Root-issues near harvest, input appriciated!

Blazing4204365 · Jan 31, 2017

Strains: Queen Mother and Alice by Delicatessen and Mango Sapphire by Humboldt Seeds Org. They're all listed as between 50-60 days of flower indoor.

So, im at the end of my first hydro grow and a couple of days ago I noticed that my ladies didnt seem to thrive (yelloing leaves, at a much more rapid pace than usual) - This was at around day 50 of flowering.

I checked PH and EC levels, they seemed to be in order, as they've been thru out the entire grow.

A couple days later at day 55, i remebered to check the roots.

To my, not so big surprise, i found that the roots seem to be in the first stages of root-rotish issues.

With no product to battle root-rot and the fact that I was at day 55 of flower, I decided that order a product and wait for it to arrive in my mail, probably would do no good since they were so near finish anyway.

Now, at day 59 of flowering, all of the plants seem to have their trichome maturity stunned. I'm looking at about 80-90% milky/cloudy trich's, but the thing is, thats how they looked a week ago as well. or at least I cant really tell a difference from a week ago.

My question might sound stupid, but since I have never had any issues with root-rot this close to harvest before, I just don know.

Will early stages of root-issues near harvest affect the ripening process of the allready existing trichs?

Bless! :shucks:

jammie · Jan 31, 2017

if they have root rot the roots shouldn't be taking up water/nutrients and they should be wilting and dying. i don't think it should have any effect on the plant ripening. i'm thinking you may have a strain that goes 70 days but if it isn't dying then alls good

jammie · Jan 31, 2017

my 60 day og kush strain is at 61 days and trich's are still clear. i guess they didn't read the breeders description

Blazing4204365 · Jan 31, 2017

jammie: haha my trich's must have skipped reading the description aswell then haha

Oh well, unless anybodyelse knows if it would affect the ripening of the trich's, i'll just have to wait it out a couple of more days I suppose.

Bless

Space Case · Feb 3, 2017

In late flower, roots need all the O2 they can get and their need for water and nutrients decreases. You should lower your solution strength or go to straight water. What kind of hydroponics system are you in?

Avinash.miles · Feb 3, 2017

i was going to say something like what space case just did - about more dissolved oxygen in the nutrient solution and lower levels of nutes (lower ppm)

Blazing4204365 · Feb 7, 2017

Space Case said:
In late flower, roots need all the O2 they can get and their need for water and nutrients decreases. You should lower your solution strength or go to straight water. What kind of hydroponics system are you in?

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Avinash.miles, i reply to you with same answer then :dance013:

[/FONT]

Sorry for taking so long to reply.

Im using this system http://www.nutriculture.com/amazon.html

Today im at day 65 since switch, and pistill maturation has been stunned for like 10 days aswell as trichome maturation. The trich's on my Queen Mother is close to all milky/cloudy and has been for a week now. The Mango Sapphire's has about 50/50 clear-milky and has been like that for a week aswell.

I had some minor issues with cal and mag def and pH during veg that prolonged the veggin phase almost 2 weeks I'd say. Might the slow maturation of the trich's be related to the problems at the veg-phase?

about 6 weeks into flower, they showed some small signs of nuteburn when I raised the PK-booster part, so I had to add water to dillute the soup. It solved it for a couple of days before PPM's started rising again - since then I've had to do this every now and then to have PPM's in check.

Because this was kind of a sideproject of mine, I didnt put enough effort to solve the situation which led me here, at day 65, wondering if the trich's will mature before the plants has consumed themselves haha, because the plant's are slowly getting more and more yellow, in a day or two only green leaves left will be the frosted sugarleaves.

Roots dont look all healthy and they're still drinking water even thou they dont drink much of the nutes, and trichome maturation seems completly stunned. I dont have any supplements to fight the roo-issue, only thing I got is hydrogen peroxide but not sure if it would be such a good idea to add during the phase that should be flushing.

If root's are infested, would I have to fight the infestation before trich's will mature?

Blazing4204365 · Feb 7, 2017

I've been lowering PPM's when they've gone up, but I've had the PPM's at about 8-900 the last 2 weeks.

Blazing4204365 · Feb 7, 2017

Sorry for multiple post's but I cant edit my post so..

About the roots needing more air during final phase; I just remembered that I had a spare airpump but how would that be necessary?

You see, i havent mentioned it until last post, but the system I'm using has the roots separated from the reservoir. The roots grow in air and gets sprayed with sprayers/sprinklers (not small enough drops to be actual mist/fog) every 4 minutes.

Thanks for all the help guys!

Douglas.Curtis · Feb 7, 2017

Aero? Definitely has differences from most other hydro setups. Main cause of root rot, in hydro, is O2 deficiency (as previously mentioned) but also heat in the root zone. Solution temperature can help in this department, but if the root mass has grown thick enough and is retaining enough heat, the overall temp of the root ball can easily reach rotting temps.

This becomes more of an issue in late flower as the root mass reaches full density. Combining this with excess nutes (Demand drops around week 6 with most hybrids) and it's a perfect recipe for disaster.

What are the temps where the roots are hanging?

Blazing4204365 · Feb 7, 2017

Douglas.Curtis said:
Main cause of root rot, in hydro, is O2 deficiency (as previously mentioned) but also heat in the root zone.

I must admit I havent thought about the temp in root-zone that much. I thought about it in the early stages but was fooled in to forget it when the plants was thriving. And lets not forget that Im new to hydro :biggrin:

.

This becomes more of an issue in late flower as the root mass reaches full density.

Makes perfect sense. Now that you brought my attention to it haha.

What are the temps where the roots are hanging?

