Canoeing top growth, purple burn on leaf tips, fading leaves, and brown necrosis

Plants are basically yellow now. My whole veg room is looking like this. I have millions of tiny bugs in the soil jumping around in the soil. Been oil sprays don't kill them, but I was told that they are spintails, so I'm not sure if bugs is a problem, unless I misdiagnosed the infestation , or there is another bug I unaware of. I'm in Kelloggs raised bed soil. I top dressed with ewc recently and have fed them teas with much success. A week after 2 tea applications, they were vegging along pretty nicely. I fed them some silica and cal mag on its own and phed the water. Now it looks like this.

Sorry for no pics. I will send them tonight. I had one of my roomies do a watering and he had left the ph pen without water on the probe. I was told "if it dries, it dies." This could have been the factor, as i have been ph adjusting the old school way. However, my flowering plants are doing great, so i don't know if this is the problem. Another problem could be my veg room is dirty and i need to clean it. I just threw black plastic sheeting on top of the carpet and layered it. I lifted a pot the other day and the ground stinks of ammonia. Could that cause a problem in my plant? I have no powdery mildew problems. I may need to get saucers for each 5 gallon pot for when i water.

What you're describing sounds more like root aphids at a glance, but photos would be pretty helpful in figuring it out for sure. Have you tried getting a sticky card to catch the flyers/crawlers so you can ID them under a scope?

Good call Lawlrus! I'm going to get sticky traps today. Question: Do root aphids jump out of the soil like carbonated soda? The ones im infested with are tiny white bugs, long, not round. They are so small that I'm sure you won't be able to identify them on this pic. But, I do know that neem oil sprayed directly onto them didn't seem to do a thing.

Jumfrey13 said:

Good call Lawlrus! I'm going to get sticky traps today. Question: Do root aphids jump out of the soil like carbonated soda? The ones im infested with are tiny white bugs, long, not round. They are so small that I'm sure you won't be able to identify them on this pic. But, I do know that neem oil sprayed directly onto them didn't seem to do a thing.

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If you look on the left side of the soil in my picture, you can see a lot of little long white bugs. Gotta look real close though. People keep telling me it is springtails and not to worry about those because they are harmless. But my plants are sickly and they are doing terrible, although my nutrient regiment has been on point. My pH'ing should be okay, because i have been using the old school ph method on my flowers and they are thriving as if no problem. This is the second round of Veg room plants that did this. Last time, i had to throw out 17 5 gallon plants which were ready for flowering. This is another 20 plants right here. I cannot throw these away. Needless to say, this is scary and as the cliche goes, i didn't think it would happen to me. ;(

Jumfrey13 said:

Good call Lawlrus! I'm going to get sticky traps today. Question: Do root aphids jump out of the soil like carbonated soda? The ones im infested with are tiny white bugs, long, not round. They are so small that I'm sure you won't be able to identify them on this pic. But, I do know that neem oil sprayed directly onto them didn't seem to do a thing.

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springtails have been listed as both bad and beneficial. They are harmless as long as there is enough decaying material in your medium, otherwise they will attack your decaying roots.

I had them for a run and nothing would get rid of them, including neem. However, the only bad effect was seeing them all come to the top when i watered - kind of like attack of the tiny bugs who fly off into the fan.

No bueno. I'm thinking since there are millions of these in each pot, they must be bad. I hope to find a solution to control population. I will get my soil pretty dry before i rewater. And from then on, i will use a lot less water, as i believe that is one of my problems. But if there is any organic remedy to control these guys that would be helpful.

D

lawlrus said:

What you're describing sounds more like root aphids at a glance, but photos would be pretty helpful in figuring it out for sure. Have you tried getting a sticky card to catch the flyers/crawlers so you can ID them under a scope?

Click to expand...

o you know if root aphids are easy to find on the surface of the soil or If they localize to the root only? Do they hop like springtails do?

Okay. I for sure identified them as springtails and I found out the problem. I got 2 donor plants recently from a friend and I checked their pots and they are very light. Those plants are extremely healthy. I compared them to my diseased pots and they are heavy as shit. I checked the drainage holes, only to find mushrooms growing out of them amd the ground under the pots smelled like ammonia. Omg this is horrible but at least I know now that they are waterlogged. I found out I needed to add perlite to Kellogg raised bed. Go figure. That soil is made for raised beds, so they try to hold lots of water. Big mistake.

easy way to tell if they are springtails - let them dry out and if you don't see any on top of soil then you'll know they're springtails. as soon as you water they will reappear and start jumping all over the place.

I wonder if I can nurse them back if I let them dry out and water way less from thereon.