Twisted spindly new growth

Has anyone seen this issue?






Been having a lot of trouble this season, have plants in a few different stages showing various symptoms, the one unifying being lightness of color especially noticeable on the new growth. The pics posted are plants in 35 gal smartpots, soil was reused from last year (tea feeding) Notice there is a lot of cupping happening, leafs are turning upwards and often touching on the curl. Plants in other pots smaller have fresh soil and are not showing the twisting spiraling new growth but are looking overall limy.

We have had our soil tested by logan labs, and i have attached photos of the results as I could use some help on interpreting it. 3 samples were taken, the column "35 younger" are the pots/plants you see in the pictures, these pots lived inside the greenhouse over winter and did not receive any rain just well water (more on that later).

column "35 older" are pots that sat outside and got rained on all winter so were likely flushed significantly more. (haven't planted into these yet or the 300s) the last column 300L are 300gal pots also outside rained on.

now to our well water report, this is what we have been feeding with every year and now suspect that the hardness and TDS being high is playing a factor in the plants conditions. Past years were not as dramatic as this, but still had trouble getting a nice dark green. Rain and drought (located in cali) may have shifted things in the water table. water report is a couple years old. We have since switched to pond water to see if this will help. Well comes out at 300ppm, pond is <20.

I have been running a lot of pond water through the pots this week to try and flush out salts, have used some mollasses mixed with that to help and have been using drip clean, also followed a days flush with a mild feed of maxsea or kelp (AN).

The soil was amended with 4 gal of sheep manure, the idea was that this would be the main feed to get through veg, the plants are growing but not looking healthy a few of them have broken out of the limeyness but still show this weird leaf twist. The leaf cupping (taco) will dissipate after watering, but a few days without water and their back taco'n again.

every plant, whether its in fresh soil, reused, has been amended or not, seed or clone all have their new growth coming out light green and overall are limey and have shown upward leaf cupping (taco). There are random symptoms of nutrient deficiency; sulfur, iron, magnesium.

The one symptom that I'm trying to get to the bottom of now is this new growth twisting and spindly, only the plants in the soil "35 younger" are exhibiting this so i think there could be some clues in the report. What jumps out for me is:
- potentially high ph (have been watering in at 6.0 ~ 6.3, the sheep shit has a high PH, soil meters are reading around a 6.5)
- Chloride 35ppm (saturated past report) don't know what this means but compared to the other samples is a lot higher
- Bicarbonate 112ppm (same as above)

I have tried different foliar feeds, cal/mag, epsom salts, maxsea and dr earth nitro at double dose all with no results, its like the plant doesn't even notice them.

As for the overall limeyness we could go into that more if you think it would be helpful. I have tried different combinations of soil, food, and amendments. No variation on any plant, so it seams the common unifying factor is the water source, but the switch to pond over a week ago, is not yet showing much of a turnaround.

Any help will be much appreciated, thank you!

here are the reports:
Soil



Well Water

Check for eggs

What do you mean by that? could you give some detail plz

If not pests then ph could be a problem. I had similar issues in hydro when ph was too high good luck

Haven't seen any signs of pests, have a microscope so am able to examine well.

lots of conflicting advice.. but here goes...(ime) the most common causes for "taco leaves" are magnesium deficiency (aka praying for mag) and heat stress. if you can eliminate those 2 things, then as stated above look at potential pH issues (which can cause deficiencies even though an element is available in the medium - sorry I don't have the first idea what your soil report means) and also get a scope and check for pests/eggs, which I just read you've done already.


be lucky
j

thanks j! first thoughts were that its PH related which i haven't ruled out. Testing is indicating that its potentially a little high 6.5 with soil meters and run-off varying from 6.5~7 (I would like to be closer to 6) I just don't see this being so far off to be causing such sever symptoms. it may be compounded with something else, as you mentioned magnesium being locked out by something. Heat I don't believe it to be the case, the Ghouse gets great ventilation, we have had a few hot days pushing 90 but a lot of overcast and overall were mostly in the 70s.

appreciate your thoughts.

i beleive it's from the soil being too hot for the seedlings to handle. could also be from too high a pH. i've got the same thing going with some seedlings i potted right into compost. don't have a pH meter so i can't really check that part. but they seem to be growing out of it. if you can take a soil sample near the rootzone and check it for pH in a slurry test.

Well, I vote broad mites. The margin rolling in all the way to the petiole and the extended/distorted growth towards the leaf tip after the curling. I hope I'm wrong though.

I'm pretty sure it looks like russet mites or broad mites. You'll have to confirm it yourself with a 100x scope on the underside of leaves

various seedlings in my tent and in the past have shown the same signs. only thing in common is the food and soil mix. i'm sure its either the pH or too much food. i'm 100% it's not broad mites. before you go spraying all sorts of witches brews all over your plant it's not hard to take a slurry test of the soil pH and see how much food is registering on your ppm meter.

hey maryme.


I the only thing that stood out to me in the report was the salt levels are double in one and not the others... maybe it's a safe level? but I don't see any %, or ppms on the sheet.
also it looks to be high in your water too.


your PH is right where it needs to be. 6.3 to 6.5 ph is perfect for soil...
all nutrients are available from 6.3 to 6.5...


maybe you can tell us more about the nutrients you are using and how much??
looks like nutrient burn to me...




peace
-mystic

I have been getting more suggestions towards russet or broad mites and from what i have seen of others issues (photos) it is compellingly similar. *however*

I do have a compound microscope and can view at 100x with relative ease, at that mag you are basically seeing dust spots on leaf hairs. I put in a couple hours today looking through leaf and did not spot a single critter of any sort nor eggs.

