Is This TMV?

I'm growing in a flood and drain system using rockwool, in 24x36 trays with 2 trays side by side under a 600 watt HPS. I have 4 such setups in my grow room and usually harvest 12 plants every 2-3 weeks. Grow room is temp controlled and maintained at a constant 72 degrees and the 4 40G reservoirs are kept @ 69-70 deg F. Nutrients used are from TechnaFlora using the 'recipe for success' at 80% published strength. Ph is maintained between 5.8 and 6.2. I keep a dead res and use H2O2 on an every 3-5 day basis.

Things were going great for a few years. I grew alternate grows of Old Original Blueberry and Ed Rosenthal's SuperBud. In December a friend brought me a batch of clones consisting of Purple Train Wreck, Chocolope, Chem Dog D and Strawberry Cough. Since then things have gone to hell!

I have not been able to grow out a single crop yet this year. Clones take forever, if the root at all. Buds are hard, dark and not very potent, growth is stunted, leafs take contorted shapes and show mosaic patterns. I have tried everything I can think of. Please don't tell me it's nutes, been there tried that. Removed CO2, lowered temps, tried to make grow as simple as possible. These pics are the best grow i've had since this started, and as you can see it sucks. These plants were put under 12/12 two weeks ago, and should be starting to show budding.

Plan now is to get rid of these and everything else, sanitize, spray rooms with THP, clean all equipment with Physan20, replace all nutes and cloner jells and start over from scratch with new seed stock.

If anybody out there has a better idea or can shed more light on this, please let me hear from you. And don't take clones from people unless you can quarantine them till you're sure there are no problems.

Yap, this is TMV. Had same symptoms.

Disagree, not tmv.....get close up pics of the leaf for a better guess at what deficiency they're suffering from but not TMV.

I'm not seeing blistering or twisted leaves.
It does not look like the pictures of TMV that I have seen.
Have you checked your roots?
I would pull one of those out of it's pot and examine the roots with a loupe.
Not saying it's not TMV. Just doesn't look like it to me.
Thinking root aphids from the clones.

IMO i'm sure cannabis plants can get TMV but that sticky up at the top is making people nervous as shit haha.


Try dropping the PH to like 5.5-5.6 and bringing it back down to that level every 2 days.
Also what are you mixing the h202 at?

Could you post pics of the roots at all?

This has to do with how you are running the rez + what's going on in the hugos... bet it's all outta whack in there... the ppm's, ratios & pH.

CrzKat said:

I'm growing in a flood and drain system using rockwool

Nutrients used are from TechnaFlora using the 'recipe for success' at 80% published strength. Ph is maintained between 5.8 and 6.2. I keep a dead res and use H2O2 on an every 3-5 day basis.

Please don't tell me it's nutes, been there tried that.

Click to expand...

What's your feed/water cycling like? When/how do you flush? How often are you changing out the rez? What did you already try in regards to changing the nutes? 80%... what did your previous grows look like with this rate? ((really))


Return of the TMV... gotta love it.

Looked There

Looked There

RetroGrow said:

I'm not seeing blistering or twisted leaves.
It does not look like the pictures of TMV that I have seen.
Have you checked your roots?
I would pull one of those out of it's pot and examine the roots with a loupe.
Not saying it's not TMV. Just doesn't look like it to me.
Thinking root aphids from the clones.

Click to expand...

This has been going on for several months, through 6 grows. The pics are the 7th and best looking by far.

Pulled the roots and went over them.... checked all leaves and stems for bugs... nada. Set off a bug bomb before this last try.

Tried that too.

Tried that too.

RubeGoldberg said:

IMO i'm sure cannabis plants can get TMV but that sticky up at the top is making people nervous as shit haha.


Try dropping the PH to like 5.5-5.6 and bringing it back down to that level every 2 days.
Also what are you mixing the h202 at?

Could you post pics of the roots at all?

Click to expand...

Kept the Rez at 5.5 - 5.6, Ph has been pretty stable and I haven't had to add much acid. Check every day, multiple times....

