Black fungi or mold??? Please help.

[Seabass]

Howdy helpful growers. A few new issues have arisen and I could certainly use some advice! I have a northern lights that's a week from harvest, although it could come down anytime now, 10-15% amber, that has a strange black mildew/mold/fungi growing on the leaves. Maybe 25-35% of the leaves have it. It starts as a small patch and spreads pretty quick. Is it ok to wait another week to harvest or should I chop ASAP? Also I started 2 more ladies in a new soil, I noticed insanely slow growth and was baffled till I found gnats. Environment and lighting is good so I figure this is the cause. The babies are 2 weeks old and just pushing out their second set of true leaves. They do look happy and healthy besides the ridiculous growth rate. Think I should bin them, grab some new soil and reboot?

 

[Heavily Medicated]

fungus gnats can be a real pain in ass, but are a managable pest. I am just finishing up a grow that was infested from the beginning from some Kind Soil I had left over and used up. I am 100 percent sure that the source of my infestation was the Kind Soil, not great soil to begin with, then get it infesed with fungus gnats right out of the bag. The trick is to hit them on more than one front. Use somethng along the lines of Captain Jacks Dead Bug or other spinosad product. You need to control the larva in the soil as this is where they always come back from and cause the most damage to your plant. Mosquito Bits or dunks or products with Bt(i) do a decent job of controlling larva. I also added some parasitic nematodes to the soil to help end reinfestation.

It looks to me that your leaves are just showing their ripening. Does it rub off, or is it down in the leaf?

 

[Seabass]

@Heavily Medicated thanks for the reply bro. I just ordered some sticky traps for the adults gnats, I'll look into the products you mentioned for the underground assholes.
The dark spots seem to be in the leaves, it does not wipe off. Glad to hear it looks benign. Only a week of flushing left till chop anyway.
The real puzzle to me is the slow growth from the "gnat" soil. Would the larvae in the soil slow growth that dramatically? They look like day 3-5 plants after 2 weeks...
Thanks again!

 

[Heavily Medicated]

Depending how contaminated your medium may have been from the beginning, the larva could easily slow the initial root development right out of the chute. Are your new girls in Kind Soil too, or did you store their medium in the same place as the Kind Soil?

 

[Seabass]

No KindSoil for me bro. I had an extra bag of this GB Blue ribbon laying around and heard good things about it. Guess not. Here's a picture of the babies, about 12 days old in this photo. Like I said they're a beautiful green and reaching for the lights but damn they're slow.

 

[Waira]

Hey Bass! ...I don't think the gnats and these symptoms are related,... I'm not sure what this is mate,.. it's not on the surface proper that I can tell, where something like sooty mold will form, and only if there's a food source for it like from nectar-dew spewing vermins like aphids or scales (they exude nectar that ant's love, so they start to "farm" the vermins)... it looks kinda like a P defc. starting, but the color is all wrong,.. if it was deep purple to red, I'd say P defc. for sure which follows given the stage she's at,... in any case, this close to harvest, I'd just take her down, you'll get more ambering as dry-cure progresses too,... only bar to this is if she's been heavily fed and needs more cleansing time,...
... hmm, lots of reasons for seedlings to go so slow, but look healthy otherwise,... but a major infestation of gnat larvae is one for sure! Are you seeing a lot of adults around? .... This soil, have you used it before for seedlings? It looks pretty rich, which can stunt them,....
treat all you soil with a mosquito dunk type product, best as a granular form (Bonide makes a good one, but there are others not in puck form).. I like to make a tea of the granules, 1 tsp molasses/qt, a dash of nutes and humic acids, and let it sit someplace warm for a day or so, better still if you can aerate it! This will speed up the bacteria from dormancy, and get them busy dividing,... then just water it in! No need to totally soak with it either,...

 

[Seabass]

@Waira first, THANK YOU. You and the other growers in this community are awesome. Makes my novice fumbling much more fun and forgiving.
The plant with the weird "growth" will be coming down Monday so I guess not much to worry about. Just odd looking.
The 2 new girls, Sour Stomper and 3 bears OG, have a pretty noticeable gnat swarm, maybe 5 or so scurrying around the tops of the soil. This is my first time with this medium. I will take care of the gnats ASAP just more worried about the stunting. If it's too rich, will they recover? Guess we will see.
Thanks again guys!

 

[Waira]

... forgot to mention: adult gnats are little more than flying gonads -- it's the damn maggot-like larvae that eat roots! Controling them is all about cutting the legs out from under the generation cycle, which the bio-weapon will do,.. it'll work for quite a while too usually,.. kill adults manually (I nail them with alcohol misting mid-air) or sticky traps too!
Cheers bud, you're always welcome!