Plant Moisture Stress - Symptoms and Solutions

DaveCoulier said:

UB is gonna have your balls in a vice for using paper towel germination. I dont understand why you pre-germed, placed in rockwool, then placed into soil.

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Let me just ratchet this thing down one more turn so it's nice and tight.

I doubt if they make it, and if they do they'll probably be stunted for life and not very productive. My view of cannabis (and some other plants) is that once it's stunted it never fully recovers or at least never reaches its fullest genetically pre-determined full potential. IOW, cannabis should be grown fast and furious and never be deprived of the proper food, water, light, etc.

Tents are not needed for seedlings, only cuttings. If you need a tent for a seedling, you need to learn how to grow a good root system.

razoredge said:

I just want to say thanks to all that have added to this thread. I am a life long learner and this site has helped me out so much with small problems that i have never addressed before,

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We appreciate that! It's all about the tweeks.

I got a quick question that may have been answered already. Could improper light placement cause the tips to curl up, leaves to turn a little yellow, and stunted growth? I have a couple lowryder autoflowers going and both of them have that problem. I guess i'm trying to rule out moisture stress because, lighting seems like a much bigger issue in my room.

Can someone help out a newbie. I'm having trouble telling the difference between underwatering & overwatering. As I understand it the leaves droop if I do either, so how do you tell the difference between underwatering & overwatering?

I started with 8 plants of various strains. The other 7 plants are doing good, even the 2 Durban Poisons which looked like Bonzai trees when I got them. The first plant bought for this pot died because the lady sold me a clone that was really a clipping. I had done no research on rooting a clipping and I don't have a light weaker than 400w anyway, so needless to say that one died.

I got another clone which turned out to be a clipping in a cube. I peeled away the cube after my last experience looking for roots, that's how I found out the last one was a clipping. I used a 2-liter pepsi bottle to keep it alive overnight and this time the guy swapped it out for a real clone (in the picture). But with this one the dirt was already moist when I planted it because of the clipping I was trying to keep alive.

The water meter read a 5 on a level of 1-10 so I didn't water the first day. The second day the meter read 3.5 and the leaves were starting to droop, so I gave her a cup of water. The third day the leaves were drooping a little worse and the meter once again read about a 3.5, so I gave her another cup of water. This is what she looked like the 4th day (this morning). And the meter is once again reading 3.5. And the leaf in front is starting to get crunchy at the tip of the middle leaf.

Another problem with this one is it came in a cube and I can't test the cube for moisture level. I'm really not comfortable with that but I'm doing the best I can.

At this point I can only assume that I've been overwatering so I'm going to try letting her dry out for a couple of days. Can someone confirm that this is the right way to go?

More importantly, can someone tell me how to tell the difference between an overwatered & underwatered plant in the future?

Thanks, & sorry for being such a newbie.

Sorry, forgot the pic for the above message.

BTW, the mix is 1/3 perlite & 2/3 soil.

hi all. im new to this and in need of help. ive attached some pics of my plants there white rhino and at 3 weeks of flower. the problem is the leaves are going yellow and droopy, is this to much nutes

starhawk2888 said:

I got a quick question that may have been answered already. Could improper light placement cause the tips to curl up, leaves to turn a little yellow, and stunted growth?

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Sure can, and has happened to me often, always heat related though. I've found that once those leaves curl, get a little crispy, they never return to normal. Turning yellow is not good, means they are getting too much light normally, or not enough N.

I know I haven't gotten an answer to my last question yet, but I already have another.

This plant started as a clone, I planter her 12 days ago. I'm using Foxfarm Ocean Forrest with a 1/3 perlite & 2/3 soil mix. I also mixed in 2 tablespoons of blood meal (12-0-0) and 2 tablespoons of bone meal (0-10-0) into each 5 gallon pot.

2 leaves on the bottom are very light green. Not really yellow I don't think, just kinda very light green. One of the leaves also has some damage, I think from accidentally getting water on it during one of the waterings.

Could she need nutes already? Or can the nutes in the dirt plus what I added be burning her?

do the plants still produce buds if overfert. my plant leaves are turning brown from overfertilization and i want to know should i just destroy or will it come back to a healthy life?

New question. The little one has a leaf that's starting to get crispy/crunchy. Is this a sign of over watering, under watering, or nute burn?

Someone please help before she dies.

10 hrs & still no answers. I guess I'm on my own.

Thanks and have a nice holiday everyone.

bestbet06 said:

do the plants still produce buds if overfert. my plant leaves are turning brown from overfertilization and i want to know should i just destroy or will it come back to a healthy life?

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If your leaves are badly turning brown you need to flush to get that excess nutes out. If its a bit of brown at the tips, you'll be fine without flushing.

