First grow, plants died overnight!

bluefoodie · Jul 1, 2013

A week ago, I noticed a weird-looking leaf that looked more diseased than dying off naturally. I didn't think much of it because it was just one lower leaf. Yesterday my plants were still looking OK.

This morning one of them just looks completely wilted and dying.

Leaves start having brown and green discolored spots. It gets worse and the leaves curl and wilt, drying to a brown crisp.

I trimmed the dead leaves away, but it's still spreading. My other plant was looking better, but it too had some leaves showing the same symptoms. It looks pretty wilted by now. In a couple hours it'll probably be completely droopy.

In my searches, the condition that best matches what I'm seeing is fusarium or verticillium wilt. It's a bad disease

Can anyone confirm this? Is there any hope for my girls?

wantaknow · Jul 1, 2013

put under the faucet and flush throughly as if they were over ferted ,i cant hurt ,

kiwi_growa · Jul 1, 2013

They look dry as a bone mate. That's really bizarre, it almost resembles a plant that is severely under-watered. But i know it wont be underwatered.

Have you heard of tents "off gassing"? What type of tent do you own(make and model and year of manufacture please).

Tonygreen · Jul 1, 2013

Idk but that happened to my summer squash one year in my garden, right before harvest too.

Turned out some worm caterpillar type thing had chewed up inside the stalks and tunneled em out! Horrible! *shivers*

Crusader Rabbit · Jul 1, 2013

I see that your pots are sitting in saucers. Has your soil mix been overly moist for awhile? If so I'd let the other plants dry out some.

bluefoodie · Jul 1, 2013

OK the details: the tent is Lighthouse Hydro 3x2, brand new. They're under 8 26W CFL's. I'm growing in FFOF with 25% perlite and a standard amount of dolomite lime, transplanted into 1 gallon smart pots 1.5 weeks ago. Environment is at 55-60% RH and 82-84 F. Runoff pH the last time I watered 2 days ago was around 6.2 and 6.8. I've been watering every 2-3 days with plain dechlorinated water and feeding 1/4 strength General Organics nutes weekly. They've been drinking it up too until now (I've been weighing the pots daily and they were using up 275 mL of water per day while still "healthy"; they've taken up only 210 and 125 mL the past 2 days).

I'm baffled because they're showing the same symptoms at the same time. I don't know that it's wilt for sure but that's my best guess right now. In fact I'm hoping it's not wilt so they have a chance. I'm just waiting and praying at this point.

AzGrOw-N-sMoKe · Jul 1, 2013

Are those store bought clones? It looks like broad mite damage... i can see what looks to be some kinda pest on the leaves in the last pics... Az

kiwi_growa · Jul 1, 2013

o.k so i did some research on your tent. And your tent is fine. So off-gassing isn't your problem.

Are the leaves dry and crispy to the touch or wet and bendy?

Storm Shadow · Jul 1, 2013

Broad Mites

ozzieAI · Jul 1, 2013

many years ago...sheesh over 20 now...i lost a crop to root rot and it happened almost the same to what you are experiencing...

check your roots...NOW...it maybe possible to save them if there is some good roots stock left...

Avinash.miles · Jul 1, 2013

look overwatered to me

Granger2 · Jul 1, 2013

Flush with pH'd water, followed right away with pH'd water with 2 Tbl 3% peroxide/gal. Let medium dry well. Follow with at least 3 peroxide treatments. You can feed lite nutes along with peroxide. Use root stim. liberally. Hope for the best. Good luck. -granger

bluefoodie · Jul 1, 2013

AzGrOw-N-sMoKe said:
Are those store bought clones? It looks like broad mite damage... i can see what looks to be some kinda pest on the leaves in the last pics... Az

They're about 1 month from seed. I checked thoroughly for pests and couldn't find any.

kiwi_growa said:
Are the leaves dry and crispy to the touch or wet and bendy?

They go limp (soft) and then the tips curl up and dry to a crisp.

I added neem oil to my last watering, maybe that has something to do with it? I did it after reading about using neem as a soil drench here. I used 1 Tbsp/half gallon of Southern Ag Neem Oil (70% clarified hydrophobic extract of neem oil). I found a thread on greenpassion which indicates neem oil in soil may cause problems similar to what I'm seeing.

