Russet Mites?

[DankTankerous]

Plant: Duke Diamond's c99 xc99s1
Vegetative state 11+ weeks

Hey folks,

Im am just curious to know what are your thoughts of the plants in the pictures. Someone who I respect and is a great grower said that the deficiencies below were caused by Russet Mites and I would like to get a second opinion. From what I have read russet mites start from the bottom and move up towards the tops, as well the leaves aren't glossy. The bottoms look like they are in great health, there is no chlorosis or necrotic spots they are fully green. But the tops are yellow with taco-ing and the middle has the necrotic spots. I thought it was a Cal-mag issue but I top-dressed 1 Tbsp with Root's Organics Cal-Mag about 2 weeks ago (the recipe does call for 3tbsp). I watered it a couple days ago with Cal-Mag from TPS nutrients. I have grown this strain before and it showed the same symptoms. Soil is Fox Farms Ocean Forest with extra perlite + worm castings+Kashi+Azomite. Soil pH is 6.5-7. I only use Organic products and have used my own Fish Amino Acid. The light is an HLG v2 288 quantum board, the tallest top is 16 inches away and the rest is 20. Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks,
Dank

 

[CannaCountry]

Looks short on Mg. Good luck.

 

[teddy bonkers]

they look hungry. if you want to know if you have mites, you will need at least a 60x microscope/loupe and look around especially in between nodes. pray it's just a deficiency.

 

[DankTankerous]

Loupe is on the way. Yeah it doesn’t look like infestation. It hasn’t been dry enough for it. Being under fed has been my suspicion. I have been feeding Fish Amino Acid but maybe I should add more. There is def either a cal or mag deficiency. From what I have read C99 loves and needs Cal badly. These symptoms are the same from last time I grew it and again I wasn’t giving it enough cal/mag

 

[teddy bonkers]

Loupe is on the way. Yeah it doesn’t look like infestation. It hasn’t been dry enough for it. Being under fed has been my suspicion. I have been feeding Fish Amino Acid but maybe I should add more. There is def either a cal or mag deficiency. From what I have read C99 loves and needs Cal badly. These symptoms are the same from last time I grew it and again I wasn’t giving it enough cal/mag

so does using a led light

 

[DankTankerous]

so does using a led light

dually noted

 

[polishpollack]

every grower that has an opinion is a respected grower... until they're wrong. if it's russets you're screwed cuz they are very hard to get rid of. they lay tough eggs and are extremely small and can hide easily.

 

[DankTankerous]

every grower that has an opinion is a respected grower... until they're wrong. if it's russets you're screwed cuz they are very hard to get rid of. they lay tough eggs and are extremely small and can hide easily.

honestly I don’t think it’s russet Mites, I think it’s cal/mag coupled with bad drainage or it seems like plant isn’t drinking. The humidity has gone down which I usually attribute that to needing to be watered, however the weight of the pot is still heavy and my water meter stick says it’s still moist. Honestly I do suck at watering.

 

[getogrow]

Thats N not Ca or Mg. although it probably needs all three. its a simple case of under feeding. Give her some food , nothing to do with bugs.

 

[Federucci]

honestly I don’t think it’s russet Mites, I think it’s cal/mag coupled with bad drainage or it seems like plant isn’t drinking. The humidity has gone down which I usually attribute that to needing to be watered, however the weight of the pot is still heavy and my water meter stick says it’s still moist. Honestly I do suck at watering.

I don't know if this is helpful, but this old person uses the ole knuckle test to determine watering. If the first 1-2 inches of the top soil is dry, I water. Your soil should be approximately half or so vermiculite, or better yet, pumice for drainage. I don't think it's pest, but an ounce of prevention is a pound of cure. For Pest control I use a multitude of angles, a systemic treatment of Azamax(anything that bites seems to die, or so they say), DE sprinkled around the pots, Israelensis bacteria in the soil to feed on eggs/larvae, and to use products to increase the natural defenses/brix of the plants. I even got one of those ultrasonic pest control plug in units and it seems to work. I found a dead roach outside of the room, on its back still alive, but dying. Ever since I started using the ultrasonic units, I have found critters running around at abnormal times and appearing disoriented. I moved into an apartment where the previous tenant must have lived in a landfill, but it seems to be working buddy. Anyway, in the words of Leslie Nielsen, "I just wanted to tell you good luck. We're all counting on you."

 

[Apalchen]

What are your running your temps at and how far away is your light? I'm not saying it's not russets, it could be but you will need a scope to verify. To me it looks like the time I tried to grow under QB LEDs and didn't know to raise my temps. Try dimming your light or raising it if you can't dim and raise your temps. You can go back to full power or lower the light back down after it's healthy.

You want your temps to be 82 or above with the newer white LEDs.

 

[Apalchen]

If it's russets and your still in veg I wouldn't mess around, unless you don't care about throwing out all your plants. The best thing to do while still in veg is use forbid and avid in rotation but don't spray it during flower. I know a lot of people don't like to use chemicals so strong and if your garden is in a living space then the best bet is to throw them out and clean your ass off. Its damn near impossible to get rid of them unless you go chemical warfare but remember to use safety gear glasses, tyvek suit, rubber gloves and boots. That should tell you how strong it is. I think we are jumping the gun saying russets if he has only seen the same pics we have. If your temps are below 80 degrees I'm betting that's the issue.

EDIT: forgot to say respirator as well.

