Big plants, Bigger problems

[BondPacker]

Original thread is Outdoor grow 5x a k47 4x gold leaf. Everythings been going well, besides a ph problem, up until the last month.

Problem 1: Powdery Mildew
I only noticed this a few weeks ago thanks to Will. It had been around for a while but since I had never experienced it I thought nothing of it. I have been spraying with lime sulfur and it is not going away, but not spreading further. This seems to be the least of my problems now.

Problem 2: Thrips/dead plant
Noticing this is also thanks to Will, Ive only ever dealt with one pest and that was spider mites. Started to get a lot of yellow, strange leaves and one plant in particular started to get dying branches - Once pointed out that I most likely have thrips i saw tell tale signs on the leaves.

After going back out a few hours ago, The badly affected plant is near dead, and the other two gold leafs are showing signs that the dead plant showed when it started to turn bad. Im treating with a thrip treatment have only sprayed once but it hasn’t helped.

Problem 3: Manganese
Last time I sprayed (three days ago), i mixed the lime sulfur and veggie and herb spray for thrips, but I also mixed manganese in to fix a possible manganese deficiency. It didn’t mix up well with all the other solutions and after seeing the plants today, they have a thick white film all over the leaves which is not a good sign.

Problem 4: BUD ROT….
Two of the a k’s began flowering months before the rest of the plants, and as you could imagine are much smaller than the rest. For about to months now, the quickest flowing ak has had bud rot, slowly making its way through the plant. I have been cutting out all rot each time i go out hoping hit will finish soon and ill have some harvest off it. It is separated from the rest of the 8 plants in a different area of nearby bush, but i only separated it three days ago. Very bad signs today as one of the large 6-7ft a k’s showed its first signs of bud rot. I had to cut the end off one of the lower branches as it had rot. Below is a photo of the rot off the big ak, and the the rest are of the cuttings off the smaller ak. all taken today

Problem 5: PH
Ive had ph problems for ages and I’m struggling to get ph up. Im waiting on potassium carbonate in the mail as a ph up and for now I’m using bicarb soda which does raise water ph fine, but since i can’t take out hundreds of litres of water to completely ph flush all plants, I’m struggling to get it up to 6.5… all plants are around 5.5 some higher some lower

All in all, they’ve gone from healthy 6ft tall, wide amazing smelling plants to all starting to show bad signs and I’m stuck on what to do. Its been a hot summer and I’ve been busting my ass going out into the bush with a lot of water 3 times a week and the last thing i want is to lose the lot of it. Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated. And many thanks to Will who has already helped me out a lot.

[Hammer]

I am very curios at this point …you say you have bud rot, powdery mildew ,and thrips .AND you’ve sprayed with soap, sulfer lime…MY QUESTION is this what are you planning on doing with it now??? not sure i would smoke it… Sorry… Hammer

[BondPacker]

They are only at early stages of flowering, and the ones with larger buds I’ve only sprayed leaves cautiously and made sure not to spray buds. It’s either spray them, or lose an entire crop… I would rather spray with chemicals and then wash well by spraying water and relying on rain, than not spray anything and lose it all… It’s not a good option either way really, a tough grow… But disheartening

[BondPacker]

Thanks pig, yep it’s a hard thought to deal with the possibility of putting in so much hard work and sweat and losing it all… That’s basically my thought pattern now, live and learn, I’ve been thinking every day what I’ll do different next season… One thing is grow less plants lol… 5 plants, more soil, more nutrients and spray with neem/other natural repellents once every two weeks through veg and pray nothing happens during flower. We haven’t had rain in well over a month now and it’s been over 30 degrees every day with high humidity.
I had trays under each plant to catch the water runoff, to make the water last longer as they dry out pretty quickly in hot weather. I think this was a big mistake as I’ve been thinking that every time I water, anything bad that’s in my soul that would usually get flushed out with a water is getting sucked straight back up… Another learning curve I guess. I’ll keep this thread updated on what’s happening anyway, hopefully I have some luck turn my way… I’m going out to spray with plain water and try to wipe some of this manganese off the leaves as its left white stains every where, was a bad idea to spray when it hadn’t diluted into the water cause of the pest sprays in there