24,5c (76f)

Bless

Douglas.Curtis · Feb 7, 2017

76F, yeah... way too high and definitely the source of your issue. A small fan blowing down into your res will do wonders in this department.

Blazing4204365 · Feb 7, 2017

Douglas.Curtis said:
76F, yeah... way too high and definitely the source of your issue. A small fan blowing down into your res will do wonders in this department.

I've only had these issues in the end, during the greater part of the growth, roots has been nice and healthy.

and for some reason, my water temps has gone up to 75-76 aswell, since its my first time with hydro and it's a side-project, i've messed up big haha. I bought a couple of ice-blocks (those you use to chill food/drinks with) in the beginning of this little project, just in case i would have to battle high water temps, and now that it's an issue - i totally neglected that part when trying to figure out why they mature so slow now.

Again, thanks for all input!

Bless

Guest · Feb 7, 2017

Could you share a pic bro?I have a QM about 3 weeks from seed and was thinking about purchasing Alice seeds,too...

Douglas.Curtis · Feb 7, 2017

Blazing4204365 said:
I've only had these issues in the end, during the greater part of the growth, roots has been nice and healthy.

Yes, until about now the evaporation ability has been sufficient. Now you have a lot more root mass touching additional root mass, which retains heat. Now that all the heat isn't being taken care of by evaporative cooling, you have root issues.

Blazing4204365 said:
and for some reason, my water temps has gone up to 75-76 aswell

Water temps will go up for several reasons. Pumps in the rez, for sure. Pumping warm air through your stones will also affect res temp. I keep my incoming air (past the res) at 68F, what's your temp there?

Without some kind of cooling (passive or active) the res will rise to the ambient temp, higher with help from pumps and warmer air.

Blazing4204365 · Feb 7, 2017

Douglas.Curtis said:
Yes, until about now the evaporation ability has been sufficient. Now you have a lot more root mass touching additional root mass, which retains heat. Now that all the heat isn't being taken care of by evaporative cooling, you have root issues.

Water temps will go up for several reasons. Pumps in the rez, for sure. Pumping warm air through your stones will also affect res temp. I keep my incoming air (past the res) at 68F, what's your temp there?

Without some kind of cooling (passive or active) the res will rise to the ambient temp, higher with help from pumps and warmer air.

My res temps has been steady around 19-20 celsius during the whole grow, and the air-pump was just added to the res today but removed again when I put in the ice-blocks to lwer res-temps. And the water-pump that supply the roots with wather only run 15 seconds every 4 minutes, so there's not much pump-activity that heats the soup.

I've had temps steady at 25-27 during lights on and 20-22 during lights off, in the grow room. 27 at canopy level and a degree or two less, at lower branches.

I have an active intake (made a hole in the wall and had ducting thru it) that pulls in air with a temp of ca 20 celsius. And ofc im using aircooled-lightning, which is beeing led out mof the room thru another hole in the wall.

in the room I got two smaller fans for air-circulation in the lower parts and a big oscillating fan.

Unless i invest in a expensive waterchillre, my only option atm is ice-bottles and ice-blocks to try and lower temps in the res.

But, more interesting, what can I do in this late stage, about the root issue since it seems to be greatly stunning the maturation even tho the plant it self seems to be slowly dyin haha. Any supplement I could possibly need, would arrive by mail after the weekend at earliest and I only have hydrogen peroxide which I know is not a good product to battle root-issues with.

Should I just keep wait it out and keep on checking the trichs and hope they turn in color before i will have to cut them down, or is there anything worthwhile doing?

Bless

Blazing4204365 · Feb 7, 2017

Syd Barrett said:
Could you share a pic bro?I have a QM about 3 weeks from seed and was thinking about purchasing Alice seeds,too...

A pic of Alice or QM?

Are you growing QM in soil or hydro?

:smoke:

Guest · Feb 7, 2017

Blazing4204365 said:
A pic of Alice or QM?

Are you growing QM in soil or hydro?

Both would be nice :biggrin:

I'm growing in soil,was a bit slow in the first week but now she has taken off.Read good reviews on Lilly,too.

Douglas.Curtis · Feb 8, 2017

The hydrogen peroxide will actually work quite well. It dissolves the rotted roots and supplies extra oxygen. Too much will also eat good roots, unfortunately.

You can add 3-5ml/gallon today and again in two days. After that it'll be touch and go as to how much, depending on how much root rot is left.

No idea on the maturation times. 20C is probably too hot for an intake, or it's right on the border. I'm used to dwc with the roots actually in the nutrient solution, 20C is very much too hot for dwc.

Space Case · Feb 8, 2017

I was just going to say hydrogen peroxide. Also you can use other products like Dutch Master Zone or other root zone sterilizing products regularly. It should be noted that H2O2 does NOT kill algae or the dreaded "slime" that is prone to aero, NFT, and DWC systems. I no longer agree with these media-less systems. You can get some amazing runs, but you can also waste your time and chase your tail for nothing, over and over again.

That said, do you have somewhere you can put that hydroponic system directly on concrete floors? This will help keep the water cool. Also, you can take some white plastic film, or panda film, cut slits or holes for the plant sites, and use that to reflect some of the heat radiation from the lights.

The last thing I would do is get a cheap little quick connect or compression float valve and put it in that system and run that to your fresh water supply. This will prevent any issues of nute solutions concentrating when water uptake is high, and should also help cool the root zone down.

Root-issues near harvest, input appriciated!

New member

ganjatologist

ganjatologist

New member

Active member

Caregiver Extraordinaire

New member

New member

New member

Autistic Diplomat in Training

New member

Autistic Diplomat in Training

New member

Guest

Autistic Diplomat in Training

New member

New member

Guest

Autistic Diplomat in Training

Active member