tight crowns or lights too close?

13 years ago

I have just recently gotten a new plant stand (T-12 lights), and I believe my lights are too close. They are about 8 inches from the top of the plants to the bottom of the bulbs. The plant stand is the full size light cart with four shelves. The fixtures have two bulbs, not four. Before the plants were under different lights (T-5 lights), but about the same distance. My plants are all getting really tight small leaves growing in the crowns. Leaves on some are curling under, and the blooms are much smaller than normal. This never happened before moving them to my new plant stand and I've inspected them for bugs and mites as best I can. My question is, can I correct this by simply reducing the amount of time my lights are on? They were on 13 hours before, and I just decreased them to 9 hours. Or do I need to figure out how to get them further away from the lights? Also, what do I do with the plants that have the small leaves in the crowns... Do I wait them out and let them grow or do I remove them?

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Comments (11)

robitaillenancy1
13 years ago
Don't remove the crowns. More crown will grow in the middle but maybe not right in the center.

You have lights on for 13 hours. Usually growers have them on for 10 hours per day. At show time, they do increase up to 16 hours a day, but this is for a short period of forcing growth and flowers. Keep lights on for about 10 hours per day unless you take plants to show.

At the same time, continue to think about broad mite because of the down-turned leaves. Do you have symptoms of very hairy leaves, brittle leaves? Misshapened flowers? If so it is time to think about broad mite.

But it it more likely it is a light problem. I think you will see changes once you turn down the light hours.

Nancy
irina_co
13 years ago
I second Nancy -

8 inches is about right - but the recuperation time is I would say 6 months. AVs do not grow under T5, unless you put them 24" above I guess. The plants are damaged and it will take time for them to grow new healthy leaves. But even the itty bitty leaves are working now - so do not remove them. Your plants will kick back and bloom earlier than in 6 months - but they will look a bit strange. When the plants will grow several rows of good size leaves, you will remove the odd ones.

I would say that 10-12 hours are OK, doesn't make that much difference.

So far - just observe - you keep an eye on pests - just as Nancy said - and you keep an eye on plant growth - you stressed your plants - and they usually react with growing suckers - just as Nancy said - the crowns off center.

But the plants are amazingly resilient, they will take time to row out of damage.

Do not get rid of your T5s - one day you will be interested in growing other gesneriads - and there are some that require exactly T5s. Or you can grow your tomato seedlings next year, or Orchids.

Good Luck

irina
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Tmac, the best way I've found to test for tight crowns, is to actually touch it. If the leaves feel hard and brittle, it's a 'tight' crown. As the others have said, move it to the end of the light fixture. It should start to loosen up in 2-3 weeks. If it's been over a month and it's still tight, try flushing the pot and not feeding it for a month or so. Someone said tight crowns are often caused by too much fertilizer; some experimentation of my own is proving that correct. Good luck. Korina
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Having lived through over-fertilizing my Av's (and it taking 2 years to come back from that disaster) I don't think I will forget that more is not better. What happened to me was accidental - I ran out of the fertilizer brand I had used successfully for years and bought a different brand that was highly recommended. It however did not come in a lovely little bottle with the squeeze bulb dropper, so I refilled my old bottle. And the dosage of the new fert was not the same as the old one. Somewhere down the line I had a senior moment (all right, longer than a moment - more like senior months) and I reverted to the old dosage with the new fertilizer. First symptom was the tight centers, the brittle leaves. I couldn't figure it out. Blooms started looking odd. Then I began seeing the orange crystals on a few of the plants' leaves - (but not all had that symptom and I missed it for a long while.) Then it finally dawned on me! Yikes!! Let me tell you, to bring an AV back from that level of over-fertilization takes a long, long time. There were even some that after a year of babying would not grow right and I had to pitch them. Some I saved the best leaves and restarted - and they turned out OK, luckily, but it was a long time starting over. Anyway, sorry to ramble on, but I wanted to make my point that too much fertilizer can be really bad for your plants. "Fertilize weakly, weekly" is sometimes quoted - and I've taken it to heart. I now use less than half the recommended dose in my watering, and at least once a month I water with plain water and now my violets are thriving and blooming. YMMV - but Sue when I read that you sometimes use a bit more than the bottle recommends, I was worried for you! Please do measure carefully as I'd hate for you to ever experience something like I went through! Every expert I've heard and read recommends using only a portion of the manufacturer's recommended dosage. All these successful growers can't be blowing smoke. And Karin, you're going to make me go dig out my old Master Gardener manual and look up the numbers in fertilizer. My recollection is foggy, but I do not think that it is correct that 7-7-7 is less than half the strength of 15-15-15. I'll check on that and get back to you.
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Good job on rooting the sucker and starting the leaf. I like to let my babies get quite large before I separate them from the mother leaf - at least until I have leaves that are quarter size or larger (on standards.) There is no rush; they'll happily grow for quite a while together. I know how puzzling it can be to have both the symptom of too much light (tight centers) and not enough (reaching) all at the same time. But not all AV's like the same amount of light so try this: move those that are reaching more directly under the light (the one you pictured seems to be at the end of your shelf or rack where light is probably weakest.) If that isn't enough to stop the reaching, try raising the pot up on top of something to bring it a bit closer to the lights and observe. For the one with tight center, move it to the edge of your shelf. If that doesn't seem to make any difference after a week or so, try covering the tight leaved one with a piece of tissue for a few days. If it's been getting too much light, that should tell you by its relaxing under the covering. Then you might cut back on how long your lights are on per day. A lot of learning what our plants want is just trial and error, made a bit more complicated by them not all needing the same thing. But that's part of what makes AV's a fun challenge. Good luck!
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I worry about this too with new ones, but in my experience, it's always light and fertilizer. After one week with new soil, plain water, and some light, they open right up and start shooting up new healthy leaves. But this is for plants that look like Aegis' link on their second post, not like their photos on their first post. I know that I have caused some new leaves to look like the first post by over-fertilizing (small, curled, light green). I feel bad every time, but it's also a way to know "hey, the plant doesn't like this". My Michele actually did this last month... oops. It's also good to study multiple parts of the plant, not just one. I forget this! Most of my posts on here are from forgetting it. But just staring at the center or one leaf and not thinking about the plant's overall health will often have you worried about nothing.
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travisviolets
13 years ago
Turn off the lights for 2 weeks . They will lossen up.