DannyGreenEyes said:

New question. The little one has a leaf that's starting to get crispy/crunchy. Is this a sign of over watering, under watering, or nute burn?

Someone please help before she dies.

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Heres a couple of links to help you out Danny. You really need to get better pictures up. Its hard to tell whats wrong with your plants from the pics posted.

http://forum.grasscity.com/sick-plants-problems/228558-brownish-orange-spots-mag-def.html

https://www.rollitup.org/marijuana-plant-problems/216537-self-diagnose-your-plants.html


http://www.ganjaguerrilla.net/index.htm

DaveCoulier said:

If your leaves are badly turning brown you need to flush to get that excess nutes out. If its a bit of brown at the tips, you'll be fine without flushing.



Heres a couple of links to help you out Danny. You really need to get better pictures up. Its hard to tell whats wrong with your plants from the pics posted.

http://forum.grasscity.com/sick-plants-problems/228558-brownish-orange-spots-mag-def.html

https://www.rollitup.org/marijuana-plant-problems/216537-self-diagnose-your-plants.html


http://www.ganjaguerrilla.net/index.htm

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Thanks, those links are helpful.

The little one was underwatered, a problem that there's unfortunately little info on how to identify. But I carefully dug out the cube a minute ago and the cube was bone dry. So I gave her 2 cups of water and I'll check on her in a little bit. At this point I may have to put a half of a 2-litre bottle over her and mist heavily like she was a clipping, poor girl is so dry.

The other problem may be nitrogen burn, I've also seen a few leaf tips burned and one leaf has brown spots. That 3rd link showed each of these under the nute burn pics. Very little of the plant material (8 plants collectively) looks like it's been burned.

I'm using Foxfarm Ocean Forrest and I mixed in 2 teaspoons of blood meal (12-0-0) & 2 tablespoons of bone meal (0-10-0)with each 5 gallon pot. I thought that was a safe mix.

Can anyone tell me if the plants will be ok as they get older or if I need to flush the soil?

If I need to flush, one of those links said to flush I need to use 3 gallons of water for every 1 gallon of dirt. That's 15 gallons of water for each 5 gallon pot. Talk about overwatering. lol Can anyone tell me if this is right or if I can get away with flushing with less water considering the current nute level?

Also, if I need to flush how old or tall should the plants be to handle that much water without dying? (The pots have drainage holes at the bottom and I'm sure I'll need to do this in the bathtub, but the soil is still going to end up saturated and will probably take a few days to dry out)

Its recommended to use 2-3x the volume of the pot when flushing.

Did your problems start after putting the clone into the new soil? If so, perhaps it did get burned. They look a bit small. Perhaps it was too much too soon. Have they gotten any worse the longer they've stayed in the soil? When I burned a couple of my plants it was very minor and never got any worse.

Ive yet to ever flush(im a newbie too). Im unsure how flushing would work on organic nutes like the meals in the soil.

I dont think you need to worry about your plants dying from one flushing. It would take repeated over-watering to eventually kill them.

DaveCoulier said:

Its recommended to use 2-3x the volume of the pot when flushing.

Did your problems start after putting the clone into the new soil? If so, perhaps it did get burned. They look a bit small. Perhaps it was too much too soon. Have they gotten any worse the longer they've stayed in the soil? When I burned a couple of my plants it was very minor and never got any worse.

Ive yet to ever flush(im a newbie too). Im unsure how flushing would work on organic nutes like the meals in the soil.

I dont think you need to worry about your plants dying from one flushing. It would take repeated over-watering to eventually kill them.

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There was some minor leaf damage before I planted, but I clipped those leaves so I could keep track of what happened after I planted. I didn't want to get confused by older damage. So any damage that's there now was done after planting.

Also the plant with the one leaf that's damaged the most (only 1 where damage is more than minor) came planted in a 20oz Pepsi bottle. I did the best I could to cut it out of the bottle without stressing the roots too much, but I'm sure they got stressed some. It's hard as heck to get them out of bottles shaped like that. That may be a contributing factor in the damage to that leaf.

The little one is brand new, only 4 days old. The other one was planted 12 days ago with the other 6, and it's actually one of the two fastest growers so far. I know the pic isn't good (gotta get a real camera) but it's at least doubled the number of leaves since I planted her.

I'm glad to hear that you didn't need to flush. There's only about 6 leaves total with any damage at all, and (except for that one leaf) they only have very minor damage. So I'll keep my eye on them but I think maybe I wont need to flush. *knock on wood*

On the next grow I'll try the soil without bone or blood meal and if I'm still having problems I'll try a different soil with less nutes.

Thanks for all your help man. I hope I can return the favor.

