Shoot meristem chlorosis. Complete med grow failure. (pics) Invisible aphids?

[Holmes Slice]

Team IC, I am on the horns of a dilemma. I am about to lose my entire perpetual cab med grow to an unseen killer. I've read extensively on this and do not want to believe what I am seeing. I really hope that someone can point me in the right direction as I am about to break down and start from scratch.
I grow Top 44, a fast flowering Indica dom and have had numerous successful harvests over the past 3 years--never had one lick of trouble. Reliably produce about a QP every 60 days. The setup I use has remained unchanged for 3 years. I am mostly organic and use the Organics for Beginners soil recipe and have successfully recycled soil the entire time using the 3LB's method. I've never, EVER had problems like this--but my 3 year streak of self sufficiency is about to come to an end.

Some observations: Roots seem to die off and don't produce healthy root structures. Can turn from white to brown in a week. Shoot meristem turns spindly, curly, and gets chlorotic--going to dry and crispy brown during stress (cloning, switch to 12/12, after pruning etc). Seems to mimic a CalMg def. Interveinal chlorosis and mosaic pattern visible. I dissected two plants and their root systems and could not find any root aphids. I know they are small but thought I would see one or two--even under a scope! Out of fear that I had soil bugs I used Azamax soil drenches, this seems to have slowed down the problem over two treatments and the plants seemed to do quite well, but it came right back after cloning.

I've used completely new soil and discarded all my recycled soil-no luck.
Cloning out of it didn't seem to work
CalMag didn't help
Aspirin didn't help
Azamax helped but it came back as soon as I stopped (this is why I

Thinking of trying Imid--even though I can't see bugs.

I hesitate to say that this could be a virus, as I was one of the cynics---but I am starting to feel like this is where I am headed.

First, two gratuitous picture of my last successful harvest:



The pic that's freaking me out:


Chrlorosis/curling of shoot meristem:



Clones after about two weeks, notice the puckering leaves:


Roots of a clone (watered this morning so is wet; these get water about every 4 days):


PLEASE HELP!!!


How long has this problem been going on?
About 2 months
Are you growing in a PVC grow tent?
Cabinet grow, no tent
What system are you running?
Organic soil in SCROGs
What STRAIN are you growing?
Top44
What was the establishing technique?
Clones from mothers
What is the age of your plants?
Various. Problems show up in clones, all the way to veg.
How long have they been in there mixture they are in now?
Various. 1 week to 8 weeks
How tall are the plants?
Various. 4 in-1 foot
What PHASE are the plants in?
They never make it to flowering. Problems appear early/mid veg.
What substrate/medium are you using?
Rockwool cloning to Organic soil
What color are your roots?
They start off white, roots seem to die off, throw new white roots that stretch very far. Die off again.
What Nutrient's are you using?
Guano Tea
How much of each nutrient are you using with how much water?
About 2 TBS of PSG and Mexican, bubbled for 24 hrs with some molasses, LK, and MaxiCrop in 2gals. Solids are then fed and watered into soil
How often are you feeding?
1-2x per month
If flowering, when did you switch over to using Bloom nutrients?
2 weeks into 12/12
What is the pH of the "Tank"?
N/A, soil always seems to stay around 5.8-7 though.
How often are you testing your pH?
Not very often.
When was your last watering?
About 1x per week
What is your water temps?
65
How old is the bulbs you are using?
Change every 6 months
What is the distance to the canopy?
about 1 ft
What is your RH Factor(Relative Humidity)?
60ish
What is the canopy temperature?
75
What is the Day/Night Temp?
75-78
What is the current Air Flow? Tell us about your ventilation, intake exhaust and when its running and not running?

2 ea 165 cfm (Can Fans) running all day all night. Intake through fiber filters, drawn over cooltube and out into filter.
Is the fan blowing directly at plants?
Intake draws fresh air in from floor over filter, past canopy, through cooltube, canopy gets a constant breeze.
Is your water HARD or SOFT?
Normally soft out of the tap. I let it sit for several days before using it in the tea.
What water are you using?
Tap
If using tap water, what is the ppm/EC/TDS of the water right out of the tap?
Do not know
Are you using water from a water softener?
No
Has plant been recently pruned, cloned off of or pinched?
Normal cloning, but this affects all plants regardless.
Have any pest chemicals been used?
Not yet
Are plant's infected with pest's?
Seemingly, no--unless they are invisible!

 

[overgrowit]

I feel your pain man, I have something similar happening. My plants do fine until they get switched into flower.

Keep checking the roots, they like to live in the top 2 '' of soil and around the crown of the plant. I wasnt able to see the ones in my garden until i shut down some of the lights and looked with a usb scope and laptop. The usb scope has a blueish tinted led light that allows me to see the transparent root aphids or phylloxera whatever they hell they are.
Also I had to be really patient in order to catch these fuckers on screen. I spent at least 20 mins staring at the screen before i spotted one crawling around.

