Troubleshooting

[Simeon]

Could this plant be suffering from light burn? I have 2 200w 1600L Normal led lights that were about 28cm away from the plants and I couldn't figure out why they are drooping because I don't think they are getting to much or little water and ive never dealt with light burn as this is the first time im using lights that are this strong for germination 

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

Hey @Simeon 

We gona need a lot more info Is the 400w coming from a qb configuration with all the diodes in one place that's directly above the plants (how many plants?? how far spread out?) if a bar style configuration is in use with the diodes spread out far and wide and no concentrated focus point where light is coming from it may all have an impact on the answer. 

what I see + what you saying = It may actually be light, cause 400w at a distance of 28cm for seedling/todlers is overkill for sure, even from a bar light - but what do you mean normal LED? Is it a floodlight? not a growlight?

Gona give a long answer PAR on the leaf surface is what we focus on and it's measured in micromols per second, when measuring PAR at your canopy level you aim for round about 500micromol per second during seedling/veg stage moving all the way up as you hit late flower maxing out at just over 1000micromol per second, and then obviously as PAR increases the Kelvin Spectrum decreases, starting with higher 5000 to 6000K (white light) during seedling/veg stage and lowering all the way down to 3000K (yellow light) during flower. the reason for all this is the plant absorbs different light differently at different stages throughout its life. meaning, more light isn't always good, sometimes you got just the right amount of light but it's the wrong kind, like the spectrum is out and and and... so you pumping 400w (which is already too much) of what Kelvin? may also be out.

To achieve around 500micromol (can be bit above or bit below) on your leaf surface you can still get away with round about 50w at your stage. around 5000k will be best. even a CFL with those specs will work for you right now.

I focus on the light first, cause that's what you asked about, but with all that was just said, I actually saw something completely different right off the bat. Cannabis plants are so much more flexible with their environmental conditions above ground that you can really manipulate and do all kinds of crazy stuff with them above ground, as long as below the ground everythings as it should be. You can just raise your light a little and all should be fine in that regard, IF everything below the soil is fine. 

First gotta ask if it's an auto or photoperiod plant? Autos stress when you fart near them, any kinda stress will have greater impact. 

I would say your stress is root zone related by the looks of it, usually the worst time to deal with achieving perfect moisture levels is during seeling stage. Big plant you can over water and under water - no biggy. With seedlings just a few drops of water extra or too few drops of water can be a killer, too long wet without dry period can be a killer, too little oxygen by the roots can be a killer...a good estimated 90% the time when a plant dies of pythium (root rot) is during seedling stage. at that stage we just call it drowing/suffocating a baby. pythium happens a lot in hydro setups that have poor oxygen in the water, but in all cases seedlings are more susceptible to any kinda undesirable conditions. 

Anyway, looking at your photos, it looks like you're in pure coco? correct me if I am wrong here. It seems completely saturated. 

Back to - we gona need a lot more info - what's your watering regime? what kinda water you using? what are your other environmental conditions like (eg. FAE allows stable RH for plant media to not stay saturated for too long, if you water and plant stays wet for a week something is wrong) do you let the soil dry before watering? do you use nutrients at all and what kind? (synthetic / organic) do you water/feed till runoff? do you pour the runoff out or let the plant soak up runoff?

[AK-47 Gold Arabesque]

3 hours ago, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

You can just raise your light a little and all should be fine in that regard, IF everything below the soil is fine. 

What he said ^  I put my lights at the recommended manufacturer level (40cm from canopy) at early stages, and it was too much. Raising lights should help, and helps the plants stretch as well. 

"Seedling Stage: For marijuana seedlings, LED grow lights should be between 24-36 inches above the plant canopy. Seedlings are delicate, and placing lighting closer can cause bleaching or stunted growth. Placing the light source at this height also avoids drying out the soil. At the seedling stage, less light intensity is best."

