Trouble solving this! - Leaves dry and folding down (pics)

I have been trying to solve this for awhile now with no luck. Details and pics below.

Plants seem to be getting worse. Problem is affecting mainly the TOP and MIDDLE of the plant as well as new shoots. Top leaves are folding in so much that they look like peas or little skinny green bananas.

Temp is about 78F w/ lights ON and 70F with lights OFF. but when this began, light was likely too close to plant. But this has been corrected, so why are new leaves still showing this?

Humidity is 35% - they are in veg.

400w MH

coco with some perlite mixed in,

nute regimen is 0/6/9 - used to be lucas formula (0/8/16) General Hydroponics. About 900-1100 ppm.

pH going in is about 5.2 - 5.5

Watering once a day, nutrients every 3rd watering.

I uprooted the plant and the roots look very healthy. In fact, the plant is root bound. It looks small for the size of the rootball.

The waxy coating on the leaves is gone. Not only do they feel dry and thin like paper, but they don't have the usual weed smell. In fact, they kind of smell like button mushrooms (little white edibles). Leaves aren't sticky either.

Would that be wind burn? If so, is that recoverable?

This MH bulb is near a year old now. I have a new HPS for flowering, and wanted to finish up veg with this MH before replacing it. Do older bulbs give out more radiation/UV than newer bulbs?

I think your over watering it and that's why they're dropping. Wait like 2 or 3 day without watering it and see how that goes, they should perk up

They look pretty over watered too me.

Thanks for the replies, but I doubt it's overwatering. It's hard to overwater coco. My friend growing the exact same strain waters daily and his plants look picture perfect.

Plants are in coco with nearly 40% perlite and adequate drainage. Plus they're rootbound (maybe that's the problem..?), with the roots on the bottom of the pot circling and coming out of the drainage holes.

How tall are they and how big are the pots you have them in?

skunk #1 x original haze is 3 feet tall and bushy as hell, and it's in a slim tall 3 gal pot.

The super lemon haze is 1.5 feet, also in a 3 gal pot, but this pot is wide and short.

I also have an indica, about 1 foot tall, in a tiny 80oz pot that does not show this problem.

looks more like heat then nute burn

is there a fan directly on your plant....if so move it to have the air over the plant and not direct...how far is the light from the tops of your plant...are they enclosed...well vented

I believe the moisture is being taken out of your plants. I had my ocillating fan on all the time and my leaves looked exactly like yours. The RH is down right now and the moisture just flys out of the plant with the fan going on. Once I stopped the fan, problem solved. BTW, it didn't just happen overnite. All of the originally curled leaves stayed that way, but new growth was normal. Hope this helps,
Good Luck

leaves curling under is over nutes,and curling up when hot or dealing with heat stress!...flush the shit out of them and lower ur nute doses!....just my 2 cents!

Light is in a cooltube, hanging vertically. Plants were around the light.

INITIALLY, plants were about 3-4" away (very close), with a fan below the light blowing up.

The fan was strong, and with the plants being so closed, a lot of the air from the fan was hitting the leaves as well. Humidity dropped to 30% at least.

The odd thing is, new growth is still looking bad, even though the fan is off and humidity is higher (50-60%).

As for nutes, it's about 1000ppm, only twice a week, with no signs of burned leaf tips. 1 drop superthrive, 6ml GH Micro, 9ml GH Bloom, 5ml Calmag (all per gallon), and using tap water (no water softener is being used) which has an initial ppm of 40 and ph of 7.1. If required, I use pH down.

Ill put my vote in for over watering. You shouldnt be watering every single day. Roots can't get oxygen and slowly start to rot essentially drowning the plant.

