Flowering, pistils all dying or dead: Help!

[Lusi]

Hi!

I have 4 plants outside in full bloom. They are in separate locations. My soil usually has 6.8 ph, never above 7 or lower than 5.5. I feed MG tomato food every 2 weeks. They get bug sprayed once a week with different types of sprays, mostly organic. Since my leaf tips were also dying, I bought a fertilizer meter. It said all were low on nutrients and I added a lot more MG tomato food and some blooming food with less N. It look a lot of these to get the meter to say they were enough. I made sure it worked by trying it in a pot of miracle grow pre fertilized seedling soil. The meter works fine. The only thing I can think of is I didn't saturate the soil when fertilizing... not sure if I am supposed to?! I have tried flushing the plant in the pics, it did nothing.

For the past two weeks, my flowering plants have had their pistils die and turn brown. They start dying from the tip to the base and on all buds. The pistils all pretty much dead now. I've looked all over the internet and have posted in several forums about the pistils and dead leaf tips, but have few answers and no ideas for this problem. Someone said nutrient burn for the dead leaf tips, but my nutrients were very low when I checked. These are only into 4 weeks of flowering and no one yet seems to know what is wrong! :-(

What causes the healthy white pistils to suddenly die?
Can I still save these plants and buds?
If not, should I let them keep growing, harvest what little there is, over even try to make the plants veg again? (most are too large to bring in, but digging them up and cutting 1/2 of them off might be possible)

Please help! This is my first grow. These were started in May, first signs of sex in mid September. The pistils weren't alive long enough to turn orange... just dead. :-(

Here's the photos.

The first and last photo are of the same plants, 5 days apart! Second pic is also of the same plant
The 3rd pic is of a 2 week younger plant that was in the middle of dead pistils.
Except for dead leaf tips, a few yellow leaves, and a few white flies, these plants look healthy. The plant in the 3rd pic has no signs of bugs a all!

15Oct plant bud 1

15oct plant 1another bud

15Oct plant 2, younger plant

10October same plant as pic #1, 5 days earlier!! The pistils are just starting to die. It was at this point I started looking for help.

 

[glasseye]

if you are still spraying for bugs this far into flower, the bug spray will kill the pistils, whether organic or not.

 

[Lusi]

It will!!??? Oh no! The bugs are coming out worse now that they are blooming! Is not even insect soad or garlic spray ok? How can I kill the bugs and not damage the plants? Can I still save these buds, or get new ones to grow if I cut off the old? Do I just leave them like this and see if they still get more THC?

I spray the with a hose every week to try and blast bugs off. I'm losing the battle. ;-(

Please let me know if there is a way to keep the bugs away. Each night I get more of them.

 

[glasseye]

cold water sprays will knock the buggers off, with a hard spray from a pressure sprayer. hose pressure seems a little to forceful to me. you may damage the bud. also you gotta consider the possibility of bud rot if youre spraying them all the time.

 

[Lusi]

I don't quite understand... When you say pressure sprayer, I think of the kind to clean your patio and car... ?! Since we don't have rain here, I've been using the hose, but on the spray setting, not the hard blast from a stream. I have no visible bugs on these plants except white flies, just the damage from bugs that I can't see. :-( I don't know what is doing this damage, but it has to be something that flies. I see many white butterflies and moths. Each night, something flies about all of my plants and leaves flea sized single egg all over, leaf tops, leaf bottoms, buds everywhere. Water does not knock them off and there are too many for me to find them all each day. Do you know what these could be? I think the stippling might be caused by the white flies, but have no idea since it happens in 24 hours from a healthy leaf to spotted one.

When you say pressure sprayer, do you mean the mist from one of those pump bug sprayers? Is even hand soap and garlic too much for the buds?

The humidity here is low and I don't see any signs of mold or fungus. In my veggy garden, everything but tomato plants are covered in powdery mildew. i have to give up on spraying for this and just dig it all up and compost it. No sign of this on my MJ plants or flowers. Is bud rot the same fungus as powdery mildew?