IQ. (2021). Positioning LED Grow Lighting for All Stages of Marijuana Growth. [online] Available at: https://iq.lighting/blogs/lighting-blog/positioning-led-grow-lighting-for-all-stages-of-marijuana-growth [Accessed 2 Jul. 2023].

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[LitItGrown]

The Psycho is correct . I would suggest downloading a PAR meter app that measures your light in PAR (Photosynthetically Active Radiation) and DLi. - ("Daily Light Integral." is a metric used to quantify the total amount of photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) received by a plant over the course of a day. DLi is often expressed in units of moles of photons per square meter per day (mol/m²/day).) (Google play store, search for PPFD Meter) Distance all depends on what readings you get, that sorted me out, and this is the advice I got to narrow down my tip burn issues. 

Chlorosis of leaf tips, aka tip burn, It is a common issue and can be caused by several factors:

Nutrient imbalances: Imbalances in essential nutrients, such as calcium, magnesium, or potassium, can lead to tip burn in cannabis leaves. These imbalances can occur due to over-fertilization, improper pH levels, or poor nutrient uptake by the roots.

Excessive fertilizer or nutrient concentration: Using too much fertilizer or nutrient solution, especially those high in salts, can result in tip burn. The excessive salt buildup can interfere with nutrient absorption and cause damage to the leaf tips.

Environmental factors: High temperatures, especially when combined with low humidity, can lead to moisture stress in the plant. This can disrupt the movement of water and nutrients, resulting in tip burn.

Light intensity: Intense light, particularly when coupled with high temperatures, can cause leaf tips to burn. This is more likely to occur in indoor growing environments with powerful grow lights placed too close to the plants.

Here are some general steps to consider:

Adjust nutrient levels: Check the pH of the growing medium and ensure it falls within the appropriate range for cannabis (typically around 6.0 to 6.5) [My soil and RO is at 6.8]. Adjust nutrient concentrations and ratios according to the specific growth stage of the plants.

Monitor temperature and humidity: Maintain a suitable temperature and humidity range for cannabis cultivation. Avoid excessive heat and ensure adequate airflow to prevent moisture stress.

Review lighting setup: Make sure the grow lights are positioned at an appropriate distance from the plants to prevent light burn. Adjust the intensity or duration of light exposure if necessary.

Flush the growing medium: If nutrient buildup is suspected, consider flushing the growing medium with pH-balanced water to remove excess salts. This can help restore nutrient uptake and alleviate tip burn.

But like the Naught said, "we gona need a lot more info" but hopefully the above steps will narrow down your self-diagnoses of the issue you are having.

Good luck fellow mystic

[Simeon]

hey tnx for the reply So this is my first time growing autos and I have found what you say to be true they are so sensitive to any kind of stress its allso my first time really using lights they are just normal flode lights not grow light but the setup is just for germination and im planing on moving them outside and for soil I make n mix of 1part coco plus 1part compost and usually I add 1part perlite but i was out this time round and then I put a layer of pure cocoa on top as a mulch and for fertilizer I use organic but I haven't used anything on these babies yet except some small amount of kelpak as for the water I have a filter system that filters out the chlorine and fluoride out of the municipal water that I use and I don't have a specific rhythm of when I watter I just watter based on how dry or wet the soil looks and feels and then once per week I give a big amount of water but I think that once per week big watering is too much so im going to stop with that. I moved the lights up yesterday and they are already looking less droopy and slightly happier 

[Simeon]

here's an update they are all looking much happie! And also growing faster

[Simeon]

As for the ph according to this ph meter of mine the ph is way off and I have this ph down stuff but I have zero experience in adjusting pH 

[ORGANinc.]

Hello bud I would stop using The ph down for now, until you can get a digital ph meter and guarantee the levels,

For now I recon the plants are hungry and need some whole food, kelpak wont necessarily be enough, I’ve been having the same issue with very light soil I put together. 

Was with seedlings I sprouted in really light soil I put together unintentionally. 
 