They are/were over watered, the leaf curling under is a sign that the plant is trying to slow it's transpiration rate plus the leafs are drooping

read this to understand what I'm talking about

The Water Cycle: Transpiration
What is transpiration?
Transpiration is the process by which moisture is carried through plants from roots to small pores on the underside of leaves, where it changes to vapor and is released to the atmosphere. Transpiration is essentially evaporation of water from plant leaves. Transpiration also includes a process called guttation, which is the loss of water in liquid form from the uninjured leaf or stem of the plant, principally through water stomata.
Studies have revealed that about 10 percent of the moisture found in the atmosphere is released by plants through transpiration. The remaining 90 percent is mainly supplied by evaporation from oceans, seas, and other bodies of water (lakes, rivers, streams).
Transpiration and plant leaves
Plants put down roots into the soil to draw water and nutrients up into the stems and leaves. Some of this water is returned to the air by transpiration (when combined with evaporation, the total process is known as evapotranspiration). Transpiration rates vary widely depending on weather conditions, such as temperature, humidity, sunlight availability and intensity, precipitation, soil type and saturation, wind, land slope, and water use and diversion by people. During dry periods, transpiration can contribute to the loss of moisture in the upper soil zone, which can have an effect on vegetation and food-crop fields.
How much water do plants transpire?
Plant transpiration is pretty much an invisible process—since the water is evaporating from the leaf surfaces, you don't just go out and see the leaves "sweating". Just because you can't see the water doesn't mean it is not being put into the air, though. During a growing season, a leaf will transpire many times more water than its own weight. An acre of corn gives off about 3,000-4,000 gallons (11,400-15,100 liters) of water each day, and a large oak tree can transpire 40,000 gallons (151,000 liters) per year.
Atmospheric factors affecting transpiration
The amount of water that plants transpire varies greatly geographically and over time. There are a number of factors that determine transpiration rates:
Temperature:Transpiration rates go up as the temperature goes up, especially during the growing season, when the air is warmer due to stronger sunlight and warmer air masses. Higher temperatures cause the plant cells which control the openings (stoma) where water is released to the atmosphere to open, whereas colder temperatures cause the openings to close.
Relative humidity: As the relative humidity of the air surrounding the plant rises the transpiration rate falls. It is easier for water to evaporate into dryer air than into more saturated air.
Wind and air movement: Increased movement of the air around a plant will result in a higher transpiration rate. This is somewhat related to the relative humidity of the air, in that as water transpires from a leaf, the water saturates the air surrounding the leaf. If there is no wind, the air around the leaf may not move very much, raising the humidity of the air around the leaf. Wind will move the air around, with the result that the more saturated air close to the leaf is replaced by drier air.
Soil-moisture availability: When moisture is lacking, plants can begin to senesce (premature ageing, which can result in leaf loss) and transpire less water.
Type of plant: Plants transpire water at different rates. Some plants which grow in arid regions, such as cacti and succulents, conserve precious water by transpiring less water than other plants.
Transpiration and ground water
In many places, the top layer of the soil where plant roots are located is above the water table and thus is often wet to some extent, but is not totally saturated, as is soil below the water table. The soil above the water table gets wet when it rains as water infiltrates into it from the surface, But, it will dry out without additional precipitation. Since the water table is usually below the depth of the plant roots, the plants are dependent on water supplied by precipitation. As this diagram shows, in places where the water table is near the land surface, such as next to lakes and oceans, plant roots can penetrate into the saturated zone below the water table, allowing the plants to transpire water directly from the ground-water system. Here, transpiration of ground water commonly results in a drawdown of the water table much like the effect of a pumped well (cone of depression).

I doubt it is over watering. I had the same EXACT thing happen when one of my plants grew too tall and was getting hit directly by the wind of the fan. The leaves affected never changed but after moving the plant out of the wind from fan the problem went away for any newer leaves.

sumtimes the "claw" thing is becux of the strain. i c it mostly affecting sativas but i cood b rong. but ive seen quite a few plants do this and mostly sativas

accountant said:

I have been trying to solve this for awhile now with no luck. Details and pics below.

Plants seem to be getting worse. Problem is affecting mainly the TOP and MIDDLE of the plant as well as new shoots. Top leaves are folding in so much that they look like peas or little skinny green bananas.

Temp is about 78F w/ lights ON and 70F with lights OFF. but when this began, light was likely too close to plant. But this has been corrected, so why are new leaves still showing this?

Humidity is 35% - they are in veg.

400w MH

coco with some perlite mixed in,

nute regimen is 0/6/9 - used to be lucas formula (0/8/16) General Hydroponics. About 900-1100 ppm.

pH going in is about 5.2 - 5.5

Watering once a day, nutrients every 3rd watering.

