Okay, I just learned what has been going on with my blueberry and strawberry plants and wanted to share and get some info.
Intermittent
Three to nine frond leaves, some wide, like elongated baby palms; yellowing on one side not the other, or a strip of yellow on some of the leaves; leaves here and there growing into elongated, twisted shapes, etc… When it happened I came here frustrated, convinced I was doing something wrong, because everything pointed to the “Tobacco Mosaic.” I removed the four plants from the other room and waited for the rest of the room to get the disease.
They didn’t. Not one of them, especially my widows, which would have made me very sad if it did.
Anyway, for the rest of the growing season, the blueberry and strawberry has been a real pain in the ass. Sensitive to everything, and I mean everything! They weren’t happy with the nutrient increase. I had to make a separate solution for it, because they were the only ones reacting to the formula that the other plants were thriving on, and I was convinced it was the cause behind the continuing leaf morphing and discoloration. The buds looked okay, but weren’t as tight as the last grow. Again, the other room had no issues, all was growing well. Now I’m getting suspicious.
I took my last blueberry and strawberry to a friends home, as they were kind enough to let me grow there. The only condition was my using new soil (of course), new pot, tools, everything, which also made sense,given the info on Tobacco Mosaic. I was more than happy to do anything to get a healthy plant.
That was four weeks ago.
Guess what? It’s happening again. All of the same symptoms to both plants, and no, I haven’t touched the seeds with contaminated hands, and/or in the same room or whatever. My friend was totally freaking at first, but called a seasoned grower, who looked at the two plants and said - Mutations. This explained everything, especially why my normal plants remained so.
He’s doing research on this, and went thru his explanation and theory which I’ll be reading up on today. According to him, mutations affect the potency (which I’ve noticed), and that some mutated strains are more sensitive to stressors than regular strains. So, I told him about my fert schedule and how the plants seemed to swing between lock out or potential nute burn.
He talked about having to foliar feed mutated plants more often than he cared to, in order to compensate for a far more diluted nute schedule. He also said sometimes a mutated plant will react badly if the PH was lower than 7. He saw no issues with the rest of my grow, but the blueberry and strawberry plants just don’t appear as healthy, and the buds aren’t as robust.
The question is, "how often does this happen in a strain, and what are the chances of one person receiving 6 seeds (3 blueberry and 3strawberry) that are growing the exact same way?
I’m flushing everything on Monday right before the 6 days of darkness, I’m not sure what to do about the mutated plants. They don’t seem as potent to me.
BTW, he said that we’re going to see an increase of “GMO” marijuana seeds, and that hopefully they’ll do a better job that what we’ve seen in GMO grown veggies, fruits and the like. I remember buying an apple during lunch from a supermarket about a year ago. It was a large, beautiful, red apple, just the right side to get me through lunch and hold me until after school. Walking back to the campus, I took a bite out of that apple and it was juicy, but NO TASTE - I swear! I had some friends bite into it and they were shocked at how flavorless it was.
After class, I took it back to the supermarket, told the guy in the fruit section and he gave me my money back, no questions asked. It was at that point I realized how cheap the apples were and said, “I’m not the only one, am I?” The guy just looked at me and said, “Is there anything else I can do you?”
That totally explained it all.