I probably wouldn't put too much stock in root stress causing problems. On my very first transplants, one rootball collapsed in my hands, and I ripped about 2 inches of roots away from the other ones rootball. The one who had ripped roots kept right on growing like nothing ever happened. The one with the collapsed RB didn't grow anymore for 5 days, but no visible signs of stress on the leaves. MJ is pretty resilient and will resists our attempts to fuck things up .

I hope your plants continue to get well. Things may seem like the end of the world when you see problems on the leaves, but its not. Check out pics of my plant on the previous page. I ended up losing 4 leaves but the plant is looking nice and healthy now. She was just begging for some food. Who knew under-feeding could cause so many problems?

DaveCoulier said:

I probably wouldn't put too much stock in root stress causing problems. On my very first transplants, one rootball collapsed in my hands, and I ripped about 2 inches of roots away from the other ones rootball. The one who had ripped roots kept right on growing like nothing ever happened. The one with the collapsed RB didn't grow anymore for 5 days, but no visible signs of stress on the leaves. MJ is pretty resilient and will resists our attempts to fuck things up .

I hope your plants continue to get well. Things may seem like the end of the world when you see problems on the leaves, but its not. Check out pics of my plant on the previous page. I ended up losing 4 leaves but the plant is looking nice and healthy now. She was just begging for some food. Who knew under-feeding could cause so many problems?

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lol, yeah thank god they're resilient too, I think I might have a black thumb. lol

Thanks, I'm only really worried right now about the little one that I underwatered. But at this point if she don't live then fuck it, I'll just have to make do with 1 less plant.

I don't mean to sound so stressed. I know I'm stressed by other stuff that's going on in my life right now. But I think mostly I sound stressed because I'm trying to learn as much as possible as quickly as I can so I don't have to ask these questions on my next grow.

Well I'm gonna take a sleeping pill & get some sleep and when I wake up tommorow I'll know if I have 7 or 8 plants. Thanks again for all your help.

BTW, if you need a good & cheap odor controller check out this thread. I advise using ONA, not Febreeze. And there are 2 versions, one for room odor control (begining of thread) & I redesigned it to be an inline odor eliminator (end of thread). https://www.rollitup.org/grow-room-design-setup/99452-diy-febreze-odor-control-bucket.html

I hope that helps you save money at some point.

DannyGreenEyes said:

Can someone help out a newbie. I'm having trouble telling the difference between underwatering & overwatering. As I understand it the leaves droop if I do either, so how do you tell the difference between underwatering & overwatering?

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You have to analyze your day to day processes. If the plant is droopy and the pot is light to the lift, it probably isn't getting enough water. If the plant is droopy and you've been watering frequently, then it probably isn't getting enough water. Difference? Root system is OK on one and rotted on the other. Copius watering is not an issue unless it excludes air.

The water meter read a 5 on a level of 1-10 so I didn't water the first day. The second day the meter read 3.5 and the leaves were starting to droop, so I gave her a cup of water.

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Don't measure, water well to a point of alot of runoff. BTW, I wouldn't put too much value on those meters.

Like I said...... V

The third day the leaves were drooping a little worse and the meter once again read about a 3.5, so I gave her another cup of water. This is what she looked like the 4th day (this morning). And the meter is once again reading 3.5. And the leaf in front is starting to get crunchy at the tip of the middle leaf.

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Moisture stress.

Another problem with this one is it came in a cube and I can't test the cube for moisture level. I'm really not comfortable with that but I'm doing the best I can.

At this point I can only assume that I've been overwatering so I'm going to try letting her dry out for a couple of days. Can someone confirm that this is the right way to go?

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Yeah, but don't be surprised if it never fully recovers.

There are soil drenches available that will kill soil borne fungus spores of different types if indeed it is a case of root rot. You need to LOOK at the root system and decide on whether it's worth saving or not.

Good luck,
UB

Uncle Ben,

I think i'm having the opposite problem. Not enough light and the room itself being a little bit chilly (sometimes it feels like it get to around 60 degrees f. with the lights off). Im adding more light as we speak, and have the smallest mini heater with a variable speed and temp settings that was available. They look much better with just the warmer air circulating around them though. They are just taking sooo long to grow, especially the autoflowering seeds from lowryder.

Fellers, the success of this hobby is dependent on the sum of the parts. If one part of the link is weak, don't expect things to work out. Why attempt to grow if you can't provide your plants with what they need regarding temps, light, watering, 16 essential elements, etc? You're just pissin' into the wind unless you have your program dialed in correctly.

Good luck,
UB

would you maybe know why my leaves are turning yellow ? there not cupping or turning or anything there just going yellow .... i am using soil with a growtex grow formula .... shes about a month old ...i dont over water always let soil dry before watering again ...but not dry fully all the time... i just cant get it maybe you can help ??