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health What is wrong with all of my plants?

S

SuburbanFowl

They are being grown in coco coir/perlite. They looked okay 1-2 weeks ago and I had been treating them with a mix of pyrethrin, neem and dr bronners castile soap to combat a thrip and aphid infestation.
 
The big leaves started developing some black/brown spots so I cut them off and now the smaller leaves are also developing the same spots and now they're curling.
 
I probably went overboard with the spraying and I'm not sure what to do. I can't tell if this is bacterial/fungal or pest related or maybe I inadvertently caused it by spraying them too often with pyrethrin, neem and dr bronners castile soap.
 
At this point, will these plants even survive?
 
I'm considering doing a liquid sulphur spray because that helps with bacterial/fungus infections and mites but I'm also scared that adding another spray could exacerbate the problem.
 
I would isolate the afflicted plants but they're all showing signs of this issue. 3 serrano plants that looked the worst were destroyed today.
 
Nutes vary between 1.2 and 1.6 EC but usually around 1.4 (700ppm @ 500 conversion factor).
 
It is strange because this doesn't look like any kind of deficiency or toxicity.
 
 
Sorry for the terrible photo quality, my phone doesn't have a great camera and can't focus on the leaves, I took over 200 photos and these ones show the issue the best.
 
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At this point I am heartbroken, any help would be much appreciated.
 
Sorry to see your plants in a rough spot.  They look to me like they've have too much Neem used on them - I actually thought that just from looking at the pictures before I'd even read that you had used Neem. 
 
My take is that too much Neem (too concentrated/over-saturation/too many applications over a given time period) will build up the oil on the leaves and prevent the stoma from breathing and eventually defoliate and even kill plants.  It also seems to kill the small growth tips and at the nodes, assumedly for similar reasons, which reduces or eliminates plant growth points.  I'd recommend keeping them out of direct sun to reduce transpiration demands until the leaves loose that shiny/oily look to them and new growth develops, but unfortunately I think this will be a fairly significant setback.
 
Thanks CD and Paul.  I sprayed a significant amount of neem on the 13th of December. It was at the reccomended concentration however I drenched the plants.
 
CD, your theory makes 100% percent sense. I have made this worse by trimming off the leaves and then placing most of the plants in direct sunlight.
 
I have 3 lemon drop plants that were given the exact same amount of neem oil but these plants only get 3-4 hours of direct sunlight at most and these plants don't look anywhere near as bad as the others. They were also defoliated however.
 
That kind of confirms your theory.
 
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Yes, this is a significant setback. All I can do is hope for the best. If anything this is a big opportunity to learn from and I can now stop this from happening again.
 
I did flush 2 plants last night to check runoff EC and the EC is the same as I am putting in.
 
Canedog, do you think PaulG could be on to something? Could rinsing them help?
 
I can now see the oily wax buildup and obviously it needs to come off asap. Would it even dissapear on its own?
 
At the very least, I'm glad it's not a bacterial issue. On most of the plants now the leaves aren't curling too much and also the newer growth doesn't look terrible (it doesn't look great either) which provides me with a small amount of hope.
 
Thank you both for the replies, I really appreciate your thoughts.
 
It probably doesn't help that the neem I am using is extremely potent. During cold weather it solidifies and a 1 litre bottle of it smells almost like vomit although the neem smells heavenly after it has been sprayed.
 
 
Quoted from the manufacturers website:
 
Neem oil Azadirachtin content : 3400ppm Average 
Normal Neem Oil is usually about 1600ppm some as low as 900ppm
 
PaulG said:
+1 CD.  I wonder if spraying with a very mild
detergent solution followed by a water rinse
could remove some of the oil, if that is the
problem?
Click to expand...
 
Good thought Paul!
 
SuburbanFowl said:
Canedog, do you think PaulG could be on to something? Could rinsing them help?
 
Thank you both for the replies, I really appreciate your thoughts.
Click to expand...
 
That's a tough call.  I do think it would work to reduce the oil, but I'd also consider that it might further stress already weakened plants.  If they were my plants I think I'd give it a try, though maybe I'd test it on a few first and see how they responded before rolling it out for all of them.
 
I'd focus on the underside of the leaves and the stems (growth node areas) and I'd hit them pretty good because spraying with the soap solution heavily enough that it runs off should carry away more oil. Then I'd rinse them well right away with room temp water. Leaving the soap on for a short while, say 10 or 15 minutes, shouldn't hurt, but conceptually I think soaping and rinsing quickly is the way to go and will remove the most oil with the least adverse effect on the plant.
 
