Browning/Dying Leaves on Satellite Bud Sites

So this has mostly been on outdoor grow. I have two females in deck pots that I transport in/outside according to the weather. Last week this plant suffered some PF lockout causing many of it's fan leaves to brown/black spot...wilt...then die (able to be pulled from stalk effortlessly). The three most affected bud sites now seem to be browning at the tips. The small fan leaves themselves seem to be the ones dying, not so much the actual bud matter.

Here are some pictures. Any and all insight is appreciated!

Look in em for a catapiller...

Are they crispy feeling, or soggy feeling?? To me to almost looks like bud rot . It's hard to tell though, if the leaves are really soft and soggy i would suspect bud rot...If they are crispy, looks like possible nutrient burn...

I had a similar looking problem with my last batch and thought it was a pest issues but by the time I figured out what was going on they were pretty much fucked...

Check for pests as Coho said... But I think it's still the PH lockout.. check your run off to make sure your in the 6.0-6.5 range... If you haven't flushed them recently give them a good flushing to get out the excess salts... Ease up on the nute's until they recover and cut off any dead leaves... Keep as much green on them as posible when getting rid of the dead crap...

Coho said:

Look in em for a catapiller...

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Just curious... what makes you think it's a catapiller? Just for my knowledge...

That's not a bug issue. Your soil is holding in nutes. Slowly burning them. Back off nutes. Water water water feed water water water feed. Had the samething happen to my outdoor. Let it yellow then start adding more P and K flower nutes.

I had a feeling it looked a lot like severe nute burn. The strange thing is I have an identical female of the strain and she has responded positively to the same growing conditions, water, and feed. Maybe this is just the runt plant?

Either or, I inspected the buds more closely. They are not mushy, they are not brown in the interior of the bud/stem. And I don't see any evidence of pests. So I flushed both plants pretty liberally with room temp ph'd water. I allowed for about 1-2 gallons of run off. The runoff was a merky black/dark brown color were as my healthy plant had a lighter brown color to it. I'm hoping this helps her recover! She's got 7 days til harvest!

Thanks for everyone's support/advise!

Good luck EW! The difference between how much each plant can handle plays a large role in finding a good mom. You obviously know which cut to toss if you cloned them at all.

Tonight I brought the crops in to shield them from the hazy humidity. I toiled soil, gave them a fresh LST, got them in a climate controlled environment with sufficient air circulation and inspected the buds.

It looks like I have a slight mite problem in a couple bud sections of both plants. Their weren't formed webs..but a strand or two would appear adjoining the leaves on the bud's cola...I would swipe them away and reexamine the following day to find they're reappeared...

In addition, the browning leaves on the satellite buds in question have stabilized. The flush looks to have satisfied both plants already and I plan on flushing again soon.

So I decided to spray them lightly with sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) in a reverse osmosis water...Just on the damaged bud areas. I allowed them to blow dry before spraying both plants lightly with the same solution...only this time with a teaspoon of pure cane sugar.

Why baking soda? I thought that the 'basic' properties of the mix would repel mold from facilitating growth.

Why cane sugar? I read a journal somewhere where cane sugar was used as a resin boosting agent during late flower.

Since this is my first grow...I'm experimenting and learning on the task...I try to apply the most practical/logical techniques that I can make sense of as the opportunity presents itself.

Here are some pictures from dusk before I moved them inside and treated them.

Glad its not catapillers.. They munch stems and kill leaves/buds then shit and cause bud rot.

Looking good. Becareful of spraying raw sugar on them. Ants love that. Also alot of other pest. But the baking soda works with mold. It takes the ph level of the plant out of molds range. But not a good idea to spray alot. You could also rinse with water PHed to around 8 or 9. Some crushed garlic mixed with water and baking soda helps with bugs and mold. But still after a few days rinse with the high ph water. And let air dry before you put in light. And shake the buds to make sure water isn't still in the buds. This will make them rot.

Coho said:

Glad its not catapillers.. They munch stems and kill leaves/buds then shit and cause bud rot.

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You had be worried right after your first post. I went wild researching all I could about those little buggers. The damage that they produce looked TOO similar to what I was experiencing. However upon close inspection I found no hard evidence of their presence. Very thankful!

Warlock1369 said:

Looking good. Becareful of spraying raw sugar on them. Ants love that. Also alot of other pest. But the baking soda works with mold. It takes the ph level of the plant out of molds range. But not a good idea to spray alot. You could also rinse with water PHed to around 8 or 9. Some crushed garlic mixed with water and baking soda helps with bugs and mold. But still after a few days rinse with the high ph water. And let air dry before you put in light. And shake the buds to make sure water isn't still in the buds. This will make them rot.

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Thank you for your information!

I am happy to report that my light baking soda spray worked wonders! I see no evidence of those little mite web strands anywhere, where as I would have found one or two every 12-24 hours! It does not appear to stained any leaves either, producing a residue and what have you. I also cannot find any traces of mold thus far.

The buds in question however...well they just started the annoy me. The overall aesthetics of the bud tops looked ugly and I didn't want to take the chance of them potentially attracting some type of problem and ruining the rest of my plant(s). So I chopped them off about an inch below the ugliness with sterilized scissors. After trimming them up and removing the sweet leaf..They actually look kind of nice!! I thought they'd be gross and unusable...but hell...I bet after a dry an cure they'll be alright. Time will tell.

I was wrong and Coho was right.

If anyone stumbles upon my thread and is experiencing plant symptoms such as mine that don't recover from a full flush...You just might have the worm.

I found this guy in the stalk of an adjacent bud from the one I harvested. I tweezed him out and burnt him to a crisp with my lighter for his sins. This prompted me to give my bush a massive haircut. I carefully removed all the infected looking leaves with sterilized scissors, as best I could. Along the way I found another worm on another bud site and a spidermite web hiding within a cola.

Will my plant have have chance of recovering? What can I do to repel these pests in late flower?

My trics are just beginning to amber...Should I harvest this one now, so that it is separate from my healthy plant entirely?

Praying mantis love to much on them. The pests