Is it possible to still save my buds and plants? What happens to the buds now that all the pistils are dead? I thought about cutting them off, but it is already late in the season and the girls are too big to bring inside. This is frustrating after 5 months of work to have the plants sick now. :-(

Does bug spray also cause the dead leaf tips? I've checked again and my plants are still under fertilized. I'll keep feeding them with every watering until the meter says it's enough.

Thanks for the help!

 

[glasseye]

sorry, i have no experience with the the flies you are describing. mites, from my experience, the mites spend the majority of there life on the underside of leaves. ant sign of what these single eyes hatch into?

yes,i was referring to a hand pump up sprayer previously. you can try water and garlic, but you have to see if the spray kills the pistils. it may take days for the pistil growth to come back. most of the time we spray the hell out of the plants in the first two weeks of flowering, when there isnt ant pistil growth, and thats the last spray they get til harvest.
bud rot and powdery mildew are not the same thing. bud rot doenst seem like an issue where you are.
i wouldnt cut your bud yet, hopefully someone from your region will pipe up and come to your rescue. good luck

 

[HempsterDufus]

Pistils start turning that reddish brown late in flowering no matter what you do, if this is happening early it is because of the spray. The bug spray will burn the leaf tips as it collects on the tips of the leaves before drying. You should not be spraying any chemical insect killers at this point. Don't spray flowering plants with any sort of garlic spray unless you really love garlic flavored smoke.

The moths you're talking about lay eggs in your buds which turn into caterpillars/budworms. Go to a local garden center and find a BT (Bacillus thuringiensis) product in a spray or dust. You can use up until the day of harvest. This is a natural bacteria that is lethal to moths and caterpillars. If the damage you're referring to is eaten leaves and you're seeing those black dots you call "eggs", then you definitely have a caterpillar problem IMO. The black things aren't necessarily eggs but caterpillars crap as they eat.

Examine your plant closely for the little green bastards. If they aren't there but you have alot of moths, they will be sooner or later so get out ahead of the caterpillars before they hatch and eat up your bud.

Also, I'm not crazy about the ferts you're using. See if you can find some Jack's Classic Bloom Booster in your area. By far the best for the price IMO.

This could all be worthless info for you though, pics are necessary to diagnose what's going on. Get some up asap.

 

[JJ Bones]

I don't get the claims regarding the spray...how would the spray only affect the pistils and not the leaf or bud?

 

[diggler35007]

looks normal , i wouldnt spay them with anything . you may have a sooner chop time than you think .

 

[Lusi]

Thanks for the advice again. My local stores don't have any type of powder, let alone one this specific. They don't even carry a kind of neem oil! The only things they have are chemicals I've never heard of, insect soap I already have, and an insect oil that is 94% Canola oil and 6% mystery ingredient. I don't see how this is possible and neither did the woman in the garden section. She said no one buys this stuff for a reason.

If you can think of soemthing online, it's the only option left!

If you guys can't see the photos of the pistils, let me know. The last photo on the post is of a a plant where the pistils were just beginning to die the first two were 5 days later! As of yesterday, all 6 plants have dead pistils. They are completely dried up and 100% dead. They went from alive to dead skipping the amber and other colors they should have gotten later in bloom.

It gets worse.... Now that I have my jewler's loupe, I find hundred of tiny eggs all over the one plant I can't reach with a hose. If I can't spray my plant, what do I do before these hatch?? If they didn't already hatch this morning... On top of that, this one plant shows a possible magnesiumm deficiency. A few of the leaves are yellow except fo the green veins. I'll try for a pic.

So... what to do about the eggs and magn. for one plant, plus the dead pistils for the others? I've looked carefully at them with my 30x galss and the pistils are all 100% dried up and dead. They when from white to this in just a few days!

I'll try for more photos

TY!

 

[glasseye]

the canola oil will work. it clogs the mites breathing apparatus and they suffocate. any type of oil, whether canola or plain mineral oil will work. it also clogs the plants respiratory system on the underside of the leaf, so after a couple canola sprays, you are going to have to rinse the leave off of your plant. warm soapy water ( like a teaspoon dish soap(non bacterial) in a gallon) will wash your plant. i learned this the hard way. lost a couple mothers.
growing and watering the plants are the easy part, it comes down to how well you keep the critters away to see if you get good harvests!

