addition to getting them off the floor, I would recommend using something like a unislab beneath the delta block rather than the pot of coco/verm. They're sterile and bug free and super easy to grow with since they have no cec which makes it very easy to "know" what is in it for food as long as you have quality ph and ppm pens.. which you should anyways if you don't already. And regardless whether it's coco or rockwool used you should absolutely have a system setup to collect runoff nutrient solution for testing and proper media maintenance. You should always get about 10-15% runoff using rockwool or coco to remove excess nutrient salts and pull in some oxygen.

What are your numbers like? Ppm and ph in and out? How often do you feed the plants? I don't see any drippers anywhere.

The other big consideration is rockwool and coco both require a high irrigation frequency. Several feeds a day, BUT, when using rockwool, only once it's fully rooted the wool. Watering it too often before its rooted can stunt them.. And I don't think your roots will explore a pot of cold floor coco if it's got a wet wool block to keep its roots in.

This is 3" delta blocks on unislabs
I know keeping the pots on the floor is old school, the flower rooms are all on rolling tables. The veg space is limited and when ready for flower fill just about the entire usable light footprint which is wall to wall. The room was setup with an apogee par meter for what its worth. They have newer style rolling tables that take up very little interior footprint, but we still couldnt get to each plant by hand the way we like to in veg. The picture is a glimpse of the room, with severely stunted plants. It looks a little different at full tilt.
 
Easy420420

Easy420420

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3
Beyond being old school, pots on a cement floor is a no no. Your roots are gonna be too cold and you'll get what you've got
The floors seem to be 76*f with a digital thermometer, maybe if it was the middle of winter but right now the ground outside is literally the perfect temp to grow, the floor never gets much cooler than the ambient temps in warmer seasons, with all due respect I have grown literally thousands of plants on that floor, and other floors just like it. There are roots in the 1 gallons, the dirty coco was like mud, it even stained the perlite when drying up. As soon as we drove 6 hours to get our original brand coco from tne same store weve been using since you had to say "tomatoes" and repotted the clones, the top of the media was night and day cleaner looking. These are highly controlled rooms even though I didn't show the bling.
 

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