So this is the second plant this happened to.
I thought I dropped something on the first plant because it fell over when i took it out of the tent.
I propped it up and it was ok for a couple days and now it’s real droopy.
Suddenly, a second plant fell over, and the stem looks the same at the bottom.
What is going on???
Looks like stem rot . Ive seen that before with rockwool blocks . Too wet .
Any idea what to do to fix it?
If I let them dry out will that resolve the issue or are these guys gonners?
I’m sorry to say I think they are done for . Maybe someone else may have an idea though .
Very unfortunate, sorry man! I’m not much help for fixing the stem rot but it.looks like you can get a few cuttings at least if you’re trying to preserve the genes.
Cut it off about half way up, pull off the bottom leaves, and stick it in water if you have a healthy stem. Before rooting gel and rockwool, I used styrofoam coffee cups. Cut one cup in half saving the bottom and poke a hole in the middle. Cut a slit from the hole to the edge so you can rip it apart when you are ready to transplant it. The bottom piece will fit down nice in the cup and keep the cutting upright. I rooted many cuttings this way, and saved a few plants too. Didn’t everyone do this?
Hi, and thanks for the detailed response!
I’ve actually never taken a cutting before. I’ve only harvested probably 100 plants all from seed. I have just a couple small tents that I use.
If these are dead then sadly that will be the end of them…
They look like they can be saved. Don’t wait.
Yeah you definitely got stem rot there. Get cuttings ASAP just in case but there is a product called serenade that will stop it dead in its tracks. Spray the infected area and all around it, and dig down into the soil and see if it goes down below grade a little bit. A buddy of mine had the exact same issue. Unfortunately, he went online, and some old hippie told him to put Vaseline on it. Big big mistake. I couldn’t believe how skinny the stems on his plants got before they finally started to wilt. You may still be able to save them. Literally down to about a quarter. of an inch before they started to shrivel. You’ll probably need something to help support them, but I’m guessing you figured that. I don’t know if I repeated anything anyone said, and I apologize if I did. I saw this and had no time to read the thread. I figured I’d throw my two cents in just to help.
I’m the opposite, before I stopped growing 15 years ago, I hated growing from seed, and had close to 100% success rate with rooting cuttings. I wish I had a mature enough plant to show you a step by step. I make my cuts with 4-5 nodes. Remove the leaves at the bottom two nodes, leaving the top three. Peel the leaves down, try to peel the skin as you do, otherwise Scrape/shave the skin from the bottom portion. Exposing the tissue underneath allows more water absorption and gets the roots going sooner. Cut any larger leaves in half to reduce water loss. Soak the cuttings in cold water, use a liquid seaweed/kelp solution if you have any. Let them soak for about 30mins, dip in rooting powder/gel and insert into peat pellet (or coir pellet, I didn’t work with rock wool). The pellet should be moist enough to have some water dripping when you squeeze it, but not soggy. Put them under a humidity dome, mist lightly if they stay droop too much. But if it stays too wet, the cutting may take longer to root or just rot. I find that they root faster if you make them seek water vs babying them too much. I use to have roots poking out of the pellets within 5-7 days, then I plant them. The bottom leaves that are left may turn yellow or start to die off as the plant starts to grow roots, especially if you didn’t give the mother a good feeding the day before you took the cut.
Thanks for the details 
The thing is that I only have 8 square feet of grow space so keeping moms and cuttings is a no go for me. I am not necessarily a fan of growing from seed, it’s just sort of required in my tiny spaces.
I’m pretty burnt out on growing right now, and I have enough weed to last me a while, so if these die then they die. Sucks, but honestly I’m tired of rockwool anyways. This is maybe the final straw to get me to try something else.
I followed Grodan’s directions very closely and emailed them a few times with questions to make sure I had it right. I weighed my cubes before watering them on a kitchen scale. I measured my dripper output for each dripper in ml’s. Still they got stem rot and probably root rot? That is just not cool. I don’t know what I’ll do next, but I’m tired of rockwool and the bull shit that comes with it.
Soil/Soilless mix and liquid nutrients is easy and more forgiving. Then there’s the super soil mixes and recipes that are floating around. Since your not going for organic/natural anyway, If your current set of nutrients have instructions for soil, I’d just stick with them. I’d use promix, add some perlite and vermiculite, then mix in some garden lime. Minimum amount of mixing, no cooking time like super soil Mix, Still gets the job done. I use to use simple soilless mix like that, and just used fish and kelp fertilizer. As I’m getting back into growing, I’m starting out just like that again, but playing with the idea of using/making a water only soil mix. That or kind of in between with having a simpler soil mix, and also feeding with liquid fish and kelp.
Let your medium get a lot dryer. Heat and moisture cause rot. If your leaves start drooping and turning yellow do as said and cut the rot off the stem and try rooting the stem.
Things like this usually don’t turn out good. I just had 8 plants all get root rot. Only two survived ish. One dropped all its leaves . I was pist.
Sorry to hear man, that sucks! This is the first time I’ve ever had root disease outside DWC. Pretty pissed as well lol 
I wouldn’t care except I got the seeds for free so that I would journal them out and now I feel like an idiot 
Have ya tried a weak h2O2 solution yet? I’d think it would help battle the fungus or mold issue that might be going in here.
I’m spraying the stems at the base now with h202 at 3% couple times a day while letting the medium dry out.
I think all 4 plants have it, 2 will probably die.
I’m going to increase the amount of clorox in the future watering.
No idea how this will go.
Have you done this before ? I’m not a hydro guy by any means but Clorox might cause other issues as well being caustic and ph swings
I’ve thought this before as well but apparently bleach is a normal thing in hydro kinda crazy lol
Yeah, it’s not super cool but chlorine is an alternative to beneficial bacteria/fungus for combating enemy microbes. Chlorine keeps pH much more stable because the overall microbe population stays lower.
I’ve been very careful not to overdo it with the bleach this round and it looks like I now used too little 
Well whenever you do decide to do another grow give coco a try. It’s super simple once you get the basics down. Also since your in rock wool and hydro multiple feeds a day won’t freak you out like it tends to do to people that previously grew in soil.
