Microbial Disorder?

Indoor, flood and drain, hydroton pots, proper flood schedule. I will try to get some pics soon

I know this is long and most of you will pass this by but maybe just one person out there knows wtf this is?! And how to get rid of it?


Hi guys, I have had this problem for several grows now. It occurs in soil or hydro. Basically i believe it is some type of microbial pathogen, perhaps a fungus that has infected my plants. In veg it causes parts of the fan leaves to be appeared to be eaten away. These are not large areas or very common but noticeable.

That is not the main problem, but in flowering it causes the plants to start forming seeds in the bracts as soon as they begin developing. These seeds never fully mature but are miniature size and have turned brown and gotten little stripes. This affects the developing flowers by not allowing them to fully swell to their potential and decreasing resin production because the plant is diverting energy to creating these small seeds.

I believe this pathogen originally came from some foxfarm soil that was left outside for months at a time and then used. It can spread to hydro as well. Occasionally i see some white fungus on the top of the medium whether it is in soil or hydro(hydroton, rockwool) but that is it. Roots are healthy and so are the plants overall.

I tried to start this grow new but I used some rockwool that had been exposed to the last of this dirt I was trying to get away from. It seems to be systemic (internal) because it will stay with clones or seeds from the plant. I can't seem to shake it even though I have tried 35% h202 and sm90 to kill all pathogens in the res and on the medium and plants.

So i guess I should just finish this grow of G-force and wappa and sterilize the hell out of everything and try once again. This is very discouraging since it took me a while to even figure out that it was the soil that caused this, and then even more time to realize it could be spread to hydro. Has anyone experienced this? This is the weirdest shit I have ever seen in MJ plants and I can assure you it is not a hermie issue related to light cycle or plant stress but a pathogen of some sort that manipulates the MJ to flower like I described, also I have even seen pistils turn orange at 4 and 5 weeks like the plant produces pollen from inside the calyx and self polinates while doing this. Also their are NO bananas or male flowers, although some of the calyxs seem to elongate slightly like a banana is forming but it never does.

Like I said I will try to get pics of the leaves that seem to be eaten away, I once read that could be a sign of too much microbial activity, pics of the flowers would be hard to see what im talking about but if I get a preflower or a calyx and tear it open, there is a little bean developing but it never fully matures usually.

Thanks for your time and consideration

ok I went to check on them last night and there were some great examples of how this disorder seems to eat away at the leaves. I'll really try to get some pics up to explain better. Otherwise I'm just gonna sterilize everything like crazy and start again.

Well, I would get some pyrethryn for the leaf eating away problem. Doesn't sound like mites, but pyrethryn is a good overall creepy crawler killer that is safe for your plants, just make sure you dont get any in the water or on any roots as it will kill your plant. Safe on the leaves though.

As far as the weird budding/seeding problem, try colchicine. Don't touch it, don't drink it, don't breathe it, just add a little to your nutrient solution. It stops seed production. This is the chemical used for seedless watermelons. Its hard to find, and a bit pricey but you only use like a 1/100 solution to prevent it from killing you, and you really might not want to smoke the first generation, just what you clone from the plant you used it on as it is only something you have to use once.

try Guardian TR by botanicare. contains 10 diff kinds of bene microbes that will crowd out and eliminate the negs

thanks for the input guys, I was actually thinking of switching back to beneficials since I can't seem to eliminate whatever pathogen it is by 35% h202 or sm90. Thanks again

yea ill try to post a pic on this too...some of my leaves appear to be eaten away...or torn...im in a closet grow with a 400mh and ebb n flow hydro....i see a mosquito here and there but i swat em away..could it be bugs? light? nutes?

Hey lordcody, i just saw this post, this is interesting to me, I have delt with this problem for a while now and want it to stop.

I will have some pics up by tomorrow, it seems that they went through a growth spurt and during that time more leaves than usual seem to have the eaten away areas on them. They are never that big and are usually on the middle part of the fan leave but also affect the new leaves on the main top sometimes.

ok guys finally got those pics I said I would take, check this out. I don't know if it's me but on some of the pics there appears to be these little white specs, not sure what those are, maybe spores of this pathogen I have? I'm sure it's not powerdy mildew, had that a long time ago and can see that a mile away.

Anyways I haven't been able to stop this and the plants are going into flower so like I said in my above post this disorder will stress the plants into producing a tiny little seed in every single calyx that forms even the pre-flowers. So the flower just does not develop to it's full potential.

I have theorized this is from a pathogen (a fungus maybe) that colonizes the root system and releases plant growth hormones called auxins that are usually beneficial to plant growth but in this case I have a different strain that is detrimental to plant growth?

I have tried using 35% h202 and sm90 which both kill pathogens in the reservior and root zone. I have read that these products do not kill all of the microbial activity off. I also used it on the medium and foliage when I treated them. I tried innoculating with beneficials to hopefully crowd out this unwanted pathogen but no luck.

My last hope is a product put out by GH called "Flora shield" which claims to kill 97% of all pathogens in the root zone and on the plants, otherwise I'll have to sterilize the heck out of everything for the next one and hope I never see this problem again in my life. This has stumped, baffled, and really frustrated me a lot. The flowers and plants look real healthy overall except for the occasional damage to the foliage and what it does to the seed bracts when they swell.

well I went ahead and added some more 35%h202 to the rez and then i found some left over pirahhna (advanced nutes beneficial bacteria) and i read on the container that you could use it on the foliage so I went ahead and sprayed them down with that hoping that maybe that would help somehow. I didn't put any of that in the rez because of the h202.

I saw even more of the damaged leaves where it looks like it had been eaten away, they seem to do it more often when they hit a growth spurt, they are 2 weeks into flower under a 90w ufo triband led. I have seen this problem under hps and other setups too. It doesn't affect the plants a whole lot actually but the end product could always be better and I just want to grow normal plants again.

I wanted to flower these out exclusivly under the 90w ufo to see the yeild which I was hoping to be 2 oz's but I'm tempted to throw a 400 hps in there too since I know the yeild would be way more, but I think I will stick with the ufo.

Hoping that this flora sheild will cure all my problems, just have to wait for it to arrive early next week

well the beneficial bacteria foliar feed didn't do anything, the problem is still hitting the plants, can't wait for the flora shield to come in this next week.

Also it was very strange I went to a barber for a haircut and sat down next to a house plant that I swear had the same thing happening on some of it's leaves, very strange indeed.