Best fix would be to put them in new soil, but if you cant, start feeding, molasses or fish, any veg type nutrient you can find. 
 

good luck 

Edited July 3, 2023 by ORGANinc.

[SkunkPharm]

It’s a soil issue. Always start with a good soil. It solves most issues. Over wAtering 

Edited July 4, 2023 by SkunkPharm

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

17 hours ago, Simeon said:

here's an update they are all looking much happie! And also growing faster

Plants already looking much better brother!

Just double checking, you say it's the first time growing autos, so I am assuming you grown photoperiods before? What made you go with autos this time? 

These last 2 to 3 years I have seen a massive influx of new growers going straight for growing autos. what is this all about? Growing autos is playing the game on expert mode, it really isn't for the beginners. I've been growing serious for about 5 years, but growing on and off for most of my life, never even tried an auto as I am 100% sure I'll fuck it up and even if I don't and get a perfect grow I'll still yield less than that same plant as a photoperiod PLUS I can clone photos so I don't completely waste money by having an underwhelming harvest, autos are one and done seeds, PLUS with photoperiods you can make fuckups and turn it all around, autos don't play way. PLUS photoperiods you can repot and fuck with the roots and change soil when you like and and and......

Makes the next bit so much harder, as someone already suggested you repot them, I was going to suggest that too, but they're autos..... some of the auto experts may have to jump in here, your best bet would probably be to continue on just like this, no repot, but always aim for 50% moisture in the soil. This is gona be tricky, coco doesn't wana dry out ever, it'll become negatively charged and basically become hydrophobic, coco needs to be kept wet at all times with your plants being in pure coco it seems logged and struggling for oxygen, you can't really open up the soil and add perite now, bit too late. so you have to now back off with the watering, BUT not let it dry out too far. around 50% moisture is when you water, but then you only water about 3 to 10% of the amount of the media (eg. 10L pot = 300ml to 1L, obviously depending on size of plant, small plant gets more around 300ml and big plant more around 1L, if 1L gets sucked up in less than 24hrs it's time to repot as plants are rootbound). If at any point your plant media doesn't go below 50% moisture in 24hrs it means you giving too much water. You aim for the 50% mark and aim to keep it there by giving minimal water every day. Your biggest problem right now is over saturated media and because of that also a lack of oxygen. Let them dry till around 50% moisture. Next watering you gona need to add organic material and microbes. Get some nice good quality wormcastings (not the first and cheapest bag you can find) for a topdress and any kinda microbial inoculant. Then look into a good nutrient line for that soil you got going there, but for future - 

If you new to soil building it's good to get some premium soil for your first grow as a control to see how things should look, also once done with the grow you got a good blend for a base to build on, you'll be left with a coco/perlite/organic blend that you just need to reamend, instead of having to building from zero as I am sure you have now seen that it's not as straight forward and that composition, texture and consistency all play a huge roll in soil building. eg. what you use to aerate, perlite and leca do the same thing, though there are different kinds and one works better than the rest, small details like this make huge impact in your soil, same as what kind of coco you using (cheap coco will give you what you pay for) so next time you're out of some ingredients, rather than shruggin your shoulders and thinking the plant has to listen to you and be happy with what you give it, instead you gotta think about the plant first and what it needs to be happy and what you need to do to make that happen. rather stand back, don't be in a hurry, makes for a much better experience over all.

