Wonderland Grow

[Carcass]

That's a good plan-Water and nutes,then spray the soil-It'll soak in better
if the soil's already damp.
If you add just a couple of drops of mild dish soap to the peroxide solution,it'll "stick" to the leaves better,
as opposed to just balling up and rolling off..

 

[Carcass]

Hey Alice-I think I may have your little brown bug figured out-I found one walking across
the counter in my kitchen-they show up every so often-They're called cigarette
or drugstore beetles,and they love to get into boxes (or bags) of rice or pasta opened or unopened.
They also have an affinity for pharmaceuticals,hence the name.
I've found them in unopened packages of spaghetti-they also fly,so that's they get to other parts of the house besides the kitchen .
I got a pic of the one I found,looks pretty close to what you found:

and laying on his back:

They also eat cured tobacco...but not live cannabis,so not to worry...

So I've got to go through my pasta inventory to find which bag they're eating on.....

 

[AliceGG]

Hey carcass, yes, this one looks exactly like mine. I wasn't too worried about it, because I've only found one so far, but it's great that you could identify it.

As for the gnats... I slept from about 6pm to 11pm yesterday evening, then woke up, and went to war. I've already put a sticky trap two days ago into my pantry, that's where my trash bin was. The strip caught about 20-30 gnats, which is good, but at the same time terrifying too. Most of them were inside the bin, I suppose, so if there are already more than 20 trapped on the strip in 2 days, how many could have been down there in the trash? The cat litter box is quite clean of them now, I only saw 3-4 when I checked it.
But my garden, oh well, it's worse than I thought. I didn't see too much flying around in the last two days, so I thought I would water the ladies this night. I took them out from the tent, and put them on the table to have a thorough inspection. I used my phone's flashlight and a long, wooden kitchen spoon to dig up the soil a bit. As I dug around the top layer, a LOT of gnats started to come out from everywhere. I haven't seen larvaes, just the adult ones, but it's quite obvious that they weren't just resting down there, they must have put a lot of eggs in my soil. I gave both plants a feeding (details later), and after I finished, I sprayed the surface of the soil with the hidrogen peroxide solution, diluted the 1dl to 3dl water. I've also put two sticky traps on the soil, managed to rip off a few lower leaves with them, they are indeed very sticky. Since these traps/strips work very well in the pantry, I have to buy more, for sure. I pretty much ran out of the peroxide, so I couldn't spray the leaves, I believe the soil is more important, it's the larvae making the most damage. Hopefully, I can get more peroxide tomorrow, and I also plan to cover the surface with strips (when I get more).

I'll have a major update, I've taken a lot of pictures. I'm quite tired now, it's 11am in the morning, and I spent the night working around my garden (finally reorganized the room and things like that).
Potassium deficiency became certain now (the unique yellow edges appeared on lower leaves), but we have other problems too. The newest leaves show interveinal chlorosis, stems and even veins on new growth became deep purple, then the veins on the lower leaves are yellow. New brown spots appeared too, not like the ones before, it might be manganese, I don't know yet. The newest leaves have long, but very thin blades. A few of these symptoms are now present on both plants.

So I have a lot of things to figure out in the upcoming days. I'm going to sleep a bit now, thank god today is public holiday, I can rest.
Pictures and details are coming soon!

 

[SlyTown420]

Get some rest. Then kill 'em all. Let God sort them out!

 

[Carcass]

I never thought about it,but you sure don't want to drop a sticky trap on your plants...instant defoliation!

Sorry to hear about the latest problems-I'm weak on diagnosing deficiencies,but,fortunately there's
plenty of other "good hands" following your thread,so you'll have knowledgeable help sorting them out...

 

[bobrown14]

I checked the brown aphids on google, they have longer legs just like spider mites have. This one has very, very small, short legs right under his body. I used my phone's flashlight, now I could see that its whole back is brown, while its head is dark black. I can only see the tiny legs, but can't really count them. I'm trying to find a loupe somewhere, so maybe I can get a better look of him.

Not spider mites - they don't fly. Get a fan on the soil line you likely have fungus gnats. Very common usually from damp soil. They need to get back to the soil to finish their life cycle and lay eggs. They don't fly very well so a small 9" fan is about all you need and point it at the soil. The gnats cant fly back to the soil so no more eggs and no more gnats.

Dunks and sticky traps are not for plants that we are going to consume. The traps are nasty and they off gas chemicals and the dunks are not for what we are growing here. A fan will do.


Spider mites are pretty small. They eat leaves and use a sort of needle nose and poke a hole in the leaf and suck out the fluids. They leave a tell tale tiny light tan spot on the leaf. They all hell breaks out. Usually by the time I find them there are many tiny dots on many leaves and its an infestation.

