Is this normal for an aerogarden grow?

I'm at week 6 1/2 of flowering a white widow in an aerogarden deluxe (1 gal). My plant is turning yellow pretty hard core, although some of the lower branches that aren't in direct light of my 400W HPS are still green. The roots are turning brown and there is a "dead" smell starting to come from them. The plant was drinking all kinds of water until recently. I'm wondering what the best plan of action would be. Should I harvest now or keep changing the water and flush for a week and a half and harvest then? My trichs are just now starting to brown or redden a little bit. The drastic change in color and the shape the roots are in are my main concerns. I could probably put this thread in plant problems also, but I'm wondering if someone that grew a plant all the way through in an aerogarden had the same thing happen to them. The buds look nice, but I know they're not quite ready. Any advice would be appreciated!

i think you may have burnt with too many nuitrients.. i dont think they will recover.. best of luck

when a plant is at the end of flowering it is normal for many of the leaves to turn yellow and fall off....

as for the roots dying, it may also be related to the plant being near the end of it's life cycle...

I'd keep it going, untill your ready to harvest....you could get some root nutrients maybe like foxfarm big bloom...im not too sure of other root stimulating nutes...

Peace
-Tek

Teknique70 said:

when a plant is at the end of flowering it is normal for many of the leaves to turn yellow and fall off....

as for the roots dying, it may also be related to the plant being near the end of it's life cycle...

I'd keep it going, untill your ready to harvest....you could get some root nutrients maybe like foxfarm big bloom...im not too sure of other root stimulating nutes...

Peace
-Tek

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Thanks for the advice, I think that's what I'll do. Just keep changing water and see what happens. I'll give a little big bloom after a while to see if it helps the roots. I guess no one else has seen their roots do this in an aerogarden?

If the damage seems to be only at the top of the plants it would indicate a heat problem. Are the leaves only yellowing or are they getting dried out, brown spots, and curling up as well? Is the HPS too close?

unholycode said:

If the damage seems to be only at the top of the plants it would indicate a heat problem. Are the leaves only yellowing or are they getting dried out, brown spots, and curling up as well? Is the HPS too close?

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Pretty much all of the leaves but the lower canopy turned yellow over the course of a day or two. Not much browning and/or curling. I definately have root rot, and added some H2O2 to see if there is any salvaging that can be done. I'm not sure if the root rot was caused by the high temps in the cab (upper 80's, lower 90's) or overnuting, or a little bit of both. I'm pretty much to the flushing point anyway, going by the eight week schedule. As far as the HPS being too close, no that's not it. Its been a comfortable distance all along. Its a scrog grow in a cabinet I made, and I think the biggest problem I had was growing in such a small reservoir. I'm assuming if this plant had been in one of my bubble buckets this wouldn't have happened. Unfortunately both of those HUGE plants turned out to be males. I was so bummed. I've got enough bud growth on this one to get a decent harvest, but my question is really when should I harvest? Now, or wait until the flushing is done. Will the yellow leaves make the nugs taste like shit?

update a month later it is good bud, definately better than mexican brick! Its white widow so its a real cerebral high, a clearer high, with full body pain relief. It's not one hit shit, but I imagine potency can only increase with more production from the plant before the roots die like they did. Looking forward to future attempts...

Seems like heat probs to me. Were you cooling your res somehow? If your water gets to 80-90f root rot should be expected. Mix that with warm cab temps, and your dehydrated plant can easily overheat. Remember that light creates heat where it gets absorbed, so even if the bulb is far enough away, an already fragile plant may be affected by slight changes in the temp of it's leaves.
Generally, sick plants in flower try to keep the tops alive. They leech the bottoms to feed the flowers. The yellowing leaves on the top of your plant may have just been due to the root rot, but i would suspect that heat stress is a more likely culprit. My old cab used to get hot like that too, and it would retard growth and kill plants seemingly at random. It's now more stable around 70-80, and I haven't had any issues since.

havocdb said:

Seems like heat probs to me. Were you cooling your res somehow? If your water gets to 80-90f root rot should be expected. Mix that with warm cab temps, and your dehydrated plant can easily overheat. Remember that light creates heat where it gets absorbed, so even if the bulb is far enough away, an already fragile plant may be affected by slight changes in the temp of it's leaves.
Generally, sick plants in flower try to keep the tops alive. They leech the bottoms to feed the flowers. The yellowing leaves on the top of your plant may have just been due to the root rot, but i would suspect that heat stress is a more likely culprit. My old cab used to get hot like that too, and it would retard growth and kill plants seemingly at random. It's now more stable around 70-80, and I haven't had any issues since.

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Heat was definately an issue. I was out of town for a while and my partner in crime was watering and left the lid to the res open. We're certain that is one of the main reasons too. Direct light on the roots for about 24 hrs. We've since cooled down the basement by running some fans and keeping the windows open. We also changed the light schedules to run in the night as much as possible. Little by little we're getting it figured out.