18 hours ago, Simeon said:

As for the ph according to this ph meter of mine the ph is way off and I have this ph down stuff but I have zero experience in adjusting pH 

Just haaaaaave to say this -

These two things you got here are doing you more harm than good - The 3way meter is helping you "van die wal af tot in die sloot".  that thing will misslead you worse than the SA government. You can trust the moisture reading, then there's the light/dark thing..... so they could have just made it a single prong, they're out there too, but then again the PH reader is the most important part. I used to have one, can guarentee I fucked myself more than anything using that thing. Got proper bluelabs pens now, compared the two, where the blue labs gave 7.5ph reading, the prongs gave a 2. waaaaayy out. Thought both the things I'm using is wrong to a degree, had a buddy bring his ph pen, plus I bought the ph-reader drops - 3 readings giving 7.5 range and the prongs giving 2 still. on the way to the bin I broke the thing in pieces so no one goes digging in my trash thinking that's a good device to use. a good rule of thumb with the majority of tech stuff, the more that one appliance can do generally means the more gimmicky the thing is. You get digital PH readers that can also read the ppm and and and.... trust me, those aren't accurate either. they're more accurate for sure, but with PH where 0.1/0.2 can make a difference you really don't wana leave any room for mistakes. - never buy a mini fridge with a built in dvd player that can also toast your bread. you buy a fridge seperate, a dvd player seperate and a toaster seperate.

good ph pen will cost you a bit, I can go on and on till I am blue in the face, but you can do the test yourself. get 2 people with cheapies that can do ph and ppm, then get 2 guys with proper tools, you can run the tests yourself and see why I would cough up a couple 1000 more just to have the good tools. 

The ph down is for hydro growers, if you're in an organic setup you use organic inputs to control ph (bakin soda for ph up and vinegar for ph down) though you basically never want to do this it will only be the last resort when your soil media is locked in an undesired ph range. Using this chemical ph down with organic media is a bit counter-intuitive as this stuff kills microbes, and microbes are looked at as the "nucleus" of organic growing. The straw that stirs the drink.

[Ill_Evan]

2 hours ago, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

The ph down is for hydro growers, if you're in an organic setup you use organic inputs to control ph (bakin soda for ph up and vinegar for ph down) though you basically never want to do this it will only be the last resort when your soil media is locked in an undesired ph range.

Agreed. Stopped pH'ing organic soil/nutrients and it was probably the best organic run I ever did. 

[Simeon]

Waw okay luckily I haven't used the ph down and I had a feeling I can't trust that pH metre so I didn't do anything to bring the ph down as for the watering I will do as you say 

I can start feeding the plants now with this fertilizer I have but how can you tell there hungry?

And to answer your question about why autos I have bin growing on and off for like 6 years photoperiod outdoor but I didn't realy have any help or knowledge it was basically all trial and error and now I have registered to become a grower for this company called grow one Africa and im trying to generate a small yet constant income for myself using autos instead of getting one big yield per year but yea I'm not growing just to get paid I have areal passion for cultivating the plant and I l love the idea of organic and natural farming and micro organisms 

[Simeon]

Oh and Im planning on very very carefully reporting them into my greenhouse where I have holes in the ground prepared with a 1coco/1compost/1perlite soil mix I am just germinating and growing them inside until they are strong enough to move outside and I will repot them as soon as there roots are well enough established when I repot I do it in such a way that the plants don't even realise something changed no disturbance of the roots

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

24 minutes ago, Simeon said:

Waw okay luckily I haven't used the ph down and I had a feeling I can't trust that pH metre so I didn't do anything to bring the ph down as for the watering I will do as you say 

I can start feeding the plants now with this fertilizer I have but how can you tell there hungry?

And to answer your question about why autos I have bin growing on and off for like 6 years photoperiod outdoor but I didn't realy have any help or knowledge it was basically all trial and error and now I have registered to become a grower for this company called grow one Africa and im trying to generate a small yet constant income for myself using autos instead of getting one big yield per year but yea I'm not growing just to get paid I have areal passion for cultivating the plant and I l love the idea of organic and natural farming and micro organisms 

Awesome, glad you didn't use that ph stuff  

Now you just let them dry out till around 50% moisture (you can still use the probe thing for that) Once they reach better moisture levels and not stunted anymore they'll start to pick up speed, you'll notice the moisture levels in the soil fluctuating a lot more as the plant starts to grow faster and drinking more and more. 

