Misbehaving Outdoor Clone

Here is my sad story:
I have this one clone in my garden this summer, its a Purple Trainwreck x Jesus OG that a friend of mine has kept for a few years so I've seen it grow outdoors before and what its doing now seems like abnormal behavior which I haven't ever seen before. This clone has been growing nicely outside since early May & was well adapted to outdoor life, but I went on a camping trip for a few days on/after the summer solstice & it was about 100ºF on a couple of those days & I water by hand. All the plants looked fine when I got home, but about a week later I notice the clone had started reducing the number of blades & the amount of serration on it's new foliage. My guess initially is it was shocked into early flowering by two days of 100ºF with no love & that would have been fine, but now it seems like its decided to revert back and has begun to look more like a plant that is revegging.
Normally this one would start flowering right at the beginning of August. Does anyone think I've misidentified whats going on? If not, does anyone have any suggestions as to what I could do to make sure that its back to normal behavior before July ends? I'm guessing that topping all the branches might speed up the process somewhat, but I'm also wary of putting this freak under any further stress.

Photo is from yesterday


If anyone wants to get a better look at particular features of the plant feel free tell me what you want to see. Only if you're helping me though, no lookie-lous.

I would look for broad mites ASAP. They are tiny, and you need a loupe to see them. Look along the leaf veins under the leaves for them. My #1 scare factor are mites. Any mites, pick the stunted growth and spray with whatever you use for them ASAP. I use raw neem oil or Avid before blooming.

I have seen some odd blooming this year myself. Some went into bloom shock moving from indoor lights to the outdoors. Most grew past that pretty fast though. The others are some odd Afrikan seed strains that are notorious for wild variation in flowering so I am just letting them bloom. Early August is a really early bloomer, so any light dep will affect and trigger them. It seems that some other factors will also trigger flowering, as I have seen this year. I am not sure about the reason though. If you are growing from seeds, there will be variation.

Those strange African seeds sound interesting. I'll try an take some macro pics of my leaves, and mites should be more pretty easy to spot, they're bigger than the trichomes.

Spider mites are larger, but broad mites are really tiny. 100-200 microns in size. In comparison, trichomes are 120-140 microns. So maybe larger, maybe smaller.

Note the description of them by the Missouri Botanical Garden:

...broad mites are microscopic mites (less than 0.02mm in length) that deform and distort the growing tips of plants that can result in stunted tips, curled leaves and lack of flowering. Adult females are straw colored. Broad mites have a white stripe down their back.

I see some tiny white specks here and there. Could be broad mites. You can see them with the naked eye if they move. I use a needle and poke the tiny white specks. If they are mites they will move...fast.
Just had to deal with some "dirty" clones here in Central Oregon. Act fast! Broad mites have wiped me out twice over the years. Now I know what to look for.

New shoot deformities. Stunted tips. Powdered sugar size white specks that move.

They could also be the related cyclamen mites which are larger than broad mites. Same bad result though.

Nice arrows and moving powdered sugar description there 'shroombrew. Broad mites are a HUGE issue in NorCal and southern OR. A grower in Humboldt Co. told me that broad mites were spread intentionally in the west for invasive species control. My bet is that the effort was backed by the DEA.

I surveyed randomly selected parts of the plant with my camera that sees better close up than I do and I came up with a few that seem to strongly suggest that uninvited guests are currently occupying my plant. I was planning to do some preventative spraying on all the plants in about a week anyway.
Does anyone recognize these oblong off white shapes?
They aren't the best photos, but they're the best I got right now.

White fly eggs.

mushroombrew said:

White fly eggs.

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Thanks, you must have a pretty broad knowledge of insects to be able to identify oblong white blobs so efficiently. I had expected something like that might have been going on because I'd seen some little ants walking around on my plants & because it happens the last few summers in a row, but I'd never gone to the trouble to ID the pest or even look at it close up. Knowing what I'm dealing with should be substantially valuable info for me. Last year I sprayed Everclear/hash oil tincture diluted 1:1 with water and that got rid of whatever the ants were feeding off of. The years before that I'd been using dilute lemon juice.
In none of those years had any of the pot plants started to change their growth patterns abnormally, so I'm still confused about that, but at the very least taking care of the insect issue can't hurt any future progress on this one.

PDX Dopesmoker said:

Thanks, you must have a pretty broad knowledge of insects to be able to identify oblong white blobs so efficiently. I had expected something like that might have been going on because I'd seen some little ants walking around on my plants & because it happens the last few summers in a row, but I'd never gone to the trouble to ID the pest or even look at it close up. Knowing what I'm dealing with should be substantially valuable info for me. Last year I sprayed Everclear/hash oil tincture diluted 1:1 with water and that got rid of whatever the ants were feeding off of. The years before that I'd been using dilute lemon juice.
In none of those years had any of the pot plants started to change their growth patterns abnormally, so I'm still confused about that, but at the very least taking care of the insect issue can't hurt any future progress on this one.

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Been growing indoors for 25 years. Indoor is way more prone to bug infestation(no natural predators/wind/rain) So yes I have broad knowledge. As unfortunately I have had many battles!!
The the abnormal growth could be stunted from broad mites.So they may be present. Check those white specs! A few white fly eggs won't hurt your plants. Something else must be going on. Still could use a pic from further away so I can see overall plant health.
Never tried the everclear spray. Whatever you spray add about
1/2 to 1 tsp dish soap(dawn) to help coat everything (surfactant).

