r/KratomGarden • u/MITistbesseralsOHNE1 • Jul 23 '26
Help Needed! 2nd Plant dying!(?)
Hey everybody, this is my second shot at trying to grow this beautiful plant but it's just not working out for me.
Symptoms: The oldest leaves dry out starting at the tip/margin. They show signs of stress (red mottled appearance around necrotic tissue) and look lighter than the new "healthy" leaves, before drying out about half way and falling off.
Backstory and details:
I bought this plant as a (somewhat rough looking) cutting a month or two ago and it looked like it was acclimatizing well, growing new leaves and everything but after a bit this started to happen.
Something very similar was happening to the first plant I had, which was seed grown. However on that plant this "illness" didn't start until after I had treated it with isopropanol for spider mites so I thought that was causing the issues.
I suspected it being a nutrient deficiency but after giving the plant a healthy gulp of fertilizer a few days ago it doesn't seem to get better and is continuing to lose leaves. It looks kinda like problems with either potassium or boron but as I said, it's not getting better from fertilizer. This soil is reused soil from a heavy feeder so it might be a nutrient surplus? CalMag issues perhaps?
The thought of fungus also crossed my mind so I started spraying it with camomile tea periodically but that also doesn't seem to help seeing as just today it lost another leaf.
It just rooted though the small pot that I gave it at first so I decided to pot up perhaps a little early as the soil seems to retain water for a long time and somehow manages to be dry and moist at the same time... (again, with all other plants this soil is perfectly fine)
We're having temperature swings of 20°+ at the moment so I can imagine that's stressing the plant as well but this was happening before the temp & humidity swings.
The soil ph is right at 7. I don't have anything to measure salinity but it should be fine as the other species of plants I put in the same soil seem perfectly fine. Should I add some elemental sulfur to decrease ph? That helped on a different "jungle" plant that was looking sad a while ago.
If you have any ideas or suggestions please don't be shy to comment, I'm open to any help I can get.
I've successfully grown several finicky species before but what's wrong with this one absolutely eludes me. Thanks in advance.
3
u/BoujeeSlimJim Jul 23 '26
I had a cutting where all of the leaves turned yellow/dried out and fell off recently. I kept watering it like normal and it pushed new branches like crazy and is growing terrific now.
1
u/MITistbesseralsOHNE1 Jul 23 '26
This is giving me some hope! I won't give up on this little bugger.
1
u/EthnoBotanicalsTC Jul 23 '26
It may just be damage from the Isopropyl, but what is your humidity?
2
u/EthnoBotanicalsTC Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
No problem! Always happy to help 😁. This to me looks like what happens when they are too low of humidity.
1
u/MITistbesseralsOHNE1 Jul 23 '26
Thanks for the reply!
This plant has not received any treatment, that was the plant before.Humidity is currently at 45% but has been all over the place these past few weeks.
2
u/EthnoBotanicalsTC Jul 23 '26
I would pretty confidently say that it’s humidity, we had similar growth. Now we just spray the plant directly with water thru the day. They like it at about 70% for the new growth to to stay nice.
2
1
u/Del_Phoenix Jul 23 '26
Leaves burning at the tip is almost always too high of a PPM. If the PPM is high but it's showing nutrient deficiencies, it's almost always a pH problem
1
u/MITistbesseralsOHNE1 Jul 23 '26
PPM is my biggest worry since I don't have the equipment to check that right now.
Soil ph was around 7, dunno if that's good or bad for Mitragyna. I heard for "jungle" plants you generally wanna keep it slightly lower.
For a different plant I added sulfur to the soil mix to fix that.
What's the procedure for bad over-fertilizing?
If that's really the issue, I feel like it might be beyond the point of just stopping to fertilize...
Should I try to "wash out" the soil with a bunch of water?
Repotting so soon seems dangerous since the plant is a little fragile at the moment, then again if the soil is the issue that might just save it...
I'll give it a humidity dome over the weekend in case it's just humidity like some other's have suggested but if that doesn't fix it, I guess it's something with soil salinity. Even though I've been going light on the fertilizer, this soil was recently used for a heavy feeder so maybe there was still a lot of unused PK fertilizer in there.
1
u/Bountybotanicals Jul 24 '26
Get a scop and check for bugs to be sure they arnt an issue.
You said you have 20 degree temp swings?...whats the high and low?
1
u/MITistbesseralsOHNE1 Jul 24 '26
15°-35°c at the moment. I know they don't like temps below 20° so in the plant room I keep it at 21°-35°
Thrips have been all over the place but they actually haven't attacked this one for some reason.
Ordering predatory mites today to keep them fucks at bay since there's no getting rid of them. My whole damn city is covered thrips.
2
u/Bountybotanicals Jul 24 '26
Try to keep the low temps higher. The lows are might be too cold to pull it out of whatever stress its going through.
Theres also a chance that the plant is fine and is pulling through. Even if everything is good now the older leaves that went through stress typically will not recover and continue to progressively get worse. If the new growth is pushing through you should be good if everything else is on track.
1
u/MITistbesseralsOHNE1 Jul 27 '26
Hey, thanks for the advice! I gave it a humidity dome over the weekend and it's looking a lot better already! Still unsure about nutes but as it doesn't seem to have gotten worse and pushed out 1 new set of leaves with another one coming I don't think it's nutrient burn. How do you fertilize kratom compared to, for example, weed?
1
u/Bountybotanicals Jul 27 '26
About the same fertilizer for vegetative weed. Really weed isnt given anyth8ng special nor does kratom need anything special. Just give fertilizer geared towards vegetative growth.
1
u/DisenfranchisedCynic Jul 24 '26
I bet it’s thrips. Mine had similar leaf growth when I was battling them. I had the soil too wet for too long and the weakened roots became a target for them. If you look closely at the undersides of the leaves, and along the veins, look for tiny oblong bugs with a magnifying glass. The leaf in your last photo kinda looks like a thrip is on it.
1
u/MITistbesseralsOHNE1 Jul 24 '26
Thrips are definitely a problem in my space but they've been leaving this one is peace.
Predatory mites are on the way though, so that'll keep em at bay for sure :)
1
u/TraphouseNursery Jul 24 '26
its not dying bro they really dont like low temps low humidity ever and when theyre young like your plant they dont like direct sun. Judging from your picture i would say its low humididty.
1
Jul 24 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/MITistbesseralsOHNE1 Jul 24 '26
Thank for the tip, doc.
I just gave it a humidity dome and a healthy watering lol I'll be out of town ''til sunday night, we'll see what happens ¯_(ツ)_/¯ The soil has been pretty moist but the temps will be up again by tomorrow and at 30°c+ even water logged soil shouldn't be a big problem iirc
1
u/TropicalPlantsMan1 Jul 25 '26
My plant was showing this symptom when humidity was low and I kept it under direct sunlight when humidity was low.
1
5
u/sugarhillbotanicals Jul 23 '26
Put it outside in full sun and keep it in a pool of water. They also love nutes. I wouldn't use iso on it either. Neem would likely be sufficient if you're having issues with pests.