Pro tip for these cold times, especially with smaller pots - I got a small fish tank air pump to aerate my water, also got filter water here, but I catch rain water when I can and it's been pouring down like a bitch down here so I got a lot now, but with it standing outside it gets cold as piss and even that'll stunt your plants, the smaller the plant the more affected by the cold, what I do is take a 20L bucket, fill it half way as I would with the filter water, but together with a fishtank airstone I submerge a fishtank heater to warm the water up to 30°C. your plants will do a happy dance for you  

The reason we saying get ready with the feed stuff is, well you can grow that plant in very low nutrient soil with just water all the way through but the plant will have a shit expression. You gotta be on your toes now, not to just feed the plant or pump as much nutes in it, but rather to maintain the balance ahead of time so the plant never reaches a point of having to show you that it needs something, while also not overdoing it

Relying on bottled nutes, some people do it, but it's basically just a matter of time before you hit an imbalance. There is no single one nutrient to do it all on this earth, no product any man could ever make and put into a bottle would be "good enough" to maintain a natural balance. and we gotta remind ourself plants aren't machines so they don't act the way we program them, it's the other way around. They all eat different, one plant will use more N than the one next to it, as for the P and the K and all the rest. that's why when relying on bottled nutes you end up with a whole collection of 100 different bottles, couple R1000 deep. when the problem is actually just balancing the soil before even thinking of bottled nutes. 

You can get a nice balance with wormcastings, but then you gotta look at the quality of the worm casting too. I used to get the Wormbusch stuff but last couple times I got from them it was like 60% sand and looked absolutely nothing like wormcastings, so certain reputable brands aren't even consistent... I make my own worm castings now, so I don't know who got the best stuff these days. I would actually recommend Dirty Hands Elemental Blend as a top dress over anything, but if you can only do wormcastings then you can lean more on that, rather than the bottle stuff. 

What wormcastings you using? Sometimes best to use more than one kind of wormcasting to hit a wider variety of trace minerals and micro organisms. those are the balance keepers. you'll see once the balance is in check your NPK uptake becomes so easy to monitor, plant will already be thriving cause of the soil conditions and then only as the plant is eating and growing like a healthy plant should, you can give the bottle stuff that focuses more on the NPK and will keep up with the demands as the plant will be depleting the soil of those first. 

1 hour ago, Simeon said:

Oh and Im planning on very very carefully reporting them into my greenhouse where I have holes in the ground prepared with a 1coco/1compost/1perlite soil mix I am just germinating and growing them inside until they are strong enough to move outside and I will repot them as soon as there roots are well enough established when I repot I do it in such a way that the plants don't even realise something changed no disturbance of the roots

this is gona be tricky, I wish you goodluck bro  it's hit or miss anyway, like with any rule of thumb, it's not to say things will go wrong every single time. 

[Simeon]

Tnx allot for all the support and tips I will definitely try that thing with the watter and I actually have my own worm bin with a tap at the bottom for worm tea will that work as a feed?  I am allso growing my own moringa because I want to try this thing where I feed my worms with moringa leaf powder since its the most nutrient dense thing out there and then inturn get some extremely nutrient dense worm casting and worm tea. I read somewhere that moringa leaf power works so well as fertilizer you can use it as a kelp replacement if you want to 

 

The other day I visited this place in a forest where we go sometimes to have some fun and I found this place with huge oak trees and under it a very thick canopy of leaves and under those leaves I found this pitch  black soil that looks soooo good and so I had to come back and collect a few dog food baggs full of that good stuff so maybe I can use that as a top dressing?? Maybe ill test it first on some other plants 

[Pants]

Glad to see the plants looking better. One thing, if you are really planning on transplanting them I would do it asap. Autos are on a timer and the plant needs time to spread its root while still in veg phase. How old are they? Autos usually start flowering week 4-5


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[Naughty.Psychonaut]