I uprooted the plant and the roots look very healthy. In fact, the plant is root bound. It looks small for the size of the rootball.

The waxy coating on the leaves is gone. Not only do they feel dry and thin like paper, but they don't have the usual weed smell. In fact, they kind of smell like button mushrooms (little white edibles). Leaves aren't sticky either.

Would that be wind burn? If so, is that recoverable?

This MH bulb is near a year old now. I have a new HPS for flowering, and wanted to finish up veg with this MH before replacing it. Do older bulbs give out more radiation/UV than newer bulbs?

Click to expand...

Your veg nutes do not have a full npk value, only pk, missing the nitrogen your plant needs for vegging. PK's are usually a bloom booster/enhancer used during flower time.

Also, go with the overwatering diagnosis. Yes it is hard to overwater a coco grow but it is possible. If you wet the roots everyday they do not have a chance to breath and this will cause them to limp, like you are seeing.

brasmith said:

Your veg nutes do not have a full npk value, only pk, missing the nitrogen your plant needs for vegging. PK's are usually a bloom booster/enhancer used during flower time.

Click to expand...

Hmm. Interesting. Are you saying that lucas or head's (from icmag) formulas are missing nitrogen? The idea is that Flora Micro contains nitrogen, and so Flora Grow isn't needed as it contains nothing that's not already in Micro and Bloom, by using more Micro, you're compensating from the nitrogen.

I don't think nitrogen is lacking, but I do believe that lucas' formula isn't designed for coco, though it works if you add supplemental Ca and Mg (calmag).

As for overwatering, I tried laying off the water until the coco dried (about 3-4" deep), and there wasn't much of a difference except that the lower leaves began to go limp as well.

BTW, with coco, my plants exploded with growth when I began to water daily. Some people recommend multiple waterings a day and I can see why, but ONLY with coco (soil = root rot) and only after the root system is established. I have overwatered coco in the past, primarily when I placed a small plant in a huge pot.

One thing to note is that my friend is growing in coco, the same strains (same seeds, not clones) and his results are spectacular. He uses lucas, waters daily (feed every 3rd watering), etc. ONLY difference is he is using fluorescent bulbs instead of HID - if we make him the control, it narrows it down to..

Fan directly blowing on plants (he only had an exhaust fan)

Light too close, he had temps under control well. I really messed up by having the lamp too close (cooltube, but still - radiant heat) AND the fan blowing directly at the leaves.

ANYWAY! I have induced 12/12. Let's see how it goes! I'm going to keep the MH instead of HPS for 2-3 weeks to lessen the stretch, and then switch to HPS (also 400w).

i seen sometimes mine claw down when i overwater or the light isnt hitting em like they should

Hi, I was about to start a new thread about the claw until I saw this one, this thing has been haunting me for the last 2 years without any luck of solving it, I have grown 3 diffrent strains and all of them had the same thing.
I had a thread about this in planetganja and had all kinds of responses on what could be causing it , this are few samples,

1. Overwatering. I tried feeding my plants only once a day I grow hydroponicaly, no luck, the plants wilted a lot so I had to go back to 4 times a day.

2. Overfert. one possible reason was too much Nitrogen, so I cut down on the N on my next grow, leaves started showing signs of N deficiencie and still the claw came back.

3. Heat. room temp. is 78 degrees lights on, 68 lights off.

4. PH. ph is always set at 5.8 and I let it drift to 6.5 before bring it down to 6.0.

5. Genetics. Like I said, I have grown 3 diffrent strain with the same result.

I read here about the fan hitting the plants at the canopy but my plants develop the claw from top to bottom.

I veg my plants under fluorecents and then I flower them under HPS, this is something that has been bothering me for some time, could this be the reason why my plants develop the claw?

I forgot to mention that I have used 2 diffrent brands of nutes with the same result, I also use RO water.

thehiena: some older grow tents had an interior that would leach chemicals into the air during the grow, mutating the plants. Have you tried switching to a different cabinet? Perhaps growing a few plants from seed in a small box or cab to see if it helps?

Might also be pests (long shot). Do you sterilize the equipment and room between grows?