Branch's splitting like a hot dog that has been cooked too long!?

This is a picture of my autoflower blue mystic in folger hempy buckets, about 8 weeks from sprout, from what I have been told, I have about 2 weeks of flowering left before chop.

The problem is for the last 2-3 weeks the lower stems, mainly the ones that are supporting the really big fans leaves slowly started to turn red, then yellowing and dieing of leaves, and splitting of stems. You can get a really good example in the bottom of the second picture.

I have been using the Lucas formula at about 750ppm for the past 4 weeks. PH has always been between 5.6 - 6.4. I have also checked the runoff a few times throughout the grow and it has always been very close to the incoming nutrient PH. Temps have been between 65F - 85F. Running a 250watt hortilux HPS..

Anyone have any ideas of what has gone wrong? From reading, it looks like a Boron deficiency might be to blame but the only way that could be possible would be a lockout as I am pretty sure I have enough GH Micro and Bloom going into the nutrient mix. Anyone have any recommendations? I hope they survive to harvest! Thanks in advance for any help that can be givin.

I'm not sure, but they look good to me!

swishsweet said:

I'm not sure, but they look good to me!

Click to expand...

Thanks for the complement! I think it looks pretty good as well, but I know any amount of stress I cause the plant results in less yield and possible poorer quality...But being my first grow, I am happy with the way it is turning out and I am having a great time learning all of this.

it looks fine. Your gonna have some nice bud soon. If the leaves are curling down could be over watering if your seeing yellow leaves could be a nitrogen defficiency from what ive read

Any other opinions regarding the branch's splitting open like in the 2nd picture?

Just checked tonight during feed and there is SAP coming from the splits of the lower branches...that can't be good...

I harvested these a few days ago, all of the unopened Calyx's that you can see in the pictures in the first post, remained unopened..Was this most likely from the obvious stress I put the plant under?