help a newb: little white spots

[Gomez_Addams]

Honest, I looked in growing books (we have plenty), the forums and photos around here, and I haven't found photos that looked like this, but maybe I've missed them. We've studied a lot, and learned from our growing friends a lot before we even started, done what we can to educate ourselves, but we have only one grow under our belts, and it was only moderately successful. Good enough for our medical needs, but nothing to be proud of. So we are still very new at this, so if this is a no-brainer, try not to bite my ignorant head off.

Since I found webs in the buds of my first grow after harvest (we're now in our second grow, ever) I've been watching our new girls very closely.

A few days ago, I remembered to inspect the bottom sides of the leaves for the first time in weeks, and I found this:



Little white, raised bumps near leaf edges. Hard to see even with a 40X loupe. (need to get a 50X, but we're broke right now) Sorry about the sharpness, don't have a real macro lens, this is blown up from a high res non-macro shot. Shot under MH, no color correction.

Are these Borg eggs or what? I thought I read that mite eggs were darker, not lighter. We've already started treating for mites on the assumption. We're in Colorado, and it's the one pest everyone here fights constantly. No spots of any sort on top, nor any other discoloration. Wife said she saw one live mite, but I haven't seen one yet.

Other than this one detail, these girls seem healthy to us, but this is only week five - they're only about 10 inches tall.
~~~
Got a root problem (I think) on our moms, it just killed one of the more sickly ones, so I'll have to take some shots of it and its roots soon and post 'em, I'm worried the remaining two moms have it too.

 

[qupee]

I've seen tiny little egg like things on leaves before, and a couple times I've seen people post about it.

I've written them off as natural and inconsequential. Mite eggs are accompanied by live mites. If you don't see mites crawling around near by, very very slim chance they are mite eggs.

 

[Gomez_Addams]

OK, thanks. We inspected our plants regularly on the last grow - every day pretty much - and never noticed mites with the magnification we have available. And yet, there was ample evidence of their presence come harvest-time. Not obvious webs on the outside of the plant anywhere, but once you broke down a bud, there was webbing.

So that's why I'm being paranoid. These might not be mite eggs, but I'd bet lunch they aren't normal or welcome. I'd like to know what they are.

 

[Stress_test]

I magnified that picture as much as possible and I don't see anything wrong.

You will see mites or eggs even under 10X, a 30X is nice and a 50X is better but a simple magnifying glass will let you see mites or eggs.

 

[Gomez_Addams]

So do those spots look familiar to anyone?
I do not see them on our other strain.
Could they be a normal part of the plant?
I got to see mite eggs up close and personal on a friends grow over the weekend, they were a lot bigger than I had been expecting, and much bigger than this things.

Since I'm more of an engineer than a botanist, I'm still trying to learn the plant itself.

 

[Gomez_Addams]

And I'm also wondering now - having seen my buddy's borg infestation, how I missed them on our first grow. Never saw more than one, never saw eggs, never saw webs. Only found the occasional strand of webbing inside buds when we cracked em for the initial smoke test.

Now we've got some kind of deficiency but my partner thinks she's on top of it. May have been aggravated from stress (heat maybe, lights going out hours early for sure, fortunately we're still in veg) due to a power outage last week. Worse luck, the girls were really overdue for repotting, so they got repotted right after being stressed. Hoping the discoloration and leaf signs will clear up in a day or two, if not, maybe it's not a deficiency after all? In that event, I'll post more pictures in a separate post.

 

[SpaceKiller]

is it possible it is just early signs of white mold or something similar? you did say yourself upon inspection you could never find any visible webs on the outside let alone any mites.

to me that seems like white mold, especially when you find it only when breaking up your buds. if it is mold, it can look like spider webbing in bad patches. its also noticeable on some leaves as your pictures point out it will start to form lightly sometimes in unnoticeable areas like under leaves or in spots you cant see so well.

