Alcohol Poisoning

Johnathan

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Soooo, while attempting to clean the Vaseline from the wounds of ficus I used a cotton pad and some rubbing alcohol.

91%

91 freakin percent!!! I didn't think that alcohol was harmful to trees....... but after researching, now I know.

The cotton pads that I used were drenched and I'm positive excess rubbing alcohol seeped down into the roots.... Not to mention, immediately after I fertilized the tree pretty heavily with the blue juice. The tree was moved outside, and then back in for a freeze we had a few weeks ago.... And since its a ficus I did all of this right before I put the tree back outside, so were talking moving the tree around from location to location, which as we know is bad for ficus. AND its in a high wind high sunlight area!! :rolleyes:

Needless to say, the tree is suffering.

I've been trying to "flush" the roots I removed most of the soil right at the nebari and have been just dousing it with water.....

Should I attempt a repot? dunk the pot and soak in a tub of water? Any suggestions?
 

Cadillactaste

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I honestly don't know how to advise. You're in a grey area.

Photos of the tree so we can see what it looks like?

Maybe toss some ideas around. I agree outside is best...but not in a high wind, high sun location. Find a less stressful location would be my first thing. I fried roots of my bougainvillea before. Lost the two smaller ones and saved the Cascade by running water through the top to run out. Immediately after I realised my blunder... minutes after I realised I made the fertilizer to strong. At this late of date...offer TLC.

Last ditch effort...try for a cutting? But it's stressed I am not sure it could recover.
 
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Soooo, while attempting to clean the Vaseline from the wounds of ficus I used a cotton pad and some rubbing alcohol.

91%

91 freakin percent!!! I didn't think that alcohol was harmful to trees....... but after researching, now I know.

The cotton pads that I used were drenched and I'm positive excess rubbing alcohol seeped down into the roots.... Not to mention, immediately after I fertilized the tree pretty heavily with the blue juice. The tree was moved outside, and then back in for a freeze we had a few weeks ago.... And since its a ficus I did all of this right before I put the tree back outside, so were talking moving the tree around from location to location, which as we know is bad for ficus. AND its in a high wind high sunlight area!! :rolleyes:

Needless to say, the tree is suffering.

I've been trying to "flush" the roots I removed most of the soil right at the nebari and have been just dousing it with water.....

Should I attempt a repot? dunk the pot and soak in a tub of water? Any suggestions?
What’s it planted in? Pot type and soil?

Flood it but leave it alone other than that imho.
 

hemmy

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Soooo, while attempting to clean the Vaseline from the wounds of ficus I used a cotton pad and some rubbing alcohol.

91%

91 freakin percent!!! I didn't think that alcohol was harmful to trees....... but after researching, now I know.

Whoa! Back away from the ledge! Let’s walk through what actually happened. How big is tree, how close are the wounds to roots, how many hours did you let the alcohol soaked pads contact the wounds, were they fresh cuts or previous wounds that already experienced the death and compartmentalization of the surface cells?

Surficially, I agree with @vedexc that this seems like an unlikely source of your problem. Your linked citation describes watering the with an alcohol solution to create problems. If you didn’t dump it in the soil then what would be the uptake mechanism? Absorption through the wiping of the wound? If the cut was old and you were wiping it that seems unlikely. Even letting a pad soak on a fresh would likely only cause localized damage, if any. Even if you had injected alcohol into the plant, a repot wouldn’t do much, since the problem isn’t with the soil. Just my 2 cents.
 

Johnathan

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Okay..... lol

Sorry, I'll calm down a tad bit. This is my only tree with any sentimental attachment, not to mention my first tree ever. My only tree with a name lol

So let's start at the beginning. The tree was getting way to big, and I needed to do something about it....
Screenshot_20190422-230111_Chrome.jpg

Screenshot_20190422-230039_Chrome.jpg

The last week in March I got together with some bros for a little spring maintenance, and following the advice of some friends here, I chopped everything off. And wanting to seal it, I decided to use vaseline. I remember when I cut it all up there was a white fluid leaking from the cuts so I thought the vaseline would be perfect. I "globbed" it all on lol


Well a couple weeks go by and the leaves are still green, but I noticed the trunk looking wet, and noticed other trees I used the vaseline on, those areas also looked wet.

Looking back on it, the vaseline probably melted in the direct sun and "ran" down. Because I just put the tree right back outside. I didn't want the vaseline on the trunk to hinder the tree from budding or whatever lol, I was thinking of clogged pores lol ??‍♂️

Unfortunately, winter wasn't quite over and we had a night tha was going to get down to freezing, so I moved the tree inside for the night.

So a couple weeks ago, I came here and was told to use the rubbing alcohol

20190422_225825.jpg

You can see the little cotton pads there and it was completely drenched in alcohol. I think I used 2 of them. As I used pressure to wipe the tree, the excess alcohol ran down the trunk and pretty sure it ran into the roots down the trunk.

After this and eager to get the tree back vigorously growing I used an extra strength dosage of the blue miracle gro fertilizer and moved it back to the bench. This time at a different angle.

Well fast forward to now a little over 15 days since then and just about all of the leaves it had have dropped. And I did notice it attempting to push new leaves from the branches, but they seem to quickly fizzle out as well.

I just snapped these pictures a few minutes ago, but as I type all of this up, I can't help but to think it's probably more so wind and sun damage than alcohol poisoning....... but I could be wrong.