17 hours ago, Simeon said:

Tnx allot for all the support and tips I will definitely try that thing with the watter and I actually have my own worm bin with a tap at the bottom for worm tea will that work as a feed?  I am allso growing my own moringa because I want to try this thing where I feed my worms with moringa leaf powder since its the most nutrient dense thing out there and then inturn get some extremely nutrient dense worm casting and worm tea. I read somewhere that moringa leaf power works so well as fertilizer you can use it as a kelp replacement if you want to 

Only a pleasure bud  

Hmmmm Short answer is no, but I may have to try explain things a little different. You see, what I was trying to get at with the wormcastings as topdress is that you wana achieve a balance, not exactly feed the plants and ontop of that any liquid feed, no matter where it comes from or how it's made, will always cover less of a spectrum of "stuff" than most wormcastings. So the worm juice is nice as a balance keeper, but again you can never look at any liquid input as the basis of your grow, not even worm juice. That's more like a compost tea, it'll just restore the balance in your soil. It's not a feed at all, neither is wormcastings. Wormcastings, worm juice and topdressings are all just "essentials" to balance your soil. Nutrient feed comes after that. It's two completely different things. The black soil you collected will surely help bring IMO to your soil, it will help, but even less than the wormcastings in the way of "feeding" your plants. 

I'd rather add that black soil to the worm bin and let the IMO populate like that. In small pots like you have there, with a soil media that doesn't offer much for the IMOs to stay alive, you'll be adding that black soil only to have the IMO die out anyway. 

You see, you can reach a point where the soil is so well balanced you can give clean water right from seed all the way through to veg, but that's really only possible if you been building, conditioning and cooking the soil before you planted. Once you have to topdress you already missed, same with feeds, and you can never topdress or add stuff to soil while you are growing in it that'll ever bring it close to a well rounded soil. Basically, by the standard of your soil demanding ongoing maintenance, because it's not a well rounded soil, it'll mean you have to way more to upkeep the plant health than a person would who made good soil to begin with. 

I also mentioned that there are even better stuff than wormcastings to use as a topdress, cause worm casting is just a broad spectrum fertilizer and every batch differs from the next so you don't always get the same results. The more you rely on "just one thing" the more trouble you creating for yourself. 

Which brings me to the next point, the moringa in the worm bin, it's an awesome addition to the worm bin for sure, but the secret is balance and diversity. moderation of everything. when you get into KNF you'll see that you even add fungal shit and all kinds of fish juice and fermented fruits and grain juices and shit. there's a saying in organic cannabis growing that goes - stink in stink out, but obviously what kinda stink? obviously not rancid sour chemical smelling stuff. It's not always what you think it is or what seems the most straight forward. If you read somewhere about moringa, that's cool, but don't focus on it. Growing a moringa tree will take kak long before you can actually harvest from it sustainably. Infact the secret to a healthy worm bin is a healthy Carbon:Nitrogen ratio, not moringa. If you focus on moringa you may throw out the carbon to nitrogen ratio and create more harm than good. 

Some dry amendments out there are nutrient power punch products, you take clean coco/perlite add a hand full of the stuff snd it turns the soil into rich well balanced soil, thought that's not going to be the cheapest stuff on the shelf and to use stuff that strong you reeeeeally need to be ontop of your game, not for beginners kinda stuff. 

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

@Simeon 

check all this guys videos

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

Aswell as this channel, you'll get ALL the answers from this guy, promise you  

 

[Simeon]

II have now transplanted all my autos into my greenhouse and they are looking happy so far but I've run into another problem now with one of my other plantsthe leaves started curling up and even twisting this plant was healthy and no sines of any stress the only thing that it could be is neem oil on it because I had problems with red spider mite and white fly that I was fighting off with eco buzz best pro but it didn't seem to help for the mite so I got my self some "bioneem"from biogrow and I sprayed that on but all my other plants seem to be fine only this one looking like this 

[Ill_Evan]

Did you spray the neem oil during the day or night? It might be a combination of cold and the neem oil spray. 