Flood and drain in rockwool. I only flood once a day for 20 minutes. Change the res out completely every 2 weeks. Didn't use too, but I do now. Using 30% H2O2 so I just put 120 ml in the 40 gal res every 4 days after the flood cycle. Res is circulating with an airstone. Just started doing the H2O2 about 6 weeks ago out of an abundance of caution.

What's your feed/water cycling like? When/how do you flush? How often are you changing out the rez? What did you already try in regards to changing the nutes? 80%... what did your previous grows look like with this rate? ((really))


Return of the TMV... gotta love it.

I'm not liking it much. Believe me, I've been lurking on this board and a slew of others these past 4 months, trying to figure out what was wrong. Hoping that it was aphids or nutes. I've sanitized, bleachified, air conditioned, water cooled, bug sprayed, miticided, fungicided, ripped apart used rockwool to look at roots, went over roots, stems, leaves and buds with a microscope, everything I could think of, short of chucking out all my girls and starting over from seed. This has spread into both my grow room and bloom room. It even effected new clones, which I suspect is caused by the virus in my cloning gel.

As far as nutes and previous grows; I have been using the same nutes in the same proportions for more than 5 years. Grows have been doing just fine and everything was rolling along smoothly.

New clones came from a soil grower, and were cut from potted plants. I noticed some deformed leaves in the Chem Dogs when I was growing them out. Bloomed them out in a mixed grow with the PTW and SC. I usually grow 3-4" cubes on an 8x36 slab, with 12 plants on 4 slabs per grow. PPM in bloom res is usually kept at @1450, the current 80% mix is about 125 PPM lower. I use well water and it starts at a PPM of @200. Mix is grow, bloom, sugar daddy, awesome blossom and CalMag. Chem dogs headed south with the change in light regimen. Leaves blistered, twisted, become discolored and died. Chem dogs died before harvest. Strawberry Cough in 2nd slab in the same tray, also started showing leaf abnormalities and produced hard, dark buds. Meanwhile, the PTW in the other tray sharing the same res. showed some leaf twisting and contorting, yet produced a decent quantity of good bud...

The next grow which started 3 weeks later, had only 2 of 12 plants which produced any bud. That was back at the end of March, since then I've had no production with 5 more attempts. Any plant which survived, produced, hard, dark, very harsh buds, which were essentially unusable.

The big diffence with this last has been the lowering of the nutes mix PPM, cut off CO2, lowered air temps and brought in outside air.

In between grows everything is changed. I do not re-use rockwool, res and trays are washed and bleached. I've lately taken to spraying them down with Physan20 after they dry too.

I'm at a loss, and as much as I hate to say it, I really think this is a virus. Anything else would have been either corrected or killed. Please tell me I;m wrong, and forgot something. But, I'll be damned if I can think of it.

It's TMV bro...I had freinds battling this disease for the past 2 yrs...Everything else that everyone is telling about res changes, ph issues, cal mag, etc is DEAD WRONG...Don't even waste your time getting into all those things, because it will waste you time and money..This diesease is very serious, and effect every grow if you're using the same clones, and you don't steralize your room with some pool cleaner...Theres a thread in here that can tell yas all about it..A friend of mine defeated it finally..Any ???, just ask bro>>

OP

How about running some aspirins in the mix?

Oliver Pantsoff said:

It's TMV bro...I had freinds battling this disease for the past 2 yrs...Everything else that everyone is telling about res changes, ph issues, cal mag, etc is DEAD WRONG...Don't even waste your time getting into all those things, because it will waste you time and money..This diesease is very serious, and effect every grow if you're using the same clones, and you don't steralize your room with some pool cleaner...Theres a thread in here that can tell yas all about it..A friend of mine defeated it finally..Any ???, just ask bro>>

OP

Click to expand...

I've already wasted 5 months, and more money than I care to recall. I've already come to the conclusion that I've got restart with different stock.

