Purple and discolored stems

Freakshow

Freakshow

Well-known member
ok, I've been having problems for a couple years now.
Broadmites? Virus? Fungal pathogens? who the hell knows?

Let's start with this:
ok folks, what causes purple or discolored stems in cannabis plants?

WFT is this??

Mg deficiency you say? Well, the dirt these plants are planted in has this mixed in, plus Epsom salts, plus worm castings.

some folks say I have broadmites. That may be. I'm treating all of my plants with Avid and Green Cleaner. I have also chopped everything in my veg and mom area. All those plants will be burned, dirt and coco removed and thrown in random dumpsters about town. The room will be swept and vacuumed and sprayed with bleach. Same with the flower room as soon as the plants in there are harvested.

The plants pictured are in Black Gold soil with worm castings and the Soil Menders Mineral mix added in. I have also had plants in Victory Brand Superior Garden Soil and FFOF and get the same discolorations in all soils.

water is RO using my old Merlin RO filter system with relatively fresh filters.

results of flowering is yields are down, and potency is down if the plant doesn't completely dud out.
 

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Is your temp consistent? Cold will make stems purple and as Annaba said, some genetics.
The white dust specs do look like a critter problem though.
 
well, all good questions.

Hey, I really appreciate y'all stopping by. Thank you.

When I was in Missouri, I had ZERO problems with my grow. I grew monster plants that yielded 6-8 ounces per plant in 3 gallon pots.

I moved to Nebraska. Same equipment. Same RO unit. I had all of my moms in FFOF. The only thing that has changed is the water and the physical location. The plants do this in summer and winter. The veg room temps stay around 80 degrees year round.

I had a water analysis done from my RO water.

it showed that i was using RO water. Do you think adding a phosphorous supplement would correct this? Such as Earth Juice Meta-K or Nature's Nectar? The only thing my water does show is 1.35 ppm of Total Nitrogen and 0.01 of Phosphorous. I looked at that and thought, whoa the niotrogen is very high compared to the K. LOL. And then realized we're talking about 1.35 parts per million. I laughed out loud - yes, stoner here. Other notes from the water test: 5.65 ppm of Chloride and 2.62 ppm of sodium.

sounds silly, but here's the deal. Many of my plants in flower start to show this deficiency when i know they are getting plenty of K. It has to be something in the water. I haven't really been doing anything differently. I'm stumped.
 
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Guy, great thread and topic that nobody is going to have an answer to. I have dealt with this for years on and off...worse with some genetics...during certain times...under certain conditions.

I am of the opinion that purple stems can be caused by multiple things. Most but not all signify at least a minor imbalance, usually pretty hard to identify.

I am particulary curious why some genes streak worse where exposed directly to HID lights. When somebody can explain that we may be getting into the chemistry/botany that would answer this question.

In coco I find this common. Save yourself the trouble and focus on general plant health items and the problem will lessen or dissapear. :whistle:
 
i realize that, Reed. The problem is this happens to every strain that I have. So I don't believe it is a strain specific problem and i am not going to be so dismissive.
 
Before you start adding anything in your feed regimen you first need to know what you have in your soil . I would recommend testing your soil first before you do anything else.
 
Guymandude said:
i realize that, Reed. The problem is this happens to every strain that I have. So I don't believe it is a strain specific problem and i am not going to be so dismissive.
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I'm not being dismissive, as I struggle with the same issue. Even strains that are not known to purple or stripe do so when I grow them. Everything basically. 9/10 plants and strains I'd say at least a little.

I have a thread just like this at a dif site and nobody could help so I hope somebody here can. I'd love to solve this issue...
 
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Blackbart said:
Before you start adding anything in your feed regimen you first need to know what you have in your soil . I would recommend testing your soil first before you do anything else.
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for years I ran my moms and dirt plant in FFOF with no problems. After I moved, the plants I put into FFOF would yellow and die, looking over watered and very funky with purple stems. So I switched to Sanctuary Soils Victory Brand Indoor/Outdoor Garden Soil. The same thing happened. The nutrient lock out of the premium soils is pretty scary and happens very quickly. I then picked up some Black Gold from Ace Hardware, added some worm castings and a mineral supplement. Things improved with this soil, as far as clone-abiilty and plant growth, but I'm still getting the purple stems, lower yield and lower potency. I will say potency degrades over a short period of time. By this I mean the first round of clones from a new mom from seed does pretty well. The next round potency is less and yield is less. The third round, forget it, it's not worth growing.

Now after i tore down my old rooms, my RO unit sat for about 4 months without being used. When I set it up again, I let it run for about 6 hours. I'm wondering if there's something funky in my old RO unit after sitting unused all that time.

Reed man, for a while, when i saw the purple stems, I would add some calmag and epsom salts to the water and the new growth would be normal. With the Black Gold mix (added minerals) I shouldn't have to add the cal mag or epsom salts. As you can see in the pictures above, there's plenty of nitrogen and the only deficiency showing is the dark purple stems. Strange, yes I know. I'm thinking of adding in a bit of the Bloom bottle from AN's Jungle Juice. It's a copy of the GH three part that's half the price, and I have it on the self.

the beans i popped 3 weeks ago are looking pathetic. I potted them into the Sanctuary soil, new bag, never been in the house and not in the basement. They all yellowed and looked overwatered. I was thinking perhaps my furnace and hot water heater were not exhausting properly so I put up a tent in a spare bedroom and put them in there. I stopped giving them the RO water from the basement and got some store bought water and they started to green up a bit and started growing but i can see they are pretty stunted.