I take close up pics of all my plants in flower specifically looking for the early signs - they start out as a nymph which is VERY small. Too small to see.

If bugs are a thing, and they are for anyone that grows more than 1 grow, look into IPM - integrated pest management. I use an organic bacteria that I spray 1x a week - 1tbs of Monterey Garden Spray. It's spinosad. VERY common in organic farming of all sorts. Fruit trees and veggies.It's only downside is that direct spray on honey bees will sometimes kill them if its strong enough solution. Since cannabis is self pollinating, honey bees are not interested.

Not sure what it's called in your country but the active ingredient is Spinosad. Its a bacteria that degrades in light and you can use this up to the day before harvest if you need to.

I find that a 1x weekly spray of a weak solution is enough. Until it isnt. Spider mites like warm weather in say 30c or there a bouts. That temp the dormant eggs hatch. We just had our first 30C day in my flower room today. I sprayed 2 days ago in anticipation. Spray everything top to btm btm to top.

 

[bobrown14]

I checked the brown aphids on google, they have longer legs just like spider mites have. This one has very, very small, short legs right under his body. I used my phone's flashlight, now I could see that its whole back is brown, while its head is dark black. I can only see the tiny legs, but can't really count them. I'm trying to find a loupe somewhere, so maybe I can get a better look of him.

Take a pic - and can you see any damage on leaves?

 

[AliceGG]

This week has been a nightmare, but here I am with an update.
My AK is dying.

4 days ago, on Tuesday night, I fed the plants. This is what I mixed into about 8l (~2gal) of half tapwater-half ionised water:
9ml BioGrow
15ml AlgaMic
15ml ActiVera
18ml BioBloom
15ml TopMax
no FishMix

It might seem a lot, but only the grow and bloom nutes contain higher levels of N, P and K, so I guess (?) it isn't overfeeding. Unfortunately, it didn't stop the yellowing and the brown spots.
@Pennywise, you were right about potassium deficiency. A few of the lower leaves have that unique yellowing on the edges, that's clearly potassium. Now Jack also has two leaves that show the same, so she is also thirsty for potassium. But I don't know how much I should give them. Maybe I should increase the bloom nute dosage and cut back on the grow totally? I'm a bit lost.
I got some Epsom salt too. It might not be only potassium, but I haven't give them the extra magnesium yet. The yellowing and brow spots advanced up to middle leaves as well. The plant itself (the AK) stopped growing completely, I guess this is the time for the buds to fatten up. But her youngest leaves show interveinal chlorosis, which can be a lot of things, but not really potassium... To be honest, I have no idea what to do, what to feed now. I'm worried that if I give her extra magnesium, it might lock out potassium uptake, and will make things worse. Let's see a few pictures about the AK first, and then I'll talk about Jack too.

These signs are clearly potassium:

The top leaves actually got this thin:

This is near the top of the plant. The stem is green here.
Not very apparent on this photo, but the top leaves are fading between the veins. They are clearly lighter green than some of the lower growth. The plant was actually dark, deep green throughout veg, but now it is loosing its color.

This leaf is only a set below the one pictured above. Dark purple stem.

Most of the bottom leaves also have purple stems and veins:

Here's one from another angle. The upper half of the stems get purple:

And then this leaf developed the brown spots in really only 2-3 days. It was taken on Tuesday night:

And this one as well. It's on the main stem, not too far from the top:

And then the bottom leaves becoming more and more yellow:

So I don't know what I should do. It has been 4 days since I last fed her, so tonight or tomorrow I have to make a mix. What do you guys think? Should I purchase Canna Potassium? It's 20% potassium, and for some reason, the description says, it must not be mixed with nutes that contain calcium or magnesium. Is this for lockout reasons?
Canna is not organic though, but I don't even care that much about being organic anymore, I just want to save my AK. What if I just increase the BioBloom dosage? BioBizz' recommendation is 4ml/l maximum, so with 18ml into 8l on Tuesday, I was actually at half strength.

10 photos/post, so I'll continue in a new post with pics about Jack, and a few words about the gnats.

 

[Pennywise]

The last few pics show classic calcium deficiency. Is your ph in range.

 

[AliceGG]

Jack Herer looks a bit better. She clearly needs/needed more potassium, but I'm more concerned about interveinal chlorosis on her. Pretty much all of her leaves that get direct light are fading between the veins. Growth has also slowed down, probably even stopped. If this is her final shape, I don't think she will yield more than 10-15 grams of dried bud, which is not very much.

These photos are from Tuesday.

(Yes, that's a christmas tree in the background. )

Leaves, which are not directly lightened are darker green:

It's how the top of the plant looks like:

And this one is from yesterday. 10 separate budsites, but the plant is quite small.