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And the trunk still looks "wet" ?
 

bonsaidave

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Can you link that post? Sounds like you got some weird advise.
 

Wires_Guy_wires

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I have used numerous alcohols on plants. 80% ethanol, 96% ethanol, mixtures of ethanol and methanol. Usually that didn't do much harm if they were in the shade, the alcohol just evaporated.
In the lab we adhere to a 4-minute maximum exposure for isolated plant cells with 70% ethanol.

Isopropyl alcohol should behave in almost the same manner as ethanol.
Especially at such a high percentage, there is limited uptake by the plant. In microscopy we can't use 100% straight away because the cells don't take it, we use increasing percentages to slowly replace the water in the cells with ethanol.

Then again, soaking an open wound with it.. That just might be enough to seep it into the wood and force uptake.
Not much you can do about it.
 

hemmy

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The last week in March I got together with some bros for a little spring maintenance, and following the advice of some friends here, I chopped everything off.

Ficus microcarpa? It looked quite healthy in first pics, but was it pushing shiny new growth in March? I generally wait to prune hard until my nights are ~55degF and it’s starting to push new growth all over (I generally get some growth over winter, but not vigorous). If you went from indoor temps to overnights in 40s that might have been a shock, coupled with the hard prune.

Well fast forward to now a little over 15 days since then and just about all of the leaves it had have dropped. And I did notice it attempting to push new leaves from the branches, but they seem to quickly fizzle out as well.

When the leaves dropped did they discolor in patches and the patches go yellow to a grey-silvery color? When I prune hard and expose leaves to full sun that were heavily shaded, I often get a splotchy sunburn.

Those were some large cuts, but I’m still skeptical that you’d get uptake of the alcohol on an old wound that would get all the way into the roots. It is curious that new sprouts shriveled. But that is a big cut and if enough sap was lost maybe the lone branch was compromised and died back. If it has healthy roots, I would expect it to bud from somewhere on the trunk. Also your last pic has what looks like an aerial root that was cut and left in place. If it is thick enough and doesn’t shrivel, I would normally expect them to shoot buds also.

I would not water again until it needs it as it’s not transpiring without leaves. I usually spray down a Ficus if I have pruned lots of small cuts that bleed, which seems to help. If a big cut bleeds profusely, I also moisten it. All larger cuts get sealed with duct sealer which seems to help reduced dieback and help callus formation.

Hopefully with the warmer temps it will start pushing buds!
 

hemmy

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I couldn’t find any sunburnt pics of my leaves, But here’s a hard cut I made in July 2015 on a F. microcarpa. Amazingly, it didn’t have any dieback on the left side (I did seal it). But it was also growing vigorously with large escape roots in the ground. Looking back, I would never make that hard of a cut now on a container ficus. I would have cut a few inches higher and chased the growth back.
4D6B06A0-1B92-48D6-A034-FB637B25B20E.jpeg
 

amcoffeegirl

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I don’t know about this one.
I would try to treat it like a normal ficus now.
Water very sparingly until growth returns- but don’t let it dry out either. Get it good morning sun or high t5 lighting.
My ficus drop leaves this time of year. No alcohol required. Lol.
They shed naturally to make way for summer leaves. If you scratch the bark and there is still green in there then it can recover!
It will just take patience and time.
I will repeat one thing watering is key right now. Don’t overwater- don’t underwater.

If temps are above 50 at night then put it outside.
If they are lower than 50 keep it inside under lights. I have actually taken my tree out in the day and brought it back in at night.
You have to create ideal growing conditions right now to keep it alive. If you do that then at least you know you tried your best.

Losing trees teaches us not to push a tree that hard in the future. When you chop in the future leave a little green on it. Recovery is faster. You don’t need cut paste on ficus.
They bleed latex.
If it was a giant wound then I would use the gummy form. Not needed in Iowa.
 
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amcoffeegirl

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If you feel this tree is in need of emergency treatment- you can set the pot on top of a seedling heating mat and build a plastic tent over it for humidity. Make sure to vent the plastic bag for a couple of hours each day. That way mold won’t develop.
Again water carefully no matter what you choose to do.
 

vedecx

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I notice some webbing on the twigs in the second picture after the chop in post #9. Could there be an attack of spider mites causing the new growth to fizzle? The tree would be stressed and susceptible...Any other opinions? Would like to hear others takes to prevent death of extra care...
 

amcoffeegirl

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I notice some webbing on the twigs in the second picture after the chop in post #9. Could there be an attack of spider mites causing the new growth to fizzle? The tree would be stressed and susceptible...Any other opinions? Would like to hear others takes to prevent death of extra care...
Not sure what the webbing is. I do think there has been some root damage as others have said. I don’t know if the roots were worked on when the chop was made. I do know that it was healthy before this chop.
 

Johnathan

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Well, the root sticking out was actually attached to the trunk and not an aerial root. I clipped it and left it there to grow as a root cutting. Other than that no root work was done when I chopped it.

The webbing is fairly new. I just ignored it, because I thought spiders were good at killing other tree pest lol

The leaves that were left after the chop were shaded and protected from the mass of foliage, obviously.

We are getting some crazy rains and clouds the next couple of days. I'm hoping they rejuvenate it.
I did the scratch test on the branches and they still seem green. I was to afraid to scratch the trunk.
 
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