Does anyone have a view on why my plant has these pale spots / holes / leaf tears in most of the mature leaves? I have inspected the undersides carefully and can see no gnats or other insects. I put in some stickies and had no insects. I’ve been rigorous with pH (6.2-6.3)i and careful to avoid overwatering. It is 5 weeks since germination and I’ve only last week started with half-strength Purgrun nutrient, so I wonder if it could be due to a lack of nutrients?
Northern Lights feminised, indoors, in soil/perlite.
Thanks a lot guys. I am continuing with Neem oil even though I see no insects. I’ve also sprayed with a chemical anti-insect garden spray and hope that doesn’t do more damage than good. I will also go up to manufacturers recco on nutrient strength in case it could be nitrogen deficiency.
As green and healthy as your plant looks, other than the holes, id not change the nutrients at this time. Use the neem oil spray until run off on the plant leaves for 7 days. Make sure your grow environment is clean and be patient. The holes wont repair themselves, but as long as they dont continue your plant will be fine.
Thanks Msg. One thing I just found from a web search that can be useful for others is that a Neem oil mixture degrades after 8 hours and so should be made fresh for each application. I need to remake mine as I made a 2L batch a week ago and it’s probably useless now. Happy growing!
After 4 days of daily neem oil sprays, no nutrients for 3 days, even new leaves are still coming up pale green and damaged with small holes and tears. I even found a mushroom growing in the soil! I’m now inclining to overwatering as maybe being the issue. Any thoughts anyone?
The color means it needs nitrogen the holes are insect. Neem oil is honestly an in effective treatment I’d try captain Jack dead bug. Only spray plants in veg too.
Thanks a lot! That’s really helpful. I’ll try an aphid/caterpillar garden centre equivalent to Captain Jacks as not available here in Europe and will keep an eye on pH and nutrients.
Honestly I don’t think the holes come from Insects. It looks more like a unstable genetic, or stress in the rootzone to me… I would not change much. Just continue and see where it takes you. Maybe I would add a Vitamin B fertilizer, It helps your plant dealing with all kinds of stress and it makes your plant overall healthier.
Hi again all,
After a week of daily neem oil, a couple of applications of euro-equivalent Captain Jacks and, most importantly, letting soil REALLY dry out (5 days), I seem to have overcome the holes and tears issue. She is still pale with leaves a bit sickly and curly but I think she’s on a good path as long as I keep letting her fully dry out and go easy on the nutrients.
I’ve also dropped my target RH setting to 58% (was 65%) and installed a mini-dehumidifier to run 2 hours every 3-4 hours. I’ll probably drop the target setting down to 50-55%.
Thanks for the great feedback guys. Fingers crossed!
During veg you want 65% or more for rh. The leaves look like they need more not less veg nutrients. In flower you want 60ish for rh to prevent bud rot issues.
Hi BFT, yes I realise they probably need full-strength nutrients (only 50% till now) hence the pale-green leaves but I wanted to give water-only last time as I saw some brown tips (burn?) and am now waiting for a full soil dry out (4-5 days) and will then give full-strength nutrients. After that I will alternate nutrients / water - would you agree?
Re RH, I must admit different sites recommend different levels of RH for vegetation.
I read on GrowWeedEasy that “optimal is 40%-60%” - “The RH is too high if the plants are forming wet spots on their leaves even when they’re not touching each other. As seedlings get older and become young plants, they want the humidity around 50% RH”.
RQS website for veg phase says: “Humidity levels can be lowered by 5% each week (acceptable range: 40-70%)”. Based on these infos, I figured I should be gradually reducing RH from my recent 65 level down towards 50, so currently aiming for 55ish since I’m now in 4th week of veg. Do you agree or have you had success with 65% and more during veg?
There is greater website consensus for Flowering.
For example GWE says " Optimal Humidity for Flowering is 40-50% RH".
RQS says: “Humidity levels need to be lowered to 40-50% (extremely important). You can get away with 55% (anything over 60% is real bad).” So your 60ish is really at the top of the range based on these sites.
As far as rh goes get a vpd chart and adjust accordingly. That will give you the optimal rh and temp. You’ll get the most from your plants at the right vpd. You can get a general vpd with the tent air temp. But an ir temp gun will give you the leaf temp and that’s the most accurate vpd reading.
When I first started I had a humidifier running all of veg at 65-70 rh and my plants were super happy. As I’ve grown more and more I see the plants still turn out fine (just slower growth) with me running veg and flower at 38rh (ambient in my home). But following a vpd chart gives your plants what prefer.
Great. Thanks. I can see why 60% is ok if temp is up around 25C. It is quite cold over here and my tent is at 21/18 so a slightly lower RH hopefully makes sense for me. I’ll think about getting a gun too.
So you’re saying dialing in the vpd is more important than anything else? I’ve been following the buildasoil temp, rh, vpd chart but am always open to trying something new!
For optimal growth vpd is the most important. The buildasoil chart just breaks it down easier. Vpd is the combo for temp (leaf/air) and humidity I used my air temp as the constant as it was the hardest to adjust and adjusted humidity to get close to the desired vpd. If humidity is harder to adjust use it as the constant and adjust the temp. I hope that makes sense
