Dear Big Buds: I’ve got cannabis clones from a shop near Denver. Have had them for three weeks. Some have leaves that are yellow, curling and brown. Should I remove the damaged leaves? What’s wrong with the plants?
Thanks,
Worried in Colorado
Dear Worried:
Buying marijuana clones from commercial sellers, or otherwise getting them anywhere other than from your very own motherplants, means you have the potential of bringing problems into your grow room.
Obvious problems include thrips, aphids, mites, powdery mildew, tobacco mosaic virus, and other bad things that you might be able to see with a magnifying glass or with the naked eye.
Hidden problems can include that the clones come from inferior genetics, and they haven’t been rooted, fed, or cared for properly.
In general, whether it’s your own marijuana clones or ones you get from somewhere else, they better look close to perfect when they’re young, or they probably won’t grow or yield well.
It’s true that when cuttings are first taken and until they root, a couple of leaf discolorations or other leaf problems will show up.
But within two weeks of being taken, marijuana cuttings should be rooted, and their leaves should be upright and lime green.
The first thing I do if I procure cannabis clones from outsiders is to flush their root zone with reverse osmosis water and to spray them with a very mild solution that includes a much-reduced dose of azamax or spinosad.
I leave that spray on the clones overnight and then wash off that previous foliar spray.
Then I foliar spray with a very mild (40 parts per million, pH 6.2) spray containing Rhino Skin protectant and B-52 B vitamins booster.
This provides a protective, nutritional coating for the leaves, and B vitamins are known to reduce stress impacts and spur growth in young, overworked, or transplanted plants.
When you see leaf problems on cloned marijuana plants, or on seed-grown marijuana plants of any age group, realize that those problems can come from a variety of causes including incorrect feeding or garden environment.
Because all of us here at BigBudsMag.com are professional marijuana growers who write articles for you because we want you to have your biggest and highest quality crops ever, we recommend you check out our series of articles by Nigel Salazar that tell you how to diagnose and remediate all kinds of grow room problems that can affect your cannabis leaves, including hydroponics nutrients problems.
These articles are the most comprehensive and effective approach to diagnosing marijuana plant problems, and I commend Nigel for rescuing growers from the bad advice out there in our community when it comes to nutrients problems.
Another valuable set of articles are ones on diagnosing cannabis plant viruses.
And here’s an article that gives you detailed specs on ideal marijuana grow room temperature, humidity, lighting, air movement, and other parameters that greatly affect your marijuana yield, growth rate, and potency.
Regarding your question about damaged leaves…
Whether you remove them or not depends on how many leaves each marijuana plant has total.
If you’ve got young clones that aren’t doing so well and you remove a high percentage of their leaves, you might damage them.
If you’ve got way older plants that are healthy and bushy, but you have a few leaves that are yellowing or otherwise not perfectly lime-green, you can consider removing those leaves, especially if you’re within two weeks of harvesting your buds.
In most cases, damaged older leaves aren’t going to magically turn into good-looking leaves when you remediate whatever is harming your cannabis plants.
You recognize you’re fixing your plants’ problems when you see new growth that looks good, and increased growth rate.
If even the youngest leaves are showing discoloration or other negatives, you’ve got to look more to see what’s causing the troubles, and fix the problems.
However, if your marijuana plants have inferior genetics or a virus, you may never be able to fix all their problems.
If you’re growing in aeroponics, NFT or other hydroponics water culture systems that allow you to monitor your marijuana roots, healthy root growth is also an indicator that you’ve fixed your plant problems.
In almost all cases, in marijuana plants that aren’t nearing the end of bloom phase when leaves naturally discolor and curl, leaf problems are an indicator that you need to flush your root zone, examine your grow room conditions, make sure you’re using quality nutrients, and pay closer attention to your plants and what you feed them.
You can fix most problems whether they come in via marijuana clones or not, using the information in this and other articles at BigBudsMag.com!
