Pistils Dying -outdoors Way Too Early For This

[Underthesun]

So the last week or so I have noticed my pistils dying off. Its almost every bud site that I can tell. I have a hard time getting around in my greenhouse, the plants exploded and I am now noticing I could have done a better job laying out my beds.

Background:
-Greenhouse/Cold frame grow in the foothills of CO
-Homemade soil with compost/Perlite/topsoil/peat moss/ EWC and other organic ferts, dolomite lime.
-Compost teas every other watering. EWC + Commercial Compost + cold compost + molasses + humic acid
-top dress as needed with organic dry ferts.

Possible issues from researching other threads:
-Too hot. Its been getting up to 100 in there for the past couple of weeks. But is been 95 outside so not much I can do there.
-Broad mites. Hope not, but plants look healthy and haven't seen them with my cheap ass 60x scope.
-Thrips, I do have those. Could be them?
-Spraying compost teas, spinosad and azamax. Did preventivie sprays in June with Spinosad and azamax. Just compost tea sprays until a week ago when I noticed thrips. Now I have sprayed spinosad once and azamax last night which was 3 days later. I still found thrips today so I will continue spinosad sprays for a while longer. Sprays killing pistils? Doubtful unless the compost teas did it, since I started spraying after I noticed dying pistils.
-Can soil PH and calcium lockout cause dying pistils? I saw a mention of this in a thread but there wasnt much elaboration. My soil PH was low, 5.5 or so, put dolomite lime in the soil in June. I would think it would have started to help by now.
-Leaves rubbing on pistils from the fan
-Polination. Dont see any herms, I had a male plant but killed it July 24. Some ball sacks where there and looking ready to pop.

I will attach some pics below. So for now, I'm not changing anything and going to keep my current program. Unless I get some helpful insight that tells me otherwise. Please don't tell me I'm done for with broad mites, I need to sleep tonight and I really don't think I have them...

 

[Underthesun]

 

[DANKSY]

have you sprayed anything on them? also scope (100x) to see if you can see anything crawling aorund

edit: just read you sprayed... could def be the azamax... but i would def scope for some eggs or bugs

 

[Underthesun]

My scope is actually a 60x - 100x and I think I broke it a little and may be even more powerful than 100x now. Eitherway I can see the epidermal hairs clearly. I scoped for about 30 minutes and saw no movement or any mites. Eggs of some sort randomly spotted. I pulled off lower leaves that looked damaged, inner branches with bud sites and a few random leaves; this is what I scoped.

I beleieve I read on one of Bulldogs comments that broads will cause some rust looked edges and to scope there. I had a few leaves look like that on the bottom of my plants. Keep in mind these plants are 6-8' tall so those leaves are pretty old and dont get much light. One section on one leaf had what appeared to be a concentration of eggs (or just dead epidermal areas) following the line where the rust color meets the green color. Again, I saw zero movement.

Here are some pictures of the leaves I scoped. From the lower part of the plant.

Picture of the lower canopy. Leaves look shitty, but isn't that normal for big plants? This is my first time growing big plants and also my first time using homemade soil with my homemade compost. Sorry lighting is hard down in the lower areas for good pics.

Halfway up the plant. Thrip damage? That is my guess. Notice the rust spot just appearing on the one leaf. Calcium deficiency?

I wasn't too worried about any of these leaf issues since most of the problems where just on the lower leaves and chalked it up to be just old leaves. But once the pistils started to look like crap I got concerned.

 

[Underthesun]

Some pics of the whole area and canopy. Pics are limited with the space I have to take them.

 

[Underthesun]

It doesn't appear that the pistils or leaves are being drastically effected at the moment. I haven't noticed any new dead pistils today. I checked my ph with my Kelway tester and things have come up to about 5.8-5.9 in my beds. I could have some slight deficiencies from that but I don't think it would be anything major with my high microbe soil life. I don't microscope my soil, but my root balls and stem from the plants I chopped in June are almost gone.

Thrips everywhere in the soil this morning. So I did a good soil drench with Montery Spinosad. Lots of little critters running around in my soil....cintepedes, little mite things I see with my naked eyes, springtails, worms, tiny little worms, larvea (I think thrips larvea). I'm going to do a plant foliar spray with the Montery Garden Spray this evening again.

I scoped again today and still no signs of any mites themselves. I do see little things that resemble eggs, but I have the past two years on my outdoor grows....so I'm not so confident with egg spotting. Until I see a mite I'm holding off on any drastic measures.

If things get back to normal here soon and its just thrips messing with me I don't have a problem with getting this thread erased if its taking up space. I just want to jump on stuff when I notice it. I have been doing much reading so I feel like I'm doing my part, just get my panties in a bundle when I see dying pistils.

 

[Seamaiden]

I agree with DANKSY, the Azamax is the likeliest culprit. That, or you've got pollen from somewhere. I don't see anything about the plants suggesting it's something like mites or diseasae.

 

[Underthesun]

Thanks for the replies Seamaiden and DANKSY. I'm agreeing with you guys too, probably a combo of spraying and me reaching around pruning and rubbing on them. I got way in the far corner today to get some growth under control, had to do some contorsion to get back there. The pistils back there are less damaged...probably because less rubbing and less spray.

Damn thrips are annoying but seem pretty easy to keep under control. I don't see any this morning. I do see some dying larvae though, had fun smashing them after a wake and bake sesh this morning.

I did have a small infestation last year of these little larvae furry things that enjoyed my lower shitty buds. I spotted a few yesterday. They where pretty gross last year but didn't catch them until almost harvest so I didn't spend too much time identifying them and pretty much forgot about it until I saw them again. If I see them I'll take a pic. I haven't been able to identify the buggers yet. Maybe some sort of fly larvae or moth larvae.

 

[Seamaiden]

Sounds like it's time to get your Bt and spinosad on.

 

[Underthesun]

Yep. I think I should pick up some BT, just learned about the stuff the past few days reading on here. Filled a few grocery bags full of lower buds last year with those nasty fuzzy larvae. They are probably only 1 mm long I'd say. Actually glad I saw a few the other day, now I can jump on it before its a problem. I've trimmed off all my lowers this year, so with the Bt and that I hope to see ZERO at harvest time this go around.