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What's happening to my herbs? I keep them in the garage with the growing lights and they were doing great until a few weeks ago when I started noticing the green powder all over the lids and the leaves looked like this. I have not seen any bugs around them.I'd appreciate any ideas. Thanks. here is the link to the photos I took https://goo.gl/photos/dZjrRjFNtiTg9ibp8

lacoet
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  • What did you use to look for insects? – Graham Chiu May 15 '16 at 10:42
  • Please [edit] your question to include photographs of the plant in question. Instructions are at http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/75491/how-to-upload-an-image-to-a-post – Niall C. May 15 '16 at 15:21
  • @throsby Incorrect. See http://meta.gardening.stackexchange.com/questions/479/announcement-new-users-can-now-post-images. I've removed your comment since it's misleading. – Niall C. May 15 '16 at 18:52
  • Pls edit to remove the all caps title as well, so it doesn't appear that you're shouting :) – Tim Malone May 16 '16 at 07:15

2 Answers2

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There could be a bug issue.

Looks to me like the plants are drowning. My experience with hydroponics is limited, but that's the sort of curled, bulbous look leaves have when a plant is enduring over-transpiration (evaporating too much water from the leaves) coupled with too much water / too little oxygen.

Those plants are of a size where they can't just sit in un-aerated water. I don't know if that's the case, but if it is, I'd suspect drowning before anything else.

The green powder is a combination of two things. First, it's trichromes. Most plants have them, tomatoes in particular are well known for their powder. They're secretions from the plant and its hairs and perform many tasks, including pest control (to a degree) and moisture regulation. Second, it's tiny bits of the outer layer of leaves flaking off as the inner layer dies underneath it.

Look to aeration and keep an eye out for pests. Don't automatically exclude cannabis-based websites from your searches on solutions for problems encountered with hydroponic growing - I don't grow it myself, but some of those stoners are absolute mad scientists in the garden.

Paul Nardini
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I see what look like aphids at the base of the plants, on the growing medium. Certainly, the torsion and distortion of the leaves (I'm assuming they're Basil, these herbs, hard to tell 100% because they're so distorted) would indicate a very heavy aphid infestation. Because they're edible plants, you can't use ordinary pesticides, so neem oil in a spray is probably best, but other options are also outlined in the link below

http://homeguides.sfgate.com/can-spray-plants-keep-bugs-away-basil-leaves-90744.html

Bamboo
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