thats my guess. ive had some plants end up pretty nasty growing them out anyways. i could say ive seen that exact same description apply to mold, no mites, webbed on inside and tiny dots of mold form through out some of the foliage, which arent really visible by eye unless you looked really closely like your case.

usually if its something you arent finding normally its because it just hasnt gotten bad enough to directly point it out yet, 9/10 its pretty common your just arent used to seeing it in earlier stages or at all. maybe you have experience with molds, but i figured it was worth a shot bringing up.

 

[Toes.]

do you have anything else growing in your room

 

[Gomez_Addams]

@SpaceKiller: Uh, pretty sure there's no sign of mold. We have most of the books available - Greg Green, Rosenthal, etc, and have been poring over pictures. What I found inside buds from the first grow were spider mite webs, confirmed by two other growers. Not a bad infestation - only a tiny few webs, so basically usable medicine, esp. since my wife doesn't smoke it, she prepares capsules for pain and sleep aids. _I'm_ the one who needs the inhaled route (mostly, I use her caps too) for my applications. Did you look at the closeup? I've sent that photo to a number of people who've been growing for a decade or more and nobody could say what those spots were. They are definitely 3D and do not resemble any of the forms of mold I've read up. Most people are concerned about powdery mold or botritus, and this is almost certainly neither.

We have almost NO experience, this is our second grow ever.
My wife is a solid plant person, but new to the idiosyncrasies of The Evil Weed.

Toes: nope. One strain, four plants, no other life at all (to the extent I can arrange that, heh).

They could be dead eggs I suppose. They look exactly the same today as they did when I took that shot two weeks ago.

I should start digging through the photo books (Cannabible series) to see if any of his closeups show these things. They are REALLY small features.

Looks like we had a bit of nute burn but it's clearing up nicely. Not sure because it showed up the day after a power outage which caused my room to go a bit warm.
At first we took it to be a deficiency, but the patterns didn't match up to any of the photos or descriptions. Most resembled Mg, so we treated for that, they didn't respond, so we assumed the soil mix was a little hot. They were ready for their bloom pots anyway, so we rolled the dice and repotted while they were slightly stressed. They looked about the same until we flushed, and now they're MUCH happier. Observed very nice root development during re-pot.

The could have gone into bloom this week, but we want to make sure they're good and stable and happy looking (ie; let the signs of the 'nute burn' - or whatever - grow out) before we do that, so we're gonna give 'em another week.

Power outages have started here (galloping lines + tree limbs from early snows) and it's gonna suck if more of them fuck up my ladies. I wish I had the dough to fix up my old (HUGE) computer room UPS, it could have run my 400 watt light for an entire day!

Crossing fingers cuz we're broke, I'm unemployed, and I am running low. We're lucky to have one or two GREAT dispensaries in our 'hood (along with a ton of lousy ones) but I can't afford 'em. At least eight weeks to go, argh!

 

[Gomez_Addams]

Oops, didn't mean to turn this into a grow log or a book.

 

[sub dermal]

cut a largeish branch off with the dots, put it in water and make a wire coat hanger saran wrap tent.

observe.

i've seen mite eggs, usually naked eye to be honest. and smaller ones, but those are tiny. and with that many, i'm sure you'd see mites. radio shack has a pocket microscope up to 100x and it's inexpensive. does the job. look into it when you can.

barring an affirmative ID, i'd personally flower and observe. also clone a few bits with the bumps, see if they progress into anything.

.sd

 

[sub dermal]

wait and observe. flower when the time is right. most insects will show from egg quic

wait and observe. flower when the time is right. most insects will show from egg quic

cut a largeish branch off with the dots, put it in water and make a wire coat hanger saran wrap tent.

observe.

i've seen mite eggs, usually naked eye to be honest. and smaller ones, but those are tiny. and with that many, i'm sure you'd see mites. radio shack has a pocket microscope up to 100x and it's inexpensive. does the job. look into it when you can.

barring an affirmative ID, i'd personally flower and observe. also clone a few bits with the bumps, see if they progress into anything.

.sd