 

[DankTankerous]

What are your running your temps at and how far away is your light? I'm not saying it's not russets, it could be but you will need a scope to verify. To me it looks like the time I tried to grow under QB LEDs and didn't know to raise my temps. Try dimming your light or raising it if you can't dim and raise your temps. You can go back to full power or lower the light back down after it's healthy.

You want your temps to be 82 or above with the newer white LEDs.

yeah it’s definitely not 82, they are running at 79. However the highest top is probably around that temperature.The light is about 16 inches from the top and it is dimmed as far as it can go. I’ll definitely look more into these LED lights, silly for me to assume these are plug n play. It has made growing to not be pleasurable because it’s showing problems to which I can’t fix or rather I don’t know how.

btw the rh is at 50

 

[Apalchen]

yeah it’s definitely not 82, they are running at 79. However the highest top is probably around that temperature.The light is about 16 inches from the top and it is dimmed as far as it can go. I’ll definitely look more into these LED lights, silly for me to assume these are plug n play. It has made growing to not be pleasurable because it’s showing problems to which I can’t fix or rather I don’t know how.

btw the rh is at 50

I have been growing a long time and I have to admit I gave up after one run with the QB fixture and sold it to a buddy cheap. I plan to try again in the future, but at the time I couldn't waste a whole tent to figure it out as I didn't have that much space so I just went back to a 315. I got a bit more space now and I'm wanting to try again but gotta finish this build out before I start playing.

 

[DankTankerous]

I have been growing a long time and I have to admit I gave up after one run with the QB fixture and sold it to a buddy cheap. I plan to try again in the future, but at the time I couldn't waste a whole tent to figure it out as I didn't have that much space so I just went back to a 315. I got a bit more space now and I'm wanting to try again but gotta finish this build out before I start playing.

I don’t blame you, I’m kind of kicking myself because I spent over two hundred bucks on it. That’s a lot of money to me. It has been on my mind lately to try and sell it. I think I’m going to move it into another room where I could have more temp control and go from there. Although I don’t know how I’ll keep it between 82-85, it seems like once you get to 80 degrees it’s really easy to go higher and over heat

 

[DankTankerous]

Microscope cams in, no bugs

 

[Apalchen]

Well that's good news. I just realized you said your at 16 inches away from plant in veg. How many watts is you QB fixture? I went to snap a picture of one of my mothers as she was setting in the middle and had grown too close to the 315 cmh and had the beginning stages of the same thing. But when I got in there they needed watered badly and were drooping. I guess I need to prune and move to larger pot.

So need to know few things to confirm and then help come up with solution.
How many watts is the fixture?
How tall is your tent?
How tall is the plant?
When did you last repot and to what size pot?
How often do you water and are you waiting til it's dry?

Im pretty sure it's an easy fix.

 

[DankTankerous]

hey thanks forgetting back to me

It's an HLG 288 V2 double slated, so it gets up to 230 watts but I have it dimmed down all the way.

My Grow box is wooden and stands 5 ft tall

My plant is 1ft tall but about a 1.5ft wide. I'm scrogging it right now.

I repotted it maybe a month ago into a 3 gal pot, but really I just took out almost half the soil and replaced it with well aerated soil. My plant has been taking forever to drink like up to a week to get dry. Last time I watered it was 5 days ago and the bag is still heavy. I usually pick up the bag to see how heavy it is and that's how I determine if it's dry or not. I put straw hay on top to create some type of no-till style straw breaking down kind of thing. Who knows maybe it's inhibiting it

I water once a week which i know isn't good. I did not put enough perlite in my fox farms Ocean Forest mix, it was taking forever to dry out. so that's when I repotted it. with 30-40%perlite.

I mess around with the fan speed and now the temps are at 81f and 50rh.

 

[Apalchen]

Well your plants not very tall or id tell you to chop it in half, might sound crazy but I do it all the time. Since yours is short I'd just raise that light some and get the temp higher, maybe even a little higher than 82. You need to get that plant drying out quicker, your not uptaking enough nutes because it's not drinking fast enough. I heard it explained something like this, hid lights produce heat that is directed down at the plants and cause the leaf temps to be higher in turn causing more respiration. Led lights don't have that radiative heat so you need to keep the environment warmer to keep respiration rates up.

When you water how much water are you giving?

And I know it sounds counterproductive to raise the light but it's not, trust me if a plant looks bad under a bright light and you move to a corner of a room or under a t5 it starts to look better the last thing you want to do is push a starving plant hard with bright light.

 

[DankTankerous]

Well your plants not very tall or id tell you to chop it in half, might sound crazy but I do it all the time. Since yours is short I'd just raise that light some and get the temp higher, maybe even a little higher than 82. You need to get that plant drying out quicker, your not uptaking enough nutes because it's not drinking fast enough. I heard it explained something like this, hid lights produce heat that is directed down at the plants and cause the leaf temps to be higher in turn causing more respiration. Led lights don't have that radiative heat so you need to keep the environment warmer to keep respiration rates up.

When you water how much water are you giving?

And I know it sounds counterproductive to raise the light but it's not, trust me if a plant looks bad under a bright light and you move to a corner of a room or under a t5 it starts to look better the last thing you want to do is push a starving plant hard with bright light.

I also have ufo Led lights I can switch out, but I did switch them out for a couple days and the leaves were still tacoing. I give them 1/2 a gal. I water until I see water come out.