Plant is suddenly droopy looking all the time

Finagleabud · Apr 7, 2017

So I'm growing a strawberry sour diesel and I had her in a 3gal hempie, and she looked happy and healthy as could be. Transplanted her into a 5gal to veg a couple more weeks then flower, but now she suddenly looks "droopy sad" all the time, for lack of a better term.

You know how during the night cycle sometimes the plants will "droop" and it looks kind of like they are wilting, but its a normal daily occurance that is only temporary? It looks just like that, but she just looks like that all the time.

It's a big change from pre-transplant, where her fan leaves were nice and broad and reaching for light almost. She just looks so... weak and spindly now. Nothing about nutes\PH have changed.

Easy7 · Apr 7, 2017

Probably over watering. Remember the roots have not filled out the new container.

Finagleabud · Apr 7, 2017

Yeah it looks like overwatering, but it's a hempy bucket, my rez holes are about 1 inch up from the bottom, so the roots after the transplant were still well above the waterline, so they shouldn't be sitting in water if it's draining properly and it looks to be draining fine, that's why I'm confused. Overwatering is usually almost impossible in hempy buckets.

Easy7 · Apr 7, 2017

Been a long time since I grew hydro. I Recall veg plants looking heavy for awhile. It was such a small cab that veg time was too much if done at all.

If temps are ok and the air stones are pumping thru, then it's probably plump fat plants.

Capt.Ahab · Apr 7, 2017

How often are you watering your Hempy's, Finagleabud?
I've found the same problem from time to time and I was able to resolve it in some cases by not watering my Hempy's as regularly as usual. If you are watering every day, skip a day and water every two. Even though the buckets have a hole at the side regulating the water table, the medium can be too wet. Try letting it dry out a bit more . Checking the weight of the bucket, dry vs. full, is a good way to tell if they are truly drying out and need water.
Another little trick that may help is when watering, try to fill the bucket by pouring the water in at one spot without wetting all the medium. That way the medium has to wick moisture up from the bottom vs. being saturated from the top.
On the other hand, sometimes the plants are droopy no matter what I do but they still grow and produce just fine.

gtg341w · Apr 7, 2017

I had my plants looking droopy in a 16 gal DWC res, turns out that it was from "overwatering" which in hydro comes from temps getting to high so that the water can't hold enough dissolved oxygen. For hempy buckets or soil I would assume overwatering that prevents the roots uptake of oxygen. I concur with Capt.Ahab, try letting them dry out a bit more.

Finagleabud · Apr 8, 2017

Thanks for the help guys. Yeah, I think capt.ahab is right; I'm probably watering too often (every other day currently) because I had it in my head that you can't overwater hempies, but what he's saying totally makes sense. I'll just hold off on watering for a few days and see what she does.

Finagleabud · Apr 14, 2017

So I haven't watered her in 6 days, and she's kind of bouncing back but she's also starting to look kinda pale even on the new growth, and is still kind of spindly looking in general. the bucket still feels medium-heavy. I turned down my ac a little to let temps get up to about 75 during lights on to try to help dry out the perlite\vermiculite mixture.

I'm paranoid though now because it's also day 9 of flowering today, and I'm worried that she's looking so stunted during this crucial phase of growth

I thought of maybe adding some hydrogen peroxide to my water and feeding her to try to get some oxygen to the roots, but would it be outweighed by the fact that it's MORE water coming in when she already looks overwatered?

Finagleabud · Apr 16, 2017

Here is a photo taken today; day 11 of flower, and a full week since I've given her any water.

Any general comments? Anyone know if adding hydrogen peroxide to my next watering will help get some O2 to the roots, or will it just do more harm than good since my problem is overwatering? Bucket still feels relatively heavy, although when it's freshly watered I can't even lift it, so it's definitely losing water.

She looks a lot darker green in this pic than in person, although she is naturally a very dark strain. Gets deep purple\reds\oranges late in flower, looks beautiful.

Easy7 · Apr 16, 2017

Looks good to me.

I am not familiar with hempy buckets.