Man, I really hope they spring back from this quickly.
 
EDIT:  Yep, at 200% - 300% of a typical concentration your final solution was certainly a lot stronger than you were reasonably intending.
 
Thanks Cane.
 
My main concern is that the neem already present on the leaves may prevent further growth or even damage the plants due to how concentrated it is. I don't want to leave it too long without removing the neem but I also don't want to kill the plants by rinsing them in their stressed state, lol.
 
Thanks Cane. How thorough should the soaking be? I don't want to over do it again. The idea is that the soap will help wash off the neem, correct?
 
Yep. I'd turn the containers on their sides and spray them underneath the leaves and along the stems and branches thoroughly enough that that soapy water runs off the plant and (hopefully) carries oil with it.  Then I'd rinse well soon after.  Nothing crazy with the soap, but not just saturating either.  I'd create some run-off.  And I'd totally keep them out of the sun for a day (at an absolute minimum overnight) after a thorough rinse to give the plant a bit of time to reproduce it's natural protection as some amount of that will likely be stripped away too.
 
Keep in mind though that this is currently just a theory.  We can't be sure yet it isn't better to simply leave them be.
 
Ok, thank you for your thoughts, I really appreciate it. Yes, I understand it's a theory. I'd rather get the neem off straight away because the leaves still look just as oily as last night.
Then I'll leave them inside the house in a dark room for 24 hours then slowly introduce them back into light.
 
Yes, I'll spray the tops as well then wait 15 minutes, spray with just water and then finally give them a feeding and then they'll come inside for 24 hours (or a bit longer). It's meant to rain here for the next 2-3 days which means I can put them outside (under cover) without being worried about the sun.
 
And it is done. Some of the leaves fell off after being sprayed but others look healthy. The chinense plants sadly are not looking too good but I'm hoping for the best.
 
Thanks PaulG and Cane. Luckily I posted on here. Originally I was going to spray with liquid sulphur because it looked like some kind of fungal infection, lmao.
 
I'll post in a few days with an update.
 
Thanks again!
 
Sprayed them all last night. The leaves on the plants in the red cups seem to have lost their oily or waxy look.
 
The plants in the green pots (the chinenses) still have an oily layer on their leaves. I will take a photo tonight and see if it shows up on the photo. They may need another spray.
 
It looks like maybe 3 or 4 plants are on the brink of death due to having hardly any leaves but I'll keep them for now and see what happens.
 
This is a huge setback but it's possible that they will make it through. On a positive note, this has been a huge learning experience for me (and hopefully anyone that comes across this post).
 
With the ones that lost so many leaves I'd be watching for activity along the growth nodes and once I saw good activity I'd cut the growth tips (assuming they look bad and aren't growing well) back to just above those healthy growth nodes to let the plants focus their growing energy on the healthy points.  Just my thoughts.  Unless things got worse, based on the pictures above I think you're going to see generally good recovery and I'm hoping the action you took makes it even better.
 
Good luck SF!
 
SuburbanFowl said:
It probably doesn't help that the neem I am using is extremely potent. During cold weather it solidifies and a 1 litre bottle of it smells almost like vomit although the neem smells heavenly after it has been sprayed.
 
 
Quoted from the manufacturers website:
 
Neem oil Azadirachtin content : 3400ppm Average 
Normal Neem Oil is usually about 1600ppm some as low as 900ppm
Click to expand...
 

"Normal" Neem oil is 3400 ppm average. If it's lower, it's been processed, or diluted. If it's a product that's anything less than pure neem, you won't know what you get, unless it's declared.  But ~3400 is what any cold pressed neem should be.  Unless somebody, somewhere, is growing "neem lite".  Who knows, could happen... 
.
Any neem that doesn't solidify in cooler temps, isn't real neem, either.  It's a saturated fat, like coconut oil.  (unless it's not)
.
 Also, I'd strongly caution you to refrain from using sulfur after your neem application.  That is a recipe for instant death.
.
Let's talk, instead, about why you have the pests.  You're using one of my favorite substrates.  But it has quirks.  Did you "pre-charge" the coir?  If your plant is overfertilized, or if it's not taking up nutrients optimally, that's a very good reason why pests move in.  So speak to the coco issue...
 
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