It could vary well be a virus from reusing your soil or some other pest. In which case it would be wise to start new mothers from seed. You will have a better chance at having more vigorous plants.

 

[joe fresh]

well my first guess was too much ferts, especially seeing the burnt/yellow tips...


water temps are low a bit


check your runoff ppms and ph, that will tell you if thats a problem

 

[brightskies]

Have you introduced any new plastic trays, etc. to your grow area. Offgassing?

 

[Holmes Slice]

overgrowit, Thanks for stopping by to take a look and offer advice. I am in the process of beginning a new grow...just in case. Something tells me I am going to have to scrap it and start all over. I completely dissected two more plants yesterday and spent an hour looking at roots and stuff--still can't see any aphids.

joefresh, Thank you for your time and attention. I DEFINITELY have a tendency to feed a bit much during flower (as evidenced in that bud pic) but this shows up in plants that are a week from rooting. I don't feed at all until 12/12. I checked and rechecked my recipes in case I made a batch too 'hot' It's a good point though; maybe something is off in the stuff I use for my mix? Will keep checking...

brightskies, I really appreciate you taking a look at the thread; thanks for the input. All of the trays and plastics in the grow have been there since the start (abt 3 years) Not likely they would become a problem this late in the game as far as I can tell. I have produced POUNDS on top of these trays. Though I'll bet they could be taken outside and cleaned a bit. ;-)

 

[Holmes Slice]

I may be onto something here...Had some old ph test strips that must've been bunk. Bought a few of those capsule stule single tests at the Agway and checked my soil---clearly I have a ph problem. (Good news in that I finally have something to test!!!)

Soil ph in affected plants is around 6---locking out Ca and MG! Freshly mixed soil is spot on at 7. I am thinking I am going to try repotting a control group today with my new soil for a quick test! I will post back in a few days.

It's possible I messed up my Dolomite additions when recylcing.

 

[Holmes Slice]

I am now convinced that this is something systemic. Isolating soils didn't help, cannot clone my way out of it. Only had two plants with ph issues, even those in 7 soil showing signs. I have plants that look moderately healthy as mothers, clone them and they seem to turn into zombies---plants are alive take up water slowly, roots seem to go through the normal veg growth spurt then die back, plants do nothing. Clearly something wrong metabolically.

 

[joe fresh]

ya after reviewing your original post and the pics over again, i have come to the conclusion of overwatering and a lil too much fert.


here ill show you...


this here is classic over watering, look at how the leaves are droopy, and the tips are burnt which is a classic over fert/salt build up

this here is def over fert

and this here is a combination of over fert, over watering, and a ph issue caused by both over watering and over fert. although it does look alot like the mosaic virus but i just went through the same on one of my plants, i cut back the amount of water and the frequency and she is looking 100% better

basicly your watering too much and possibly not letting it dry out enough between, your roots are getting water logged and deprived of oxygen, starting root rot, and then your plants cant take in the ferts your feeding, and if you flush its just going to make things worse considering the roots are rotting away.

i would suggest letting the plants dry out completely, and i mean completely dry. then i would give them a light watering with nothing else than a good strong dose of enzymes to eat up all the root decay. but dont water too much just enough to wet the top half of the soil. this should dry up in a day or 2. again let it dry completely, oxygen is our friend here and we need as much as possible to turn around this situation. then when its time to water again repeat the same process, water just enough to wet the top half of the bucket.

once you see your plant gaining its health back again then you can start to water a lil bit more each time.

i just recently went through the same problem of overwatering and i have been growing for over 12 years. its almost like the peat is more absorbant than 5-10 years ago and is easily water logged. i find that when i water enough for runoff then the soil gets water logged and its promix HP so i dont quite understand. but ive learned to water less and dont look for runoff. instead i water by weight of bucket, like this i dont over water and i can tell when the plant has enough.




another possibility is that since your recycling your soil that you had a root rot problem previously and the pathogens are still in the soil, so when you water the bad bacteria and fungus is already in your soil ready to attach the roots. the best way to fight this is with beneficial bacteria and fungus and enzymes....

hope this helps a bit

 

[Holmes Slice]

joefresh, at this point I will definitely put my pride aside and try ANYTHING!! I followed your advice for about the past 1.5 weeks, I have one of four in the flowering chamber picking up a bit and looking OK. I have reason to believe this one will finish flowering. As plant lovers, I think we have a tendency to see something wrong and look forward to the next watering as a chance to make a correction. As my plants got sicker, I watered more and probably made things much worse. Your advice is very helpful and I really appreciate you taking the time to help me out.