Signs of potassium def on her too.

I found this leaf in the middle, squeezed by a larger fanleaf. The plant chose this one to suck nutrients out from, it is quite interesting. This photo is from Tuesday.

And the same leaf a few hours ago, I took it off. I guess it means that the potassium I provided wasn't enough, because yellowing didn't stop.

Now, what to say about the gnats. I don't see a lot of them, but I haven't checked the soil very thouroughly. The sticky traps caught a few, I will dig up the top layer of the soil when I'm feeding the girls. I couldn't get more hidrogen peroxide on Thursday, they said I should come back on Monday. I bought lavender scented, spiral-shaped mosquito coils. I don't know if I can safely light them in the tent. Maybe I won't.

 

[AliceGG]

The last few pics show classic calcium deficiency. Is your ph in range.

Yes, it is between 5.9-6.5 all of the time.
But I've never added additional calcium, only what's in my tapwater. That is ~90ppm calcium.

 

[Old Salt]

Have you checked the NPK ratios for all of your products. The images of BioBloom I found show 20/7/4 to my aging eyes. If this is true, you may be giving them too much nitrogen as well. For comparison, the General Hydroponics' Flora Bloom is 0/5/4. You definitely need to look closely at the all the labels to see what you are feeding them.

It could be that you need a potassium supplement, but you may be able to adjust the ratio of what you have to accomplish the same thing.

 

[Pennywise]

I give her more calcium

 

[AliceGG]

Have you checked the NPK ratios for all of your products. The images of BioBloom I found show 20/7/4 to my aging eyes. If this is true, you may be giving them too much nitrogen as well. For comparison, the General Hydroponics' Flora Bloom is 0/5/4. You definitely need to look closely at the all the labels to see what you are feeding them.

It could be that you need a potassium supplement, but you may be able to adjust the ratio of what you have to accomplish the same thing.

Where do you see those images?
BioBloom is 2-7-4, as far as I know.

I give her more calcium

Ok. In what form of Ca should I do that? Calcium nitrate or a CalMag product?

 

[Pennywise]

I grab a calmag product.

 

[AliceGG]

Not spider mites - they don't fly. Get a fan on the soil line you likely have fungus gnats. Very common usually from damp soil. They need to get back to the soil to finish their life cycle and lay eggs. They don't fly very well so a small 9" fan is about all you need and point it at the soil. The gnats cant fly back to the soil so no more eggs and no more gnats.

Dunks and sticky traps are not for plants that we are going to consume. The traps are nasty and they off gas chemicals and the dunks are not for what we are growing here. A fan will do.

Unfortunately, a small fan itself wasn't quite enough. For sure, it annoyed the gnats to some degree, but if only a few of them manage to get down to the soil, they can lay hundeds of eggs.
This traps I bought are called BioStop. Its description clearly states that the product is safe for pets and children, so I hope I haven't added any unwanted chemicals with them.

 

[bobrown14]

Pests are on-going. They never stop. I'm suggesting a long term solution.

 

[Pbass]

They look pretty dang green from my newbro perspective @AliceGG ! You might have some rough around the edges but those girls look solid to me. Seems like the fix I tried last week doesn't show up till next week so I can't ever really be sure of what's going on this week...my plants just keep rolling on despite me lol! You'll lick those bugs, get nutes in line...big bud will ensue to be sure, I feel it! Plus this LA Conf has me all jacked up. Cheers woohoo!

 

[AliceGG]

Pests are on-going. They never stop. I'm suggesting a long term solution.

I only found one product that contains Spinosad. It's called Laser (Dow Agrosciences). Quantity is 1litre, there's 240g of spinosad substance in it. Here comes the price. ~315$ for a 1l bottle. It must be a really useful product for this price, I have no doubt about that.
But, to be honest, here in Central/Eastern Europe I make about 660$ (converted) a month. I'm not ready to spend half of that on a pesticide product. Is it this expensive in the US too?

 

[AliceGG]

They look pretty dang green from my newbro perspective @AliceGG ! You might have some rough around the edges but those girls look solid to me. Seems like the fix I tried last week doesn't show up till next week so I can't ever really be sure of what's going on this week...my plants just keep rolling on despite me lol! You'll lick those bugs, get nutes in line...big bud will ensure to be sure, I feel it! Plus this LA Conf has me all jacked up. Cheers woohoo!

Thank you for the heart-warming words, Pbass!
I was a bit too negative today, I admit it.

Here's an inside pic of the AK without the top cola from a few days ago.

It isn't looking that bad as I might have pictured, but you know, I'm a newbie and I tend to often get worried.