[BondPacker]

Quite possibly, none of the plants were touching they all have space, but are very close together still.
That is a good idea and I can see it working well if set up Properly, but there would be a couple problems with it. Keeping the storage tank in a shaded place all day, and the storage tank and solar panel being very visible from air fly overs by police… Last thing you’d want is a chopper spotting a reflective solar panel in the bush

[BondPacker]

The perfect thing would be to grow next to a river, but the hard part is finding a nearby river, and then finding a hidden spot near that river… Unfortunately I’ll have to stick to sweat and backpacks full of water lol

[BondPacker]

Very smart thinking, I like it!
Have you got any idea on what the yellowing branches leading to dead branches could be in the pics above? As I said I’ve lost one plant to it and now the other two big gold leafs have 1-2 yellowing branches and I’m extremely worried they’re going the same way

[BondPacker]

Ph/tds of the particular plant that is starting to show bad yellowing is 5.9/660
I am trying to get the ph up but it’s hard cause I can’t flush with gallon after gallon of phed water, cause I can’t carry that much out into the bush. I’m just using baking soda to raise ph of my water/nute solution and hoping it raises soil ph quickly enough

[BondPacker]

If you were growing a large amount of plants, I guess what your saying, would be the ideal situation! As long as you phed the bore water coming out of the ground, and there was little to no salt content in it, it’d save ever having to take water out right? I don’t think it’d be worth it for your average joe grow, but if you were planning on a serious crop then, why not hey?
I can’t say I’ve ever heard of them bout I’m very interested! Im going away to canada at the end of the year for a couple weeks and that sounds exactly like the type of thing id need to keep my plants alive for that time!
Funny hey, a lot of the time all it takes is a bit of unconventional thinking, and a lightswitch turns on in your head and bam! out flows the ideas

[BondPacker]

Just went out to spray plants with water as the lime sulfur has really burnt the pistils and the manganese powdery !@#$ is all over them as you say… Couple photos to show you whats going on
I cut the top half of the dead tree off, the bottom 4 branches are healthy, so if they want to survive, then good on them, i doubt they will but only time will tell.
The other photos are of the gold leaf thats starting to show tell owing. and !@#$! I just found bud rot on two separate buds, only a tiny spot of it, but its really not what i wanted to see…

[Hammer]

i think if it were me, id harvest now save what you can … and defently rince them off well then use a fan to dry excess water off … but myself i would toss out instead of smoking … . sorry i don’t think you can fix this …but you can learn from it … do you have enough time in the season and run some auto flowers??? or can you start fresh in doors ??

[BondPacker]

I know what your saying hammer and unfortunately
I half agree, but giving up isn’t an option just yet. We’re just about to get hit with a week of rain which will make or break it. My plan is to let them get hit with two days of rain, which will wash all chemicals off, and then of rain continues put a clear tarp up above the grow site to prevent buds being wet for a week. If after a bit of rain they all start to get rot, I’ll pull the whole crop and admit defeat till next spring. But I’ve put in too much blood sweat and tears to give in just yet, I’ve got a glimmer of hope

[BondPacker]

It’s interesting these days, everyone puts so much effort into growing and getting perfect ph/ec and putting 10 different nutrients in, but as your saying, weed has grown for thousands if not millions of years, in the end if you put a seed in the ground near a natural damp enough soil region, it will grow nice smokeable bud regardless of ph or nutrients.
What your saying about the mountain men, self sufficiency is something not many would know how to do! I bet you he grows some huge crops out there by that river too lol… Would be very interesting if you tried this idea of tapping your own well I’d love to see the results that’s for sure!

[Hammer]

i understand where your coming from… ive smoked spider mites and thrips before just to finish what i started …lolol but no chem’s .just saying… as to you r plan of action …can you angle your tarp or arrange it to create more draft . or a old sq window fan to help with the moister after rain …??? since you have mildew and mold already there "spores " .id try to move that air under the tarp, lots of air movement …i wish you the best in your endeavor H