Knocking on Heavens Door - Shriveled Plants
8 month old plant, drained reservor, switched to flowering nutrients (slightly higher Phosphorus) and used a "bloom" enhancing spray. 72 hours later, she's a shriveled-up version of her former self. I think I over did it with the nutrient switch. Clearex won't arrive for another two days. Is there anything I can do to save her now? pH and temp always checked. Never flushed for salt build up. Nutrient toxicity? Please respond. Thanks.-C.
Answer: C- if a plant shrivels up that quickly right after a nutrient switch, there is little question what caused the problem. Either the nutrient strength was too strong (TDS/EC), or else your plants didn't like the bloom enhancing spray.
When using some spray-on products, you have to be careful. I found that out the hard way when I sprayed a garden down with neam oil. The way the neam oil coats the leaf (and partially blocks stomata) makes the plants very sensitive to warm temperatures. Blocking stomata prevents a plant from transpiring, and therefore from cooling itself properly. You are never supposed to spray your plants with anything while they are in the full sun (or under HID grow lights).
If you do spray them down with something while the lights are on, than you are supposed to raise your grow lights two feet for the next 24 hours. For neam oil at least, you are than supposed to spray the plants down with plain water, than let them dry completely before lowering the lights again. Yes, it is a pain in the but....but when it comes to neam oil, they are serious about it- my whole garden was shriveled up, with each leaf having died back about 20%....fried, very similar looking to having over-fertilized (which I knew was not the case).
Your description immediately brought back memories of my neam oil experience. My gut feeling is that the damage was a result of the bloom enhancing spray, and probably not from the nutrient switch (although I do not know what strength nutrient solution you where feeding them in veg and I do not know what strength nutrient solution you mixed up for them at the time of the nutrient change). If your new bloom nutrients were mixed up too strongly, this could be just as much the problem.
Whatever damage is already done. Even clearex, at this point, will not really help reverse the damage or prevent further damage. I recommend reducing the nutrient solution strength, at least to the same strength the plants were receiving in veg (which you knew was a safe level). I would also raise your lights, spray all of the plants down with plain water (or water with a little B1 in it), and lower the lights again the following day. This will help bounce back whatever was left living on your plants.
You will be delayed in flowering, and you will have a greatly reduced yield. You may want to test and record the nutrient solution strength and make a special note....just in case it turns out that the nutrient strength WAS too high. You may want to consider the nutrient strength you were feeding to your plants during the last week of veg as your "upper limit"....even if this is only 900 ppm. So, sit down and think hard about which of these two possibilities best fit the conditions in your garden at the time....in that consideration you will find your best answer (it may be a little of each). I hope this helps you out, and Happy Growing!
AffordableGarden Design&Setup
Hi everyone, Jason from Jason's Indoor Guide here. When I got started with hydroponic gardening more than 24 years ago, my first garden used rockwool cubes and B.C. Nutrients....and I remember thinking to myself yeah, sure, there may be a lot of advantages to gardening with hydroponics, for example there are very few pest problems, therefore very little pest control, no weeding, no plowing or tilling the soil, no soil testing or having to add things into the garden soil, no watering the garden....but for someone who just wants to grow their own vegetables and have more control over their food supply and the quality of the food that they eat, the cost of constantly having to buy grow media and hydroponic nutrients makes this an expensive hobby for most people...
Epic Nutrient Change
I suppose when you take into consideration how much money you save NOT
having to buy food at the grocery store, it is surely cheaper to grow
your own food hydroponically even with the cost of high quality
nutrients. Nevertheless, I didn't have a whole lot of money to work with
and I needed to make my efforts as affordable and effective as
possible....and in the last 24 years I HAVE learned a thing or two!
As you browse through Jason's Indoor Guide, you will notice all of the
systems that I use personally are homemade systems. As I got 3 or 4
years of experience under my belt, I quickly adopted a preference to
standing water systems and systems that use expanded clay pellets or
lava rock, because the media is re-usable and it eliminates a huge
operating expense. So once a hydroponic system is built, garden
maintenance is minimal- check and adjust the nutrient solution daily,
and to change it completely every 2 weeks....and the biggest operating
cost is the hydroponic nutrients. (and the electric bill, lol)...
Homemade Cloner
And, regarding the cost of the nutrients....I experimented for about 3 years with making different compost teas and nutrient teas, but there is still a lot of expense $$$ associated with making high quality nutrient teas....like kelp meal, liquid seaweed, rock dust, bat guano, un-Sulfured molasses, worm castings. You can eliminate a lot of this expense by becoming an expert at making high-quality colloidal humus compost, and use your properly made compost as the basis of your hydroponic nutrient solution.
Unfortunately, I have been gardening for over 24 years and I have only
just recently mastered this difficult skill....and even then, only
because I happened to find a very easy to follow, high quality technique
and decided to follow the instructions to the letter. I produced more
high quality compost in just one week than I was able to use in a whole
year! If you can master the technique, I highly recommend it. It is one of the top 3 things you can do to
increase the productivity of your food production efforts, while at the
same time decreasing the amount of effort required to grow all of your
own food, and decreasing the total cost of operating your food
production system.
And when I say decrease operating costs, I mean decrease them to almost
ZERO, especially if you are producing your own nutrients...
High Efficiency
Hydroponics
The ultimate solution to eliminate the cost of your hydroponic nutrients: Imagine a hydroponic system that does not require you to buy any nutrients, does not require you to make your own compost, and does not require you to brew your own nutrient tea. Seriously! No cost and no effort as far as providing nutrients to your plants! Plus, at the end of the gardening cycle you harvest all of your garden vegetables, PLUS YOU HARVEST FISH from the system--->
Aquaponics
This solution is aquaponics. If you are serious about producing all of your own food and being self-sufficient, this is the ultimate solution for reducing expenses (as much as possible), reducing the total amount of work required, and maximizing the productivity of your gardening efforts. I have been gardening for over 24 years, and it is the perfect food production solution in my opinion.
Besides mastering how to make high quality compost, learning aquaponics is one of the top 3 things you can do to increase your garden productivity, reduce your total costs, and reduce your total work. The product that I learned from is called Aquaponics4you. With all of my hydroponic gardening experience, the first time I came across the Aquaponics4you product I knew immediately that it was something very special! Place an aquaponics system outdoors and use the sun instead of grow lights, and you have reduced every garden expense to nearly ZERO!
The Same System/ 10 Weeks Later!
