I need some help (again)

Hey all,

Yet again I am here to seek the help and advice of the community.

100% Coco DTW
x32 plants (3 separate strains all showing same signs)
78F/40% day - 70F/65% night
Holland's Secret Nutrients
RO water
Calmag
Silica
pH adjusted to 5.8-6.0 (recalibrated several times)
400 PPM total
4x8 table with 2000w (18" from plant tops)

I had Root aphids last round, cuts in veg got infected mildly. Cropped room and transplanted cuts and started finding RA's again. Used Orthene + Permethrin and havent seen anymore bugs. That was 9 days ago. Before using the chems the plants looked fine. Day after the dunk the plants were good but there has been a solid decline. I have talked to multiple people who have used these chem's and none have experienced this.

My roots have obviously taken a beating. I get new little white fuzzy roots starting, then the next day at lights on they aren't white anymore. When I water there is a smell that gets pushed out of the pots. Its not horrific but it does smell like stale medium. No slime, and roots are brown but could that just be from the nutrients?

During this process I have been struggling with how much to water them as I know they shouldnt dry out, but they also don't seem to be drinking much anymore. They take about 2 days to get to the point of needing water. So its to that point of do I water them to get o2 into the zone regardless of them not drinking? or wtf?

I have tried feeding Propa-gator (root solution made by my nutrient company) which I have fed twice now. It does nothing.

I have been religious with ensuring pH is right, and the meter is calibrated. I know your not suppose to check runoff pH of coco, but mine was at 7.2. I ended up flushing about 60 gallons through yesterday with half strength nutrients. Runoff now reads 6.25 but it was more in an attempt to flush out any residues or shit left over from the dunks rather than drop the pH.

I have tried foliar feeding with the same root nutrient, and humic acid. pH'd to 6.0. Doesn't do anything. Runoff is always pretty close to what the ppm's in are. No salt buildup going on.

I'm honestly ready to pull my hair out. My first round with coco started off rough but then when i stopped watering so much they exploded only to be butt poked by the Root Aphids. I honestly thought that once I dealt with the RA's I would be back in action but things are getting worse by the day. Starting to get the lower leaves yellowing off again as well.

I thought it looked like over-watering (regardless of not multi-feeding), so I let them dry right out and the leaves stay the same.

The old flush with 1/2 strength isnt working. Only thing I can think is now that Easter is over, I can get into town and buy some Superthrive and that Roots Excellerator stuff. Am i on point with that? Am i missing something here?

Your humidity at 40% is ultra low, forcing stomata closed and preventing them from photosynthesizing properly, they are using an imbalanced ratio of water/nutrients due to the environmental stress..

If you could get your humidity to at least 60% I promise you will see your plants perk up..

When ever treating plants with any chems, only do a test plant first and make sure they can handle it. Not everything works for everyone every single time

No experience with RA or the chems you used to fix the issue, so take my post with a football sized grain of salt. It sounds like something about/inside the coco is upsetting the roots. You say you've flushed very thoroughly, and there is no salt buildup nor any remaining RA. Neither Lucas 6/9 nor Canna nutes have resulted in brown roots for me, and I've seen pics of people using Veg+Bloom, AN, Heavy 16, HG, etc with white roots so I don't think a root discoloration is the result of nutes. Have you used these nutes before successfully? And what exactly is the correct way/dosage to apply those RA chems and did you follow the rules strictly?

What brand of coco are you using, and have you used it before? I would consider taking cuttings while you still can to be perfectly honest, in case you have to start over fresh. Tossing all coco on hand and replacing with fresh, good coco would be a good start. Yes roots excel really does wonders for roots, as does VAM and SM90 in my experience. Don't know if they'll have any effect on your current situation (SM90 might help), but they're all products I would highly recommend for future runs when you get this issue sorted out. I think the worst case situation is that you clone everything, throw away all coco, get the room cleaned out, and start over fresh with a better gameplan. The only issue is that doing so without figuring out what went wrong could result in history repeating itself.