A quick progress update:
Some of the newer clones and veg plants look very bad in spite of the fact that I only watered them once and have NEVER fed them.

I can't shake the feeling that there is something else at work here. I am going to post these pics in the 'winged root aphid' thread to see if anyone else can help identify. I've had fungus gnats before but this one is bigger than any others I've seen. I am thinking of taking a control group of the badly affected veg plants and hitting them with spinosad to see if this helps a bit.

 

[joe fresh]

glad i could help a bit, those look like gnats to me, not winged aphids(but i never had aphids yet) hopefully you get a response from someone with the same problem and they can help you more on this than i, GL


just a note....gnats eat the roots and organic matter in the soil, so if you have a real bad gnat problem and they eat the roots and the roots cant eat the ferts leading to over fert or a salt build up

 

[RedReign]

I had the same problem earlier this year. I first noticed it on two plants, and it spread to every plant in my garden. I fought it for two+ months, while I made change after change, nothing worked. Finally, I found a picture, through a Google search, that showed the same symptoms. It ended up being a virus.

I trashed all my plants and started from scratch, 6k worth in flower, and another 6k worth in veg. I haven't seen any symptoms since.

I have a friend with a HUGE grow that has been fighting it for over six months, he just trashed everything and is starting from scratch too. I suggest you do the same.

 

[shmalphy]

I get that a lot with guano teas too. You may be going too heavy on them. They are actually stronger than they say once you make the tea, and when you add a bunch of other stuff like that, it can be excessive.

Try just water, and let the medium dry out completely between waterings. If you don't have a moisture meter, get one, and wait til it says dry, it should be light as a feather.

I find it is worse if I don't filter out the solids, as they hold moisture too long in the wrong area, right by the breather roots. This is why subcool's super soil works so well, the food is down low, by the feeder roots, and the top has no grimy ferts gumming it up so the air roots can breathe.

I hope this helps, it is a constant battle doing organics indoors, but the results are worth it.

As for the people suggesting you scrap your grow, I would suggest other options. If you don't have good practices, the problem will return.

Hope that helps, Best of luck.

 

[krunchbubble]

I get that a lot with guano teas too. You may be going too heavy on them. They are actually stronger than they say once you make the tea, and when you add a bunch of other stuff like that, it can be excessive.

Try just water, and let the medium dry out completely between waterings. If you don't have a moisture meter, get one, and wait til it says dry, it should be light as a feather.

I find it is worse if I don't filter out the solids, as they hold moisture too long in the wrong area, right by the breather roots. This is why subcool's super soil works so well, the food is down low, by the feeder roots, and the top has no grimy ferts gumming it up so the air roots can breathe.

I hope this helps, it is a constant battle doing organics indoors, but the results are worth it.

As for the people suggesting you scrap your grow, I would suggest other options. If you don't have good practices, the problem will return.

Hope that helps, Best of luck.

great way to kill ALL your roots! facepalm.....

 

[foomar]

let the medium dry out completely between waterings. If you don't have a moisture meter, get one, and wait til it says dry, it should be light as a feather.

Sounds harsh but it is long reccomended practice for dealing with root feeding pests on most potted plants and shrubs.

Dried to the point of wilting , they recover fast but can freak the usual suspects.

 

[shmalphy]

Kill all of your roots? The roots need air and water. In soil indoors, it is often over watering. Based on the pics, that looks like what it is. Obviously don't let the plant wilt, but bring it as close as you can. That is why I recommend the moisture meter. This will actually boost your roots, as they will be searching for air.

If there is more than one plant, try this on one, and let us know. I bet it's lack of oxygen in the root zone caused by high RH, and cold water, causing cool damp soil that doesn't dry out properly, based on the look.

 

[Holmes Slice]

OK, learned a few things...still haven't quite got it licked. Good news is that I believe it is possible to 'clone my way out of this' Several clones have started to show vigorous growth. I was even able to take one plant all the way to flower. I may actually have one to harvest in 2 weeks (fingers crossed)

What I think I learned:
1.Pretty sure my old soil mix was not full integrated. It's now been discarded. Perlite clogs up and holds waste products. Pretty sure that, when i do go back to soil recycling, I will only reuse each base three times--then discard. I was on five or six cycles with my current mix. Pretty sure I needed to add WAY more Dolomite than I was and the soil got acidic lacking Oxygen.
2. Created new soil and letting it 'cook'---still may be too hot right now
3. Things went from bad to worse when I began overwatering and getting eager to correct.
4. Since I thought I lost the whole garden, I started with controls and tests. The plants that seem to recover were the ones where I amended the soil with Dolomite.
5. Had serious calcium/salt buildup on trays and on the pots. I cleaned them all very well with Oxiclean and CLR. Had a feeling this could be affecting the soil chemistry. Was it a problem? Not sure. But this has been eliminated as a problem.

