HELP! Droopy leaves? Overwatered but drying out hasn’t helped

[FortyNation]

I currently have two ILGM white widow autos in my 3x3x6 tent. They are under a viparspectra vp600. I was giving it the Gen Hydro trio for most of its lifespan, but haven’t since the problem described below.

One of the plants has had droopy leaves for at least a week. It has slightly recovered twice throughout this time but has reverted back to droopy leaves each time. Now it looks like it won’t be recovering, as this is about as droopy as the leaves have been. I am worried about the other plant now, as it’s leaves are also starting to droop quite a bit.

I figured this was overwatering at first but after giving it a lot of time to dry out, it hasn’t really improved anything. I have ph’d my water and it seems fine every time I watered, but again i have really slowed down it’s watering schedule due to the droopy leaves. It should be said that these are about the 5th or 6th plants I have grown in this setup since getting it last autumn. I haven’t really changed anything from each of these grows, and these are the first plants to have the droopy leaves. In fact, the each successive grow has generally improved upon the last, except for these...

What should I do? Any advice is greatly appreciated.

extra info
ocean forest with added perlite
five gallon fabric pots

[FortyNation]

[crucialbunny]

My gut reaction would be that they are suffering from too much nitrogen in the soil. Once they begin to flower like these are they don't want the nitrogen they had been using for leaf and branch growth. Again, this is just a gut reaction based on what I see in your pics under blurple lighting. With good drainage in a quality soil like yours appears to be, over watering will normally cause droop for only a few hours. I think if they were mine I'd try a really heavy flush.

[dilvish]

white widow is a northern strain so it tends to like cooler temps in the flower stage. if overwatering was suspected but didn't resolve the problem when drying out then I'd say the temps are too high as well as the humidity. Also check that you are measuring your nutrients properly. Going by the guide on the GH Trio bottle may be too much for them. Look for Nebula's guide on the main site for Drain to Waste Schedule for GH Flora series.

[dphipps1020]

What does your normal watering look like? Do you feel the weight of the pot? Is it heavy or light right now?

To me they look severely dehydrated, that's why I ask. Especially if drying time didn't help. How many days have they been drying?

[PeterMatanzas]

When did you flip, how long have they been in flower? What's the humidity? Be helpful to see these under normal light because can't tell how rich color the green is. Buds are just dying to be pollinated, but there are no yellow leaves - got red pistils in the last plant but no yellow leaves. crucialbunny onto something there re: excess nitrogen.

The last picture, where the droop is not as severe as the other female - the stem of the leaves still support the leaf. Weak but still some support. It's not collapsed like the other. This plant may straighten up some. The other one will stay droopy imo. But they will both live and the buds can get larger, sure have alot of pistils leading to what can become fat ovaries.

Over/under watering question: When you took the photos was this right after a watering, in between, or is the soil dry? If it's under-watered the leaves have a different feel than if it's over-watered. How do you know when to water - best way of course is lift the planter but that's why I can't grow a 5 gal because I can't lift it.

[SoOrbudgal]

I've noticed with using fabric pots and good draining soil that water runoff is rapid. So with fabric and my good fast draining soil i pour very very slowly and try and get the soil to really moisten. One of my black fabric pots stays wet & heavy much longer than white or the other black fabric pot unknown reason i don't know but they are all looking healthy. I set my heavy holding one out in the sunshine 1 day let that pot really get some fresh air it helped. If you get big temp flux between lights on an off this shows up as droop also. I would not feed them give only plain water a big ol drink and lots of air circulation and 80f in the tent or give them a day of sunshine outdoors.

[FortyNation]

Thank you everyone for the advice. GWE community has always answered my questions and offers great advice, so I’m just grateful that I can ask questions and expect answers/advice/ suggestions so quickly.

Based on responses, I definitely do not think it is overwatered because they have been droopy, with varying degrees of severity, over the last week or so. I do not think temps or humidity are too high cause it’s about 65 or so at night and about 70-74 or so daytime, and Humidity is between 35-45. Although I recently took out a couple small containers of plain water that I was using to help increase the humidity. I would never have thought that taking these out would be the issue, but it’s really the only thing I’ve changed since my most recent successful harvest about a month ago. They are autos and about two months along. The coloring I don’t think has changed much and seemed fairly healthy even when dropping was at its worst.