 

[Lusi]

OK, oil I can do. Is this safe while the plants are blooming? What mix of oil to water... or other do I need?

I looked again today. I just see tiny white eggs, no bugs. Can I kill whatever is in them before they hatch... and not kill the buds.

Today, all my efforts the last few days have made things worse. Many brow spots and now the leaves are looking odd. I'll try and get pix up. :-(

 

[Lusi]

Wow, this problem has really messed up my harvest. I haven't an idea if it was too late or too early, so harvested half.

Here's the lonk to my thread about that.... Trichs never turned amber

For bugs, I ended up drowning them in the bath filled with soapy water. The larger plants went into the "hot tub" which has no chlorine and is not usable, thanks to the slum lord land lord. I did al plants but one. All are now 100% free of bugs and show no signs of bud rot or anything else! :-D

 

[PrairiePoet]

I had bug problems with my last grow. I used a oil/tobacco juice combination that worked very well. Though it did burn all the pistols, and set flowering back by two weeks.

I would wait out until the tricomes are starting to turn amber.

Prairie

 

[Lusi]

Does that tobacco juice help repel bugs, or just kill them? That's one thing I haven't tried yet!

My soaking plant, soil, and pot in a soapy bath has worked. All of the plants are bug free and are still doing well. The trichs re just now turning amber. I wish I hadn't harvested the largest part last week. :-( I was going on vacation and my back yard is easy to get into...

I sure wish I knew why my plants don't smell like pot... even the drying branches and freshly clipped leaves smell like cooking herbs?! WIERD I put some early harvested buds in the volcano. Smell yuck and don't knock me out, but it does help the pain. I'm dearly hoping the next harvest will be ones that help me sleep. It's raining now and cold, but I left them out hoping for more... Do the trichs stop maturing when the temps are a low of 38 and a high of 59, with rain rain rain?

 

[PetFlora]

All that rain and humidity is not helping the bug problem or mold. Can you move them indoors?

You can dust dry plants with Diatomaceous Earth. It is like glass to the bugs tares them apart.

As far as smell, looks like you have a ways to go before that happens. Mine usually do not smell much. In another 2 weeks 'if' you GENTLY squeeze a small area (lower small buds are better in that you don't want to damage the top buds) then smell your fingers.

 

[Lusi]

Hey thanks! This will be long.... sorry. I'm trying to give you more info so you can help me. (LMK if you need info I didn't think of!) I wish I knew more so I could say less. Argh!!! Writing these books takes a while.:surrender:

I've never heard of drying a plant like this. How do you get the debris off of the plants and unstuck from the trichs after it is dry? These darn buds have pieces of bark, soil, and perilite stuck on them still. It's been falling out as I dry them. The worse items glued to the buds is hundreds and thousands of long white cat hairs. Odd part, that cat is not allowed outside and has never been near the plants. All those hair came from my clothes?! Ick! LOL Since I have no mold in my buds, do I need to do this?

So far, mold and rot are not a problem.... the rain is just starting and will keep it up until Wed, 4 more days. The night temps are above 38 and days not above 60 until the sun comes out, then the lows will hit 35. Two plants are tucked up against the house now, one of the smallest with large buds is inside by the window, and the one in the planter has a plastic tub on top.

I just bought a new grow tent, 3x3 and hope to set it up tonight. I have 2 indoor plants in flower, 2 starting veg, and 2 clones that look pathetic. I only have a 150WHPS and CFLS with a250W total. I'm still trying to deiced on lights for the tent. The heat in CA is an issue.

I really don't know what to do about these plants. Three are easily moved and one is still in a huge planter, but can still be dug up. I've won the bug battle! and can't find a single bug. I'm sure there are some around since it's been a month with no sprays and since I dunked them. If I bring them in, I have very little light for them in the tent. I'm concerned about bugs of course, seen or not. I already see gnats swarming the indoor plants. :-( I have no idea on how much light they get on rainy days though. ? I could also put them in the garage with no lights for the next 4 days or more... until the mess outside lets up. How about baggies over the buds? They are dry right now inside, but have no light. Worth it?