I do intend to spray the rooms down with TriSodium Phosphate and Physan20 before I start new seeds. I also plan on replacing all scissors, pruners and other tools. I could probably get away with soaking them in alcohol and Physan20, but they're cheap why chance it.

I also plan on keeping things a lot more sterile. From now on, I'll be using disposable gloves when I clone, prune or touch live plants, soaking tools in disinfectant in between each use, and between each plant they touch. And I'll never take clones from anywhere else.......

Yea, a friend of mine did all that...It didn't eventually leave until he treated his plants with milk...I know it sounds weird, but do some research bro...I never saw it back after he treated his plants with milk diluted with H20..

OP

HighDesertJoe said:

How about running some aspirins in the mix?

Click to expand...

Did that too on this past grow... (the one in the pics)... 1 325mg aspirin per gallon, crushed and added to the res.... that may be another reason that these are looking better.

Oliver Pantsoff said:

Yea, a friend of mine did all that...It didn't eventually leave until he treated his plants with milk...I know it sounds weird, but do some research bro...I never saw it back after he treated his plants with milk diluted with H20..

OP

Click to expand...

Read about that too. It's used with tobacco and tomato crops for Mosaic Virus prevention. Could get kind of smelly to spray the rooms down with milk, and I doubt that it has any internal effect on infected plants.

Well, he actually sprayed a fine layer on the plants, not the whole room....It really made a big difference>>>

OP

Oliver Pantsoff said:

Well, he actually sprayed a fine layer on the plants, not the whole room....It really made a big difference>>>

OP

Click to expand...

From what I've read it appears that the proteins in the milk break down the outer shell of the virus. Thus, it would effectively kill the virus on hard surfaces. But once the virus enters a cell, hijacks the DNA and starts reproducing it's home free. Milk or any other viruscide is not getting through the cell membrane to attack the virus. As a long time HepC patient, I'm fairly familiar with viruses. Once you get them, they usually don't go away.

During this time frame of the plants not doing well have you added any new hose to your rooms or watering tanks? NGW hose will off gas and kill your plants. Whenever i see this scenario that is the first thing I ask becasue I have seen it more then once.

I keep TMV test strips in the fridge, they are cheap and quick to use. Never seen anything test positive. Agidia test strips I beleive they are called. Search my username and for post with TMV you will find the link and see examples.

good luck

CrzKat said:

I've sanitized, bleachified, air conditioned, water cooled, bug sprayed, miticided, fungicided

It even effected new clones, which I suspect is caused by the virus in my cloning gel.

The next grow which started 3 weeks later, had only 2 of 12 plants which produced any bud. That was back at the end of March, since then I've had no production with 5 more attempts. Any plant which survived, produced, hard, dark, very harsh buds, which were essentially unusable.

In between grows everything is changed. I do not re-use rockwool, res and trays are washed and bleached. I've lately taken to spraying them down with Physan20 after they dry too.

I'm at a loss, and as much as I hate to say it, I really think this is a virus. Anything else would have been either corrected or killed. Please tell me I;m wrong, and forgot something. But, I'll be damned if I can think of it.

Click to expand...

I highly doubt it's TMV, but several people have started to test their plants, so that is most certainly a reasonable option for you to pursue... in the very least, it will either confirm or deny your suspicions. I'm rather curious as don't know of a single positive test as of yet.


A buddy of mine in CO has been battling a fungal issue that apparently several of the local growers are familiar with... I have no clue about what it is, but he was banging his head against the wall for quite the while... and if anything, I can find some similarities with your pics. It wasn't the normal ones we are familiar with, but some oddball fungal infection that occurred naturally in the woods nearby.

It infected his cuts through the flower room.

I'll shoot him a call tomorrow to ask on the progress.

I do not see any indications of TMV in the pictures.

The pictures definitely show indications of deficiencies.

Some people will disagree with me but I have always deliberately fluctuated the Ph because some nutrients will uptake better in different Ph ranges.
I would suggest that you fluctuate the Ph more in bot directions.