First grow, plants died overnight!

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 patches. 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?

Bump with some details: 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. They're under 8 26W CFL's. 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).

[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica]Should I flush with something or wait for it to dry out?[/FONT]

OK, I'm kicking myself for not thinking it had something to do with it, but I added NEEM OIL to my last watering. I think that's what caused the problem. Did it after reading about using neem as a soil drench here and here. I used 1 Tbsp/half gallon of Southern Ag Neem Oil (70% clarified hydrophobic extract of neem oil). This suggests neem oil causes problems similar to what I'm seeing.

I flushed the pots with 4 gallons of pH'd water. The runoff from the first gallon smelled pretty bad, like a mix of ammonia and rotten fish. The runnoff 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 neem oil 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...

Verticillium wilt doesnt affect indoor plants. I treat plants for a living. Neem oil sprayed in temps above 90 can produce symptoms like yours. Always reduce the amount of oil when spraying in higher temps or wait till it gets cooler.

What are you feeding them with and how much? Also, what are you putting in your soil. How do you test your ppm and pH?

Your ppm is too high and so is your pH. Flush em out n water with just you basic base nutes and you'll be fine

three years ago my friend get the same thing he was growing his plants under 1000 wt lights 24/7
so the plants cant get enough oxygen
so tell me something about your lighting
by looking to your plants i think you get the same thing
sick plants will never die overnight
plants with no oxygen will die overnight

I have never heard of neem oil being used as a drench. By looking at your plants I can see why. What was the purpose?

oil on the roots is not a good thing. roots need to breathe.

Jimdamick said:

I have never heard of neem oil being used as a drench. By looking at your plants I can see why. What was the purpose?

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I read about it here. It's meant to be a soil conditioner/pest preventative. People have done it without ill effects but I'm pretty sure it caused my problems here. Right before the treatment, my soil went from soaking to dry in 2 days. After, the pots were still heavy 3 days later.

1itsme said:

oil on the roots is not a good thing. roots need to breathe.

Click to expand...

Yeah I think as soon as the oil got on the roots they suffocated and couldn't take up water. Then root rot took over and led to the wilting and dried leaves.

I repotted them last night. Can anyone confirm the root rot? How bad is it? I soaked the roots in 30mL/L of 3% H2O2 for 10 minutes. Is that enough?

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 right after the repot.

Really hard to save now. I'm afraid. The damage to the root system is extensive. Sorry.

bluefoodie said:

OK, I'm kicking myself for not thinking it had something to do with it, but I added NEEM OIL to my last watering. I think that's what caused the problem. Did it after reading about using neem as a soil drench here and here. I used 1 Tbsp/half gallon of Southern Ag Neem Oil (70% clarified hydrophobic extract of neem oil). This suggests neem oil causes problems similar to what I'm seeing.

I flushed the pots with 4 gallons of pH'd water. The runoff from the first gallon smelled pretty bad, like a mix of ammonia and rotten fish. The runnoff 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 neem oil 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...

View attachment 2721370View attachment 2721371

Click to expand...

70% hydrophobic neem oil????.you used the OIL?? Not the gardening variety??

Dude i hope you added some surfactant in there. Neem oil needs to be dissolved into water before it can be used.
you get neem oil meant for gardening which already has surfactants to help it dissolve.

I think u used the "OIL" which coated your roots and prevented any further oxygen or nurtrient take up. Leading to overnight death.

The "oil" is also much more potent and concentrated than gardening varieties. You should not use it. If you do! lower the dosage significantly and add a lil bit of soap.

Throw them away. Not even worth trying in my opinion.

shame.........

rip

They live! They were looking like shit for a while and I wasn't sure if they would make it. The wilting continued for a couple days after the transplant, but when new roots started to grow out, things started looking up. Now they're back with a vengeance!

Pics from 7/2-7/18:

Veg the crap out of them

Nice man, keep em healthy. Maybe stick with water a bit and later on some nice tea, and EWC for soil.

Situation420 said:

Your ppm is too high and so is your pH. Flush em out n water with just you basic base nutes and you'll be fine

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^ What he said. Looking at your pics and reading your description that's what I immediately thought. Flush them with some PH water and cut back on your nutes. Go to maybe a 1/4 strength, and ALWAYS make sure you PH is right around 6 or so (5.7-5.8 being ideal).

EDITED - just saw they were back on track, good work!! Keep an eye on that PH and don't over-nute! Good luck!

I got a question for you, why are you even using neem oil? are you having a pest problem? Or just want your plants to look shiny for the camera? Just cover the top 2 inches of your soil in sand and keep your grow environment clean and you dont even need that neem oil. That 3% H2O2 has other chemicals in it to help stabilize the H2O2 and clean wounds better and is not safe for plant or food use. You need food grade or better H2O2 or you will kill your plants again. Just use soil and nutes, and keep your room clean and you will be fine. Look into using beneficial bacteria aka brewing a compost tea on this site. That will prevent almost any issue you will run into besides over and under watering in the future when it comes to your roots.