When I took the pictures, the soil was pretty dry. I usually lift the pots to determine when to water, and sometimes put my finger in to check how wet/dry the soil is.

One thing I forgot to mention is that I noticed the plants retain way less water when I water them since the drooping started. It seems like it just goes through the entire pot, almost straight to runoff.

So I’m leaning toward too much nitrogen? But still am really not sure. I will upload more pics soon since it’s been a couple of days now. Yesterday the drooping seemed to be worsening...

I can provide more info too, just let me know if what. If I can save at least the smaller one I’ll be happy.

[FortyNation]

Here are some new pics. The plants are on opposite sides of the tent now.

[FortyNation]

[SoOrbudgal]

I agree with crucialbunny

[PeterMatanzas]

The one on the right, the one that didn’t look as bad, now it looks worse. I looked backwards and didn’t see if you said how old these plants are.

[Catfish22]

Agree, looks like maybe root problem. Flush it good and give it some kelp see what happens?

[dphipps1020]

Am I the only one who thinks they're dry? If you're watering and it goes straight to runoff, but feels like it should be watered still, then it's probably dry. I've noticed it takes a little while for the water to soak into dry soil and sometimes it just comes straight out of my pots so I have to water slowly, or multiple times. I really don't think it's nitrogen toxicity. I've had plants look like that from being severely dehydrated because I went an extra day between watering. I've never had them get that bad from over-watering, especially with plenty of drying time (which you've had). Do they seem to perk up after you water them?

[SoOrbudgal]

No dphipps1020

[george66]

You could do with putting them on some risers or something so there not sitting flat on floor or trays otherwise the bottom roots can be sitting in water without you realising and it helps the air circulate under the pot also.Probably nothing to do with the drooping but will help anyway.Dont think the small pieces of wood are enough.

[HobbitGDF]

Man I hope you figure it out. I've been overwatering some and it never looked like that. I was wondering If you had good airflow and ventilation?
Positive healing vibes. 🧘♂️🙏💚🌿🌲🕉

[SoOrbudgal]

Looks like they hit the freezer?

[FortyNation]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. So, after reading all the comments, I decided that since they had been drying for what should have been long enough to show some sort of recovery but still did not improve, i flushed the larger, more droopy plant quite a bit and gave the other one a little water. This morning, to my surprise, they are starting to recover! At least they look much better than they did before. It was strange they reacted positively to the water because I had tried that a couple times over the week or so they were droopy and they never reacted the way they did this most recent time.
This is what I think happened, based on everyone’s comments and observing them over the last week or so.

I think I overwatered the worse looking one and let the bottom of the pot sit in the runoff for too long. I think this was initially what messed them up (some sort of root issue, could be wrong though). Then, thinking they were overwatered, I tried letting them dry out a bit, but ended up letting them dry too long. This caused them to become dehydrated and severely droopy (the leaves never really became brittle or anything so I did not think underwatering was the issue until reading some of the comments). Anyway, I could be completely wrong as I am still fairly new to growing, but this is what I think happened. Hopefully now they will continue to recover. I will post some pics shortly and would really like to hear what everyone else thinks, as I’d hate for this to happen again. Thanks again for the feedback.

In regard to airflow and ventilation, I think it’s fairy good, at least adequate. I have two small fans, one blowing into the tent and the other inside to move the air around. The fan for my carbon filter is also a little large for the size of my tent. Also, George66, I think that’s a good point and something f I need to do moving forward (especially if my guess on the initial root issue is correct). What is a good thing to use to get them up off the water tray a bit? The wood I have in there under the pot is about 1-2 inches tall or so.

[azorahai]

With enough perlite in the mix (mine are usually closer to 50% by volume), it's very difficult if not impossible to "overwater" — which itself is a terrible misnomer because the issue isn't exactly too much water, but rather not enough oxygen in the root zone. As long as your pots aren't sitting in run-off, this shouldn't be an issue ever, specially with fabric pots which allows more air to diffuse into the pot.
I'm only saying this so people with wilting plants don't try to overcorrect the issue and end up underwatering them, which results in pretty much the same symptoms.

[george66]

I use round wire racks like trivets that you can get on amazon for about a quid each.The reason i mentioned it was because although it looked like you had the edges raised when the pot is heavy and full of water the centre will sagg and create a seal thus allowing the water to pool in the bottom of the pot.Hope it helps.Good luck.