Thanks for the responses.

The local shops didnt have the Roots Excellerator so I ended up getting GH Rapid start and a bottle of superthrive. I almost bought the Rhizotonic but it was insanely expensive compared to the Rapid start.

Plants got a couple feedings of both yesterday so we will see how things look at lights on.

Raising the humidity definitely improved things. Ironically when we got home the power had gone out and my powerbox never refired. I had a separate light on so the room didn't go dark, but ironically the humidity had shot up to 75% and it must have been there for at least 2-3 hours. The plants looked way better. Not right back to normal, but a great improvement. I also noticed yesterday that the lower branches actually look good again, but the tops were drooping the worst.

Thing I don't understand is I have a 4x8 table with clones in the same room but all are in promix. Those things are growing like crazy regardless of the humidity. I would figure it the enviro was off, that it would affect all the plants in the room.

Regardless i bought another big humidifier, and dickin around with the fans and timers I found a way to get it up to the 60-70% range with temps up to 84-87. Its a pain in the ass to get the humidity this high with a passive system in a room thats 9x9 /w 4k watts.
I also don't understand how there is many people who run low humidity and don't have this problem. Before I knew about vpd I was doing the old 75F/40Hum and never had any issues.

I have new co2 gear and an AC unit here, but I didn't want to start messing around with that until I knew the issues are corrected. Be nice to get that shit setup and be able to hit the proper range without constantly adjusting timers.

I ran SM-90 @ 5ml/gal all first round as per DHF's coco advice from way back. I liked the way it smelled, but it was either separating, or reacting with something else in my res and made it look gross after a day.

As far as testing a plant, I definitely hear what your saying man. Unfortunately it was the means to the end. I know shit doesn't always work the same for everyone, but I was at the point of no return. It was either that, or scrap everything and shut down for a month to be safe and that sure as shit isn't and option.

What's the difference between the pics of roots, apart from the 4th having lots of dead roots, are they days apart or what?

Those are very poor roots, you need to concentrate on getting them sorted before moving out of veg

Your going to need an enzyme to tidy up the dead roots and a root stimulant, personally I use Asoz, expensive but gives stunning roots

Root pics are 2 different plants, sorry for the confusion. I agree they are very poor, and also agree on the prolonged veg, hence still being in veg.

From what I read, adding in an enzyme to a plant that hasn't had a chance to recoup and build some roots would be a big mistake. Heard that from quite a few sources actually but everyone seems to have a different opinion. Would you suggest using an enzyme at this point? or waiting longer?

Regardless, I fed superthrive @ 1/4 teaspoon per gallon, and the Rapid Start I used the higher dose listed on the bottle. In the morning it was like night and day difference. Plants are looking perked right up. Waiting to see how much more things have improved today.

Humidity is now being kept in the 60-70% range for the most part as well.

I'm glad things are turning around for you. Running that high of a humidity isn't a problem if you have great air circulation. Make sure you have no dead spots where the air isn't getting to. Good luck brotha

I've battled with root aphids as well and I know exactly what you're going through, it's happened to me as well.

The Orthene poisoned your plants, my plants looked relatively healthy but learned I had a major root aphid problem so I got Orthene and Imidiclorprid. As soon as I gave them the Othene they turned to shit and looked sick for 2 whole weeks. It sucked but they did eventually recover. Just listen to the other people in this thread about keeping that humidity high and don't go chasing phantom nutrient deficiencies as your plants just need time to recover. Give them nutrients that will promote overall health like Kelp and a root promoting nutrient and just wait it out. Eventually they will recover but don't expect too much out of the crop as the aphids have killed most of your root zone.