Here's a pic of one plant treated with Dolomite, and one not:

Here's one about 4 weeks into flower treated only with aspirin and epsom salt:


And the one I am most proud of, the is the only girl that survived the tests. She was amended with about 1 tsp Dolomite every other week. Notice she's frosting up nicely!

BTW, the plant above is actually the same one pictured here on the right. Difference of about three weeks and two healthy doses of Dolomite.

Next generation of clones; ignore the two on the right...those were tests...but I am most pleased with the look of the clones after about a week. They are strong, green, and seem to be healthy.

 

[elftribe]

I've had the same thing happen. Had to reset everything. Took months. I have it down to two possibilities...... Broad mites (which you will need a scope to see) They can come in on other insects, do a google search for the image of the white fly with the mites riding shotgun and you understand how easily they transfer. My other though was a virus (I chose to treat it as a virus and scrapped and sanitized everything.) You can kill broadmites.

The leaves will start to look leathery if it was the same thing I was fighting.

If I could figure out how to upload pics in this forum I would (I documented the whole thing for future study)

At any rate, if it were me, the first thing I would do is put a 100x to 200x scope on multiple leaf samples.

 

[elftribe]

PS. I didn't have the sense to use a scope before I trashed everything. It spread to everything I had and I panicked...... now in hindsight, I would have taken different steps.... like buy a quality scope. I have one now and wouldn't part with it.

 

[Grow Tech]

I've had the same thing happen. Had to reset everything. Took months. I have it down to two possibilities...... Broad mites (which you will need a scope to see)

My thougths exactly...A few of us here in San Diego county are dealing with Broad Mites and the symptoms are similar. Get a hand scope and spend a bit of time checking out the newest growth. You won't see any webbing and they're so small you def need ~30x magnification or stronger. I personally prefer the 30x over the 100x because it allows you to see more leaf surface at once while still being strong enough to see the bugs...just my pref.

Check my thread called "Pistil mites?" here in the infirmary

 

[Holmes Slice]

Broad Mites? Ay Caramba!!! Something else for me to obsess about?!?!? Never even heard about those til today and now you guys done skeeved me out!!

I looked and looked and looked at roots of affected plants under the radio shack scope and couldn't find anything. Probably will get my hands on a better 'scope eventually. Dissected about 10 plants over a few weeks, never saw one bug. The two plants I hit with Imid are no different than the untreated plants.

I don't think what I have/had is a virus--though I did freak the hell out after read the TMV thread as mine look alot like the pics there!

The reason I don't think I have a virus is that I am pretty sure I was able to clone my way out of it. Right now, things are looking pretty good. It did not spread from affected stock to unaffected stock, even kept in the close confines of my single cabinet grow.

From my last harvest I revegged two of the 8 that I harvested, took clones and now that they are established and kicking off clones, things look positive for the first time in about two months. Still want to wait 2 weeks until I go to 12/12 on those revegged clones...then I can be sure. Plants in veg look good, if a bit underfed which is fine for now.

I have some theories, but I suspect one of more of the following...

1) I may have had a poorly integrated recycled soil batch and didn't add enough lime. I use the Organics for Beginners recipe and 3LBs recycling method with Guano/EC Tea. I can't say enough great things about the quality of recycled soil. Plants grown in recycled soil grow stronger and yield more with a fraction of the ferts but they can spread disease or wipe out an entire crop if the batch is bad. I am going to consider only recylcying 3 or 4 times, then discarding. I just don't think the perlite can handle it. The peat mix was very broken down and probably very acidic, the perlite was probably clogged with salt and wastes. Overcompensating and correcting probably furthered my folly as I overwatered and killed my root systems.

2) I had alot of crud buildup on my catch trays and around the rim of each pot. These were a bear to scrub with Oxiclean and CLR but now look like new. Whatever this was, was not a good thing. Also cleaned all my cabs, replaced bulbs, mylar, and filters...just for safety.

3) Rushing to get another batch of soil 'cooked' in time probably caused me to use a mix that was too hot and caused lockout. My bins were in very cold conditions, I moved them into 70 degree temps to finish cooking and began chucking soil and mixing new batches. Isolating soil recipes led me to the conclusion that one bin at least was no good.

4) I began to get lazy. I used to keep a spreadsheet to track all activity. Being overconfident from about three successful years I began to grow by 'feel'---not easy with dozens of plants at various stages for a perpetual grow. Going back to taking good notes and isolating changes REALLY helped me.

5) Most importantly, I cannot thank the members who came and posted here to help--every one. Each of you gave me some piece of info that I hadn't thought of. If this were legal, I'd invite you all over for my next harvest party....maybe some day.

So, I will keep updating until I get some successful harvests back under my belt.

One thing for sure, I am glad I didn't chuck the grow and start over....