Finagleabud · Apr 17, 2017

Hempy Buckets are a form of passive hydro. Medium is 100% perlite\vermiculite, there are no drainage holes on the bottom, instead they are on the sides, about 1 inch up from the bottom. This leaves a 1 inch reservoir at the bottom, which gets wicked upward by all the perlite and the roots above the res are able to breath without an airstone or pump or anything.

Basically it's hydro that you water like soil. Nutes are delivered every watering though, unlike soil.

Capt.Ahab · Apr 17, 2017

based on your photo that plant looks happy enough to me.

Kinetic · Apr 18, 2017

I imagine it's easy to over water due to the wick action of that method. Looks like you are on the right track though. Do you have a trellis on that bucket? I would love to see a pic of when you just started training.

Finagleabud · Apr 18, 2017

I tore apart a couple wire clothes hangers and rigged a little scaffolding around the top of the bucket to tie down to. I also put holes all the way around the top lip of the bucket, and used those during early training. I didn't need the wire supports until it outgrew the diameter of the 5gal bucket. Kind of a poor man's scrog, but it allowed me to really spread the canopy.

Sorry I don't have any pics, but it's basically a big Y split about 6 inches above the surface, and all the other branches are coming off those two main horizontal trunks.

Kinetic · Apr 19, 2017

Awesome. I've been wanting to rig up something like this. Good luck with your harvest!

GOT_BUD? · Dec 15, 2017

Bumping this older thread because I've got a couple plants that are 4 weeks old that are also wilting in Hempy buckets. But mine are modified with an airstone in the res, and a inch and a half PVC pipe that runs to the bottom for watering. My medium doesn't get wet from anywhere but the res.

I did turn up the air pump to add more air to the res. I'll check on it again in the morning to see if there is any change.

If that doesn't work I think my next move is a flush. And I'll make sure to check the runoff pH before I really start the flush.

GOT_BUD? · Dec 15, 2017

Follow up - turning up the air pump did nothing. So I flushed the res out with pure RO water. The pH of the runoff was 9.6! Continued flushing until I got pure water out, then dumped what I could and reloaded the res with a batch of fresh nutes (~560ppm), pH corrected to 5.6. I'll take a look at tomorrow and hopefully see an improvement.

truck · Dec 16, 2017

Use Central Coast Gardens Root Cleaner then re-inoculate with their streptoforce and some of Microbe Life Photosynthesis plus

truck · Dec 16, 2017

GOT_BUD? said:
Follow up - turning up the air pump did nothing. So I flushed the res out with pure RO water. The pH of the runoff was 9.6! Continued flushing until I got pure water out, then dumped what I could and reloaded the res with a batch of fresh nutes (~560ppm), pH corrected to 5.6. I'll take a look at tomorrow and hopefully see an improvement.

That spike in PH is bacterial growth. You've been slimed. Make sure your run Physan 20 through your system and dump it. There is a thread on here about what to do. Brown slime has taken down a lot of grows and caused a lot of grey hairs. Hard to totally eliminate once you have it in your grow environment. You have to start sterile and get ahead on the preventative measures. or else you will always be nursing sick plants. Been there and done it. Good luck bro

GOT_BUD? · Apr 1, 2018

Wanted to follow up on this.

After the flush, the plant never really changed. Flushed again with a bit of Hydrogen Peroxide added to the water and let it soak for 24 hours. After that 24 hours, the plant started to bounce back. I flushed yet again to get rid of the peroxide solution and what ever gunk was in there, and followed up with a light feeding.

24 hours later, the plant started to actually look healthy again. And it continued to improve all the way to harvest.

The harvest was poor. The whole plant was nothing but leaf, very little bud structure. But it was covered in trichs. EVERYWHERE!!! So I dried it and ran it through my tumbler to make some decent kief and a couple small pucks of hash. I never bothered to weigh the plant, but I did get almost 6 grams of good hash/kief off of a plant less than 16 inches tall and a lot of leaf.

But all was not lost. I did find a keeper which is currently revegging nicely.

Plant is suddenly droopy looking all the time

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