As for the THC crystals... Only one plant has over 50% of the trichs with amber tips... just the round tips. The others are cloudy with very few amber tips and still with a few clear trichs. I brought these in for the night, not sure if that was a bad idea?! one plant, all Shiva Shanti II strains, has leaves turning purple, like a nute problem. The bugs are also going a deep purple. The rest of the plants remain green!? The smell... when it started raining on them, I could smell the skunky normal smell around the plants. They are inside on a table now and letting a faint odor about. The few buds I harvested yesterday with a few amber trichs, still have no smell?! WTF? No smell when cut ans dried and the few tiny buds I put in canning jars also have no MJ smell, even after a day sealed up. Even when i put a bit into my volcano... no smell????! I don't get how this is possible and have found nothing on what part of the plant it is that makes the plants smell... or why. This is so strange!


Sorry to write ya another book... It's frustrating to have come so far and still they might be lost. I regret harvesting over half of these last week, but would have regretted it more if someone stole all of them while I was gone. Are these buds with mostly clear trichs and 1/2 cloudy usable? They seem to work for the pain, more of them than medical buds are needed. They almost act like a Sativa and create anxiety while killing the pain. I had to take some Lorazapam so I could sleep after trying them out.

If you have any ideas for me, please let me know. I just don't know enough to chose between the options about the weather, or the harvest. my indoor plants are a mess too. I've been sick and not on the computer to get help.

I just took a few photos, not very good. If there are specific things you'd like to see a pic of, LMK. I hope to get a macro lens some time this week!

1) These are the largest buds I haven't harvested already. This one plant has the leaves turning purple. ??! Same strain as the others.

2) tiny bug turning purple, looks like dead leaves here, but are actually not. I don't get it...

3) This other plant is spread out with only smaller buds left. She is the most mature and has many amber colored trichs. How many of these must be amber to give me the sleep knock out effect?

4)These are the 2 plants above, brought in out of the rain. I'm sitting only a few feet away and can't smell them at all!!? The front, grumpy, is more compact and is turning purple. The other is corny, the most mature. All the big buds were harvested early. :-( Can they go back out in the rain for another 4 days? It's this, or no light for them! I could stick a CFL or two on each one/.... one other plant in here is not shown.

5)This is one of the med size buds I harvested last week. Airy from the heat. None of these smell like MJ! I'm not sure at what point they need closed in a jar?? My books don't say much about this!

 

[Lusi]

Good heavens!! I'm making some budder with 30g of scrap. Even now, there is no MJ smell coming from the simmering pot of pot.

If this is some kind of super awesome stealthy no odor strain, I wasn't aware of it. At least I have another box of ten seeds if it is. LOL!

 

[PetFlora]

Sounds like you will telling us what Cat Hair tastes like. lol

Almost any question you have, you can find answers by googling it: when to harvest, curing... many even have youtube videos.

I peaked at your gallery and noticed one plant was growing in soil, in a rather small container. You can use small containers when you flood and drain, but for growing soil, you need a lot more of it. See my article So You Want to Grow MJ, huh?

HTH

 

[PrairiePoet]

Does that tobacco juice help repel bugs, or just kill them? That's one thing I haven't tried yet!

My homemade bug juice only kills the adults. It doesn't get rid of eggs, so I have to spray every three days. It has oil and soap in it too.

I sure wish I knew why my plants don't smell like pot... even the drying branches and freshly clipped leaves smell like cooking herbs?! WIERD

I don't know what strain I'm growing but I get very little smell, until the last few weeks.

Do the trichs stop maturing when the temps are a low of 38 and a high of 59, with rain rain rain?

This i don't know. I'm sure you are close to the bottom limit. Six more degrees and you are getting frost. PetFlora was right on this one, google it. Or search through 420 Mag.

Also, only 250 watts of CFL will be barely enough. I run a little over double that.

Prairie