Travis
bigbeaks
Original Author
13 years ago
Travis, are you saying to turn off the lights completely for two weeks?
Thanks,
Chris
bigbeaks
Original Author
13 years ago
Thank you Nancy and Irina for your help. I have some pictures, if I can figure out how to post them, I will.
travisviolets
13 years ago
Yes turn off the light for 2 weeks.

Water with water only and use 1/2 tesp of Hydrated pickling lime pet quart of water.Pour this in the pot untill it runs out of the bottom. Do this in the sink.

The plants will tell you if its the light or not. They should loosen up and reach slighty upright.

Then you can start looking for mites.... I dont think it will be a bug problem. Mites will have a totaly different look.
Travis
irina_co
13 years ago
I do not know - may be for a week? 2 weeks seem too radical.

The best resort for violets - plastic dome - or some kind of transparent plastic cover - the greenhouse effect helps to basically revive sad plants.

i.
angel2008
13 years ago
Travis, could you explain this pickling lime a little more? I have never heard of using this. Thanks.
travisviolets
13 years ago
Look Guys I grow tens of thousands of violets and been growing for over 35 years. I do not confess to know it all.I have Seen it all and done it all. Tight centers of plants can be PH, Lights,Cold and bugs. If its bugs it will be more than tight centers. If you have mites it will be a different look than the tight centers. Avid will take care of the mites and your thrip problems.

The lime will raise the ph and the plant will loosen up.
nwgatreasures
13 years ago
Travis,
I'm glad to see you sharing your expertise and opinion here :)

Dora
jane_in_bristol
13 years ago
Hmmm,

Pickling Lime is also known as slaked lime, or calcium hydroxide. Its a way to introduce calcium, which plants need, and reduce acidity at the same time.

I add a pinch of pulverized dolomitic lime (from the natural stone source) in my terrarium mixes for begonias - it counteracts the acidification that tends to happen with long strand sphagnum peat in a closed environment. I actually got it from Cedar Creek Violets.

Garden Lime (like the type used by the pound on lawns) can have traces of other things in it, including lead, so this is really clever - I would think that using human food-grade pickling lime, you can make sure you're getting a very pure form of the calcium hydroxide; CaOH. And, you can buy it in smaller amounts (rather than the 50 lb bags meant for lawns).

Interesting - I hadn't thought of pickling lime as an easy-to-find source of very pure calcium hydroxide. What a great tip!

-Jane

tight crowns or lights too close?

Comments (11)

robitaillenancy1

irina_co

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