Granger2 said:
Flush with pH'd water, followed right away with pH'd water with 2 Tbl 3% peroxide/gal. Let medium dry well. Follow with at least 3 peroxide treatments. You can feed lite nutes along with peroxide. Use root stim. liberally. Hope for the best. Good luck. -granger

I flushed the pots with 4 gallons of pH'd water (added H2O2 to the first gallon). The runoff from the first gallon smelled pretty bad, like a mix of ammonia and rotten fish. Is that a symptom of root rot?
The runoff pH was OK at 6-7 (I'm using test drops), but the PPM was at 670--just completely crashed from the runoff last time of around 1450 PPM. I think something killed the microherd in my soil. After the 4 gallon flush, I had around 7 pH and 265 PPM.

Here's how they look right after the flush. Hoping they recover from this...

ozzieAI · Jul 2, 2013

The runoff from the first gallon smelled pretty bad, like a mix of ammonia and rotten fish. Is that a symptom of root rot?

yep...

I think something killed the microherd in my soil.

this is highly likely a healthy soil prevents rot.

you still may be able to save the plants if you firstly remove all the rotted roots by submerging the root ball in clean ph water and cleaning the roots back to just the white ones. repot in clean medium and reapply h202 with some seaweed. also remove most of the leaves as you will now not have enough roots to support of the current growth.

if you don't remove the rotting material then the rot will likely spread further...

been using neem as a soil drench for a while now and have never seen that sort of reaction in any of my or my friends grows.

wish you all the best...

bluefoodie · Jul 2, 2013

ozzieAI said:
yep...

this is highly likely a healthy soil prevents rot.

you still may be able to save the plants if you firstly remove all the rotted roots by submerging the root ball in clean ph water and cleaning the roots back to just the white ones. repot in clean medium and reapply h202 with some seaweed. also remove most of the leaves as you will now not have enough roots to support of the current growth.

if you don't remove the rotting material then the rot will likely spread further...

been using neem as a soil drench for a while now and have never seen that sort of reaction in any of my or my friends grows.

wish you all the best...

Thanks ozzieAI, I repotted them last night. The roots didn't look very healthy. Does it look like root rot? How bad is it?

It was hard to separate the roots from the soil and I tore off a lot of the root mass. Then I soaked the roots in 30mL/L of 3% H2O2 for 5 minutes. Is that enough to curb the root rot?

I wasn't sure whether to water after the repot. I read that you should do it after transplants, but I don't think the roots can take up a lot of water right now and I didn't want them sitting in stagnant water and rotting even more. They look more wilted today than after the repot.

944s2 · Jul 2, 2013

hiya,,your roots should be whiter then white,,,i really dont know if they can be salveged,,,i feel for you,,may have to start again,,good luck,,,peace and regards s2

Tonygreen · Jul 2, 2013

Need to trim off some of the leaf because of the loss of root mass.

JKD · Jul 3, 2013

Do you use ozone at all? I used it about 15 years ago without knowing much about it and it killed an entire 10 x 10 grow of 4ft high flowering plants over night - similar look to what you have posted. Generator was producing too much ozone for the room. Came home from night shift, opened the door and wham - heartbreak lol. Still gives me nightmares.

RetroGrow · Jul 3, 2013

bluefoodie said:
Thanks ozzieAI, I repotted them last night. The roots didn't look very healthy. Does it look like root rot? How bad is it?

It was hard to separate the roots from the soil and I tore off a lot of the root mass. Then I soaked the roots in 30mL/L of 3% H2O2 for 5 minutes. Is that enough to curb the root rot?

I wasn't sure whether to water after the repot. I read that you should do it after transplants, but I don't think the roots can take up a lot of water right now and I didn't want them sitting in stagnant water and rotting even more. They look more wilted today than after the repot.

Your roots look like hydro roots, which suggests over watering. IMO, you need to re-pot to bigger pot and let the root ball dry out. Don't add any water when you re-pot. Just let the excess water be absorbed by dry media and they should improve.

Crooked8 · Jul 3, 2013

Hydro roots? The roots in all my hydro are super white. If they're brown like that in hydro you're in trouble. A slight tan coloration by the END of harvest is still a sign that roots aren't at their potential but is fairly common.

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