Also to add some weight to my feeling that its not bugs (correct me on this if you feel otherwise) every single plant is exhibiting these symptoms. I would expect there to be some variation if bugs were on the attack, localization, spots of concentration. also the older leaf are not doing the twist or curl, just the new growth and its all the new growth, without a spot being missed, that just seams to be a well too organized attack for bug consciousness to pull off.

~
Soil being too hot, not sure about this either, the 35 gal smart pots (what you see in the photos) is soil reused and amended with composted sheep shit, should be slow release food. Also had planted / transplanted other seedlings into plain fresh potting soil and had the same issue (had tested with and without the shit).

Slurry test is averaged to 6.5 there is some variation location to location +/- 0.3

~
As for food, the plan was to just let them have the sheep shit as the main veg. I have brewed a couple teas with bat guano and done some light feeds with kelp (AN). Since the problems started showing I did some tests with maxsea, first at light dose and then worked up to normal strength, with no results.

~ mystic, the "saturated paste report" shows soluble salts at 145 ppm, then further down shows a percent of sodium to be 15.36
its the chloride and bicarbonate that stand out to me along with the salt, but i have no idea how high is too high on those

^thanks for all the input, really appreciate you all taking the time to help with this

after inspecting my bed again i think this is from dry spots in the soil. i just watered thoroughly had to dig in there really good and disturb some roots and poke some holes. i'll let you know if they pull out of it now.

*UPDATE*
Good news is color is returning, there is still some cupping happening (it seams to dissipate after watering and returns when drying) I think the twisting is also on the way out, but not in the clear yet.

Something happened a couple days ago (12th is when i first noticed). Bright yellow patches appeared at the base of the leaf blades where they meet the petiole (looks a lot like iron deficiency), i also noticed some necrotic spots appearing along with that within the margins of the yellow. This happened with all the plants so regardless of soil variables which leads me in the direction of something I fed or didn't feed.

The day before I did a good flush on them with low ppm water that contained drip clean at 0.6 ml / gal (recommended dose is 0.4) this flush was followed by a lite feed of maxsea. What I'm wondering is how long the effects (like whats in the photos) of a feed take to show up in the leaf, could that happen in 12 hours? These photos were taken 4 days later so its more advanced then when I first noticed it. watching it move over this time reminded me of the rings of a tree as a record in time of events that happened. is this the same with the leaf? can you see in it a record of when a problem occurred? and if so how long does it take for something to appear?

The other possibility and why i said "didn't feed" is that prior to the above mentioned feed we had overcast days and was cold and therein being a period of 6 days without any watering. I'm wondering if it was in this period of time when the plants were effected by not getting any water movement through their root zone and exhibited these symptoms a few days later.

The question I am pondering is; symptoms like this in 12 hours or 3~5 days from the original instigator?

The seedlings were hit really hard by whatever this was, but now are starting to come back to live, amazing little warriors!

yeah you're definitely overfeeding. or rather your soil is too dry. i would poke a bunch of holes in the top before your next watering to make sure the media is actually getting wet and the water isn't just running around the outside of the pot and way.

PBH ~ soil moisture is great, i check with meters (quality ones) lift pots, and pop girls out of pots to examine soil condition. Whats going on below couldn't look better, really happy with the pearly whites. In the 35s I have drip emitters on a coil, so there getting watered slow and steady.

as for overfeeding i don't feel i can agree with you here, were not using synthetics or concentrates as our policy, the *light* feeding with maxsea was a desperate exception to that do to the belief that their not getting enough food. PPMs have been below 800.

The "food" for the girls is mostly in the soil in the form of recycled bacteria and life forms of various stages on up the chain (soil food web). We did add sheep shit as the main amendment to give a boost, not all the plants got this but they did all exhibit the symptoms mentioned above so I'm leaning away from this being overfeeding. thoughts?

Lockout of some kind may have to do with ph or not. But definitely not getting what it needs. Can you re pot ? Good luck

those wierd twisted burned leaf patterns is some sort of def or tox i see the same things on the plants i put into the mix with the black kow straight out of the bag. the other ones are a tray of seedlings in a triple layer soil mix. the bottom layer (1/2) was a compost mix that was still cooking and i know was prolly too hot. on top i had some reused coco, and the top 1/4 is pure peat with some slight amendments i think the bag said algae and dolomite. anyway those didn't start showing those symptoms same as your first pics till the roots hit the bottom. as they got bigger it went away with the exception of 2-3 seedlings in the corner or near the side of the tray. it's clear so i can see how far whatever roots hit the side have gone as well as the soil. the ones with the issues had their roots extending into dry pockets. as i've saturated the soil better... seems the coco layer got too dry and hydrophobic... the issue is going away.

the second set of pics which made me say your soil is def too hot/locking out something is because i've seen that weird leaf burn a few times over the years and i'me looking at right now on the 2 seedlings i have in round pots with mostly black kow straight out the bag mixed with a little of that peat mix i mentioned earlier. those plants are doing the worst and look just like the last pics you posted. they're leveling out and starting to show new growth though. i just been giving em plain water and i fed some compost tea the other day. gonna keep watering like that alternating wet/dry cycles.