Hi everyone. So I’ve had this white stuff appear that I’m concerned is powdery mildew. Here’s why I’m not SURE it’s powdery mildew:
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I have three autoflowers: northern lights, amnesia haze, and blueberry OG. All three of them are about 9 weeks old and are RIGHT next to each other (I only staggered them a little the day before yesterday and before that their leaves were touching). The northern lights is the only one NOT flowering yet. Even though the three were right next to each other/touching, the amnesia haze is the only plant showing symptoms.
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the pattern of the potential mildew is strange. Rather than it looking like it’s starting to grow in places, it looks more like something dripped, dried, and left a residue. Meaning there was a fat drop of some type of moisture that then dripped onto some leaves below (look at the pictures and let me know if you see what I mean). Additionally, they used to get foliar feedings of calmag and neem oil for pests. But since they’ve been flowering, I haven’t foliar fed them anything so it’s been weeks. I don’t know if this is just old, old residue from those times that never fully cleaned off and maybe collected other stuff in the process?
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I am most definitely suffering from glassy winged sharpshooters. These annoying little buggers eat my beautiful plants and will then secrete and spew out this moisture that then leaves a white residue on the leaves (which kind of looks like powdery mildew). From time to time, I’ll check the plants and find these random drips of “water” in random places on the plants. I’ve also seen them shaking off the “water” off of themselves, and it’s a surprising amount, so there are sometimes fat drops and smaller drops scattered about. I’ve wondered if this might be leavings from them. However, I’ve only seen the sharpshooters on my autoflowers I think once, maybe twice (though that doesn’t mean they don’t go there). I’m constantly finding them on my photoperiods. Since I don’t see them on the autos as often, I’m not 100% confident this white stuff is from them.
So what does anyone think? Is this powdery mildew? Sharpshooter secretions? Something else? It looks like a super thick layer of frost but I don’t know if the frost that shows up during flowering gets to be this thick. What does anyone think it is and what should I do?
Here are the specifics and some pictures:
Strain: amnesia haze
Type: autoflower
Climate: outdoor
Grow medium: fox farm Ocean Forest soil in 5 gal pots—small percentage of worm castings
pH: they’re due for another check but last I checked was around 6
Nutrient strength: not sure but I’ve been using ILGM’s Flowertime Fertilizer and Plant Booster once a week as directed (yesterday the ones that are flowering got flowertime and their second dosage of plant booster)
Light type: natural sunlight
Temperature: it’s been in the high 80s-90s this past week
Humidity: can’t speak for always, but it’s been humid here in Southern California. At the time of typing this it’s supposedly 93F with 31% humidity
Ventilation: natural air
I can take more pictures if needed. Thank you for any and all help!