I am considering either buying a new RO filter system but I'm concerned that if the problem is not with the unit itself and in the water, the new unit will not filter out the problem. There's a company in town that sells distilled drinking water and I am going to pick up some of that and give it a try. If it's the water using distilled should have drastically different results. shouldn't it?
 
Guymandude said:
is there any concern i should have with using Distilled water on plants?
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Yes there is, do not water with distilled water. At a minimum it will pull solutes out of the cell. If the difference in tonicity is great enough, it can burst cells as water rushes in.

You might be dealing with hidden deficiencies due to an over abundance of some other elements. Almost everything save magnesium has an antagonistic effect on phosphorous:
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A hidden deficiency is just that, hidden. It will not necessarily show the same but can present itself as a reduced yield or reduced quality. Specifically what is causing it can be difficult given how complex nutrient interactions are.
 
Blackbart said:
I would def check your Ro system and PH as well . Check your runoff on your PH too.
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Wow, thanks for the great information, hela. I', going to run a couple plants with distilled, not to spite you, but it's the purest form of water and I need to see how it will compare to the local RO.

BlackBart, yes, I picked up a 5 gallon just of RO water today. I also picked up 2 one gallon jugs of distilled. I understand that if i use distilled water, it could damage the cells of the plants, most likely roots. I will be using distilled for the test plants that will be planted in dirt. I cannot in good faith use the RO filter system in my house if i am to rule it out as the source of these problems. So I will be on refillable store bought water for a little while.

I will be popping a couple beans, same strain. one set will get store bought RO the other set will get Distilled - it's truly the only way to find out if the local water is the problem or if it's the RO filter in the house. Neither of these methods should pose a problem with the Sanctuary Soil, since it is good soil. All plants are also getting sprayed with Avid and Green Cleaner (Old Stage) in case i truly do have broadmites. I look at this as a necessary evil.

so, wish me luck. I gotta get something growing soon or I'll be out on my ass financially.
 
on a side note: I will be giving the 2 strains in the pictures above a decent dose of the Bloom nutes from the AN Jungle Juice 3 part line. It's pretty much an exact duplicate of the GH 3 part and there's no Nitrogen in the Bloom part and i have almost a full liter on hand.. I think the plants have enough N, judging by how dark the leaves are.
 
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the next big question I have is shoud i pop 4 beans, 2 in the Black Gold soil mix 1 getting the bought RO and 1 getting distilled, and 2 in the Sanctuary Soil, again 1 getting bought RO and 1 getting distilled, or just pick one soil and run with it and pop 2 beans.

strain will most likely be either Fourplay F2 (H3ad Seeds F2's I made), Northern Lights Redoux (open pollenation of 5 different northern lights, made by me) or some older Bubblelicious F2's. not sure which i will do
 
hela said:
Yes there is, do not water with distilled water. At a minimum it will pull solutes out of the cell. If the difference in tonicity is great enough, it can burst cells as water rushes in. e.
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well this is timely, i've been feeding with distilled water. if you don't have access to RO juice, what's the next best after tapwater?
 
You can add just a tiny bit of cal-mag to distilled water to change the tonicity, this would, in effect, re-mineralize the water. Doesn't have to be anything crazy, just maybe 20-50 ppm. Should be pretty close to tap.
 
Hela provided my thoughts exactly in a coherent form. I agree that you are likely dealing with a hidden deficiency, which is why I asked about camg. I became sure that mg was the root of the issue so played with adding 1 ml, 3 ml, or 5 ml per gallon. None solved the issue and in fact just made it worse as I probably was never deficient in these elements. Stopped adding camg with every wayering and boom, never looked back. Now with RO I may add a shot here and here but only as the plants tell me. Much less striping but I still have it on all plants growing currently. Quality is never compromised noticeably though for me...it seems to have very little negative effect on growth or potency but everything you say is spot on with what I deal with.

If you are suffering reducing yields and potency across generations I would most def look into general plant practices. Cold floors? Old bulbs? Old filters? Old nutes? Cold temps? If everything but the stems looked good I would say its just a small phantom issue but with all those problems it is something bigger.

Maybe you changed something without realizing it? I always give the example of myself changing nute solution technique. Instead of 5 ml part a and 5 ml part b, I switched to adding 250 ppm part a and 250 ppm part b. Well that's wasn't the same amount as 5ml & 5 ml so my crop looked like shit for months while I scratched my head every day!

I hope you figure it out bro
 
Oh the other weird thing I noticed with some strains more than others....when I switch to bloom hours at 12/12 the issue vanishes instantly, I mean middle of the stem striped and then a dead end stops completely. Which led me to believe it was my 24/0 veg light cycle. If you are also on 24 I would suggest giving them some dark during late veg as this reduced the issue as well seemingly....


Fwiw
 
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