Ants = bad news. Ants are farmers. They collect and farm aphids, mealy bugs and scale. Use a product called Tanglefoot smeared around the base of your main stems to keep the ants off your plants. Best defense for them that I have found.

As for sprays, an effective mix is soap and oil. I would avoid dish soap or detergent. Dawn is actually a detergent and has a lot of other crap in it like salt and ether. Insecticidal soap/spreaders are better. Insecticidal soap is made using only potassium which produces a milder, softer soap than sodium. It also uses long chain fatty acids. Insecticidal soap is specifically made to be mild on plants. For oil there are several options, including Neem (raw or refined), mineral ag oil (what I use on flowering Cannabis) and paraffin oils. You can even use Canola oil. Raw Neem is tricky, but I have posted how to mix it on a Neem bashing thread on this site.

PDX Dopesmoker said:

Thanks, you must have a pretty broad knowledge of insects to be able to identify oblong white blobs so efficiently. I had expected something like that might have been going on because I'd seen some little ants walking around on my plants & because it happens the last few summers in a row, but I'd never gone to the trouble to ID the pest or even look at it close up. Knowing what I'm dealing with should be substantially valuable info for me. Last year I sprayed Everclear/hash oil tincture diluted 1:1 with water and that got rid of whatever the ants were feeding off of. The years before that I'd been using dilute lemon juice.
In none of those years had any of the pot plants started to change their growth patterns abnormally, so I'm still confused about that, but at the very least taking care of the insect issue can't hurt any future progress on this one.

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Those are russet mites brotha

HqFarms said:

Those are russet mites brotha

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You think so? they are a bit pointy on one end. The russets I've seen were oval. That would explain the stunted growth for sure.

If MITES, then: Spray pray spray spray... and spray!

I have found that the best prevention for mites, whitefly, and PM is to spray every 2 weeks with insecticidal soap and mineral oil or refined Neem oil (100:1). Do not wait for them to show up.

A good review of russet mites is here on an organic growing site, where it is specifically noted that russet mites are gaining ground in Oregon now from California.

https://www.planetnatural.com/pest-problem-solver/houseplant-pests/russet-mite-control/

OregonBorn said:

If MITES, then: Spray pray spray spray... and spray!

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And when your done doing the above .... spray again!

From the organic site that I posted above, the description of russet mites matches your photos to a T. Note the alternate name of hemp mites; these guys have already adapted and specialized to munch on Cannabis!

Seen through a lens, russet-hemp mites are tapered, translucent, wedge-shaped cylinders that take on a yellow tint, especially in groups. Unlike most varieties of mites, eriophyid, including russet mites, have only two pairs of legs.

mushroombrew said:

And when your done doing the above .... spray again!

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And regularly thereafter at 2 week intervals.

In this case I would use raw Neem with aza or an Aza spray ASAP. Do not hesitate or put this off. I would spray with raw Neem or Aza and spray the soil surface to soak it a few inches in depth as a drench, as russet mites lay their eggs in soil. This will also result in a systemic uptake of the aza into the plant and give you a double action counter punch. Aza breaks down in UV light in a few days time. Since you are growing outdoors, it should not be a problem.

Little bastards! Good luck!

Now for the controversial part: WARNING THIS IS MY OPINION ONLY, and this is what *I* would do. I do not recommend that anyone else be insane enough to actually do this (wink wink, nudge nudge, now what I mean, know what I mean?).

I would consider using Avid (Abamectin). Yes, it is not approved for use on commercial weed in Oregon, but... it has been used effectively by growers for years, and it breaks down in UV light. If I was growing outdoors AND my plants were not in flowering stage yet, AND I had an active infestation, AND I was not a commercial grower, I would consider it. Mites can be nearly impossible to eradicate once they take hold. I have had more experience with spider and cyclamen mites, but they are very similar.

The great advantage of Abamectin is that it is translaminar. Meaning that it will enter leaves and move through them in a systemic fashion. It will also stay in the leaves that it was sprayed on and not move to new leaves on the plant. As such, I can miss parts of the leaves and still get full efficacy of the tiny little fuckers. I just do not process or smoke any fan leaves and only harvest and cure the flowers. UV light also breaks down Abamectin in a few days time at most (it has a half life of 4-6 hours). Once it dries after contact, it is safe to touch. The reason that Abamectin gets a bad wrap is that the label says, "harmful if inhaled". Well, duh! That is only referring to the spray itself.

Abamectin (also called avermectin) is actually a naturally occurring substance derived from soil bacteria. It is approved for a wide range of edible vegetable crops if applied at least a week before harvest. It is also approved for hops up to a month before harvest. Labs tests in Santa Cruz, CA that tested weed sprayed with Avid found zero residual Abamectin after 45 days of application. Cornell Univ. states: "Abamectin is subject to rapid degradation when present as a thin film, as on treated leaf surfaces. Under laboratory conditions and in the presence of light, its half-life as a thin film was 4 to 6 hours".

But the hysteria is out there in heaps about using this stuff, as there is with Raw Neem and Aza. Given the facts and actual evidence, this is what *I* would do, and not what I recommend anyone else do. Wink wink... If my plants were indoors, I would put them outdoors to spray, let them dry, and then move them back indoors. Avid and Neem/Aza are also most effective if applied 2 or 3 times at the intervals of the particular mites' life cycles. Spider mites in winter cycle every 7-10 days, so I would repeat at 7 day intervals for those. Broad mites have 4-7 day life cycles, so I would repeat in 4 day intervals. Russet mites have an 8-15 day life cycle, so I would repeat every 8 days.

BTW, I have lots of fresh raw Neem and Abamectin if you need any.