[Simeon]

I sprayed it during the day but I think your right because this is my only sativa girl its actually a fruity pebbles bag seed from some exceptionally good but from 6years ago that I found in my friends seed collection 

[AK-47 Gold Arabesque]

With regards to the curling leaves, a user in this thread experienced the same issues with neem and leaf curling. As per that thread, just to quote " I think the oil is clogging pores and preventing from transpiring". 

Could be that, but someone more experienced will need to confirm. I didn't even know plants had "pores" needed to transpire, and haven't used Neem Oil myself.

Edit: Even with this Reddit thread about Neem and houseplant leaf curling, ""...oil can block the pores on plants causing leaf curl." The general advice it seems is to spray at night or after sunset. 

Edited July 6, 2023 by AK-47 Gold Arabesque
more info

[Simeon]

I read that that could happen and so the day after spraying the neem and seeing my poor plant in that state I tried rinsing it off but its just strange to me that all the other plants that allso got neem is fine

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

@Simeon

Ayy, don't forget the claw! The claw is early onset signs of excessive N. Though the claw would sometimes be more of a "sudden bend" instead of that gradual curl. 

Have you been feeding the plant? Transplanted recently? Any way she's suddenly getting more nutes?

The spraying during darkness is usually way waaaaayy more important than just spraying as a means to and end. I am not sure why that bit of info always gets left out, but there are 3 big reasons why it's such a no no - most spray applications, even stuff like wormjuice or compost teas are degraded by UV (this is why, with organic media the very top soil is always the least "alive", even on earths surface, most biological activity happens under the ground in complete darkness away from direct UV. this is why we can clean water using UV) so spraying organic stuff while the sun is out degrades the stuff you spray, and with organics being that sensetive you'll be surprisde to know chemical sprays are even more UV sensetive.... and in a much more sinister way. chemicals exposed to UV can turn into other chemicals... then ontop of UV degrading the applied product the droplets on the leaf surface can form a magnification effect and sun rays or light might actually burn that spot. Lastly, and I think most important there is, surfactant... let's get into it.

These "pores" we talking bout, scientific name is Stomata. They're the mouth part of the plant that "inhales" and "exhales". Now when we spray, doesn't matter what we spray, we have to mix it with water. Water has a surface tention (when you have droplets on a surface the droplet will be in the form of a drop, the sides of the water is the water tention keeping it in that shape. stuff like soap and oil breaks the water tention and cause the droplet to spread out) when we spray stuff it's recommended to always add a surfactant to break the surface tention of the water. this will help coat the surface of the leafs better aswell as allow for better uptake of whatever you sprayed as it's hitting "more of the plant" instead of forming droplets and leaving residue on the leaves with a potential to burn, residue means it was too much for the plant to uptake. now, surfactant makes whatever you spray more oily and that's a good thing. not a bad thing. so I am a bit hesitant to believe that the oil part of the neem oil is not allowing the plant to breathe. I am religious bout my neem spray, always got full organic surfactant and only spray in complete darkness, none of my plants have ever shown this reaction. 

Once took a plant from a buddy, didn't see the spider mites till it was on my property, kept her in quarantine, hit her with neem one week, pyrol next week, then neem again and by the second time I had to spray pyrol and the mites still put up a fight I made the neem 1.5 × strenght, straight up burnt the fuck out that plant, 90% of the plant turned to a necrotic crisp, so I am not totally against the idea that neem may have caused this either, but I guess the given condition of the plant and the strength of the application and the time of day all that stuff comes into play. 

but it could very well be a soil issue, just gotta check what's the what what around your feeding/watering been lately?

[Simeon]

I haven't done anything out of the ordinary when it comes to wattering and I haven't fed the plant for the last 3 weeks up until earlyer today I gave her some food and kelp along with some worm tea