In the future I found a combo of Imidiclorprid and OG Biowar foliar worked the best. Seriously you have to get the OG biowar foliar if you really ever want to get rid of the Root aphids as you can use it throughout flower vs only early in Veg with any of the pesticides. I found that Imidiclorprid didn't have any negative effect on my plants and I gave my plants a full strength dose of the OG every 10 days for about half a year of growing and now I only use the OG occasionally for peace of mind as haven't seen any evidence of them being around but it's worth it not to fuck with them as they will quickly ruin your crop and are a huge nuisance to get rid of.

Best of luck and seriously...OG biowar foliar...I bought the 10kg bucket and it was the best money I've ever spent.

Use an enzyme like Cannazyme to clean up those dead roots, the last thing you need is root rot and those brown roots are borderline

You should be using an enzyme at least once a week if not constantly until you've got your system dialled in

Thanks for the info.

I think your right with the enzymes and dealing with the brown roots. I get good white roots started, and the next day I look and they have turned brown.

Am I able to use h2o2 as an alternative to the enzymes?

ganjalfthegreen said:

Thanks for the info.

I think your right with the enzymes and dealing with the brown roots. I get good white roots started, and the next day I look and they have turned brown.

Am I able to use h2o2 as an alternative to the enzymes?

Click to expand...

H2O2 and enzymes aren't the same thing. Enzymes break down dead material and h2o2 sterilizes

sheik_yerbouti said:

I've battled with root aphids as well and I know exactly what you're going through, it's happened to me as well.

The Orthene poisoned your plants, my plants looked relatively healthy but learned I had a major root aphid problem so I got Orthene and Imidiclorprid. As soon as I gave them the Othene they turned to shit and looked sick for 2 whole weeks. It sucked but they did eventually recover. Just listen to the other people in this thread about keeping that humidity high and don't go chasing phantom nutrient deficiencies as your plants just need time to recover. Give them nutrients that will promote overall health like Kelp and a root promoting nutrient and just wait it out. Eventually they will recover but don't expect too much out of the crop as the aphids have killed most of your root zone.

In the future I found a combo of Imidiclorprid and OG Biowar foliar worked the best. Seriously you have to get the OG biowar foliar if you really ever want to get rid of the Root aphids as you can use it throughout flower vs only early in Veg with any of the pesticides. I found that Imidiclorprid didn't have any negative effect on my plants and I gave my plants a full strength dose of the OG every 10 days for about half a year of growing and now I only use the OG occasionally for peace of mind as haven't seen any evidence of them being around but it's worth it not to fuck with them as they will quickly ruin your crop and are a huge nuisance to get rid of.

Best of luck and seriously...OG biowar foliar...I bought the 10kg bucket and it was the best money I've ever spent.

Click to expand...

Yes.. OG biowar is the ticket. It's all I use . And it completely smoked my RA'S. I use it now and add tea to every rez change with nutes. Full strength drench 4 days in a row if you have an infestation. They will be gone. I killed Russets as well with 4 day spray when light's out.. Shit is awesome.!

ganjalfthegreen said:

Thanks for the info.

I think your right with the enzymes and dealing with the brown roots. I get good white roots started, and the next day I look and they have turned brown.

Am I able to use h2o2 as an alternative to the enzymes?

Click to expand...

H2O2 is a sterilising agent, enzymes are a beneficial bacteria that digest the rot, so they are different in action ....

H2O2 will burn out any rot, once it's washed out, that's it

Enzymes will stay as long as there's food (rot) they'll also survive for a couple of weeks semi dormant

You should make a point of spraying your plants from start to finish with trichoderma, in the mist when they're cuttings, spray the rootball at every transplant then do the flowers every 3 weeks, stop 2 weeks before you chop

Trichoderma is naturally occurring and harmless .... I used to get all sorts of mould issues, bud rot, PM, etc, since I started a regular application it's all gone

I think you need an enzyme army to clear the dead from the battlefield. I use Cannazym routinely. As others suggest, other hormones and micro life will help. I also use Rhizotonic to build new roots and relieve stress from transplanting. Both WELL worth with the money when you put things in perspective.