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health Brown spots on Seedlings

FiveStar

FiveStar

Alright folks, here's the scenario...

My plants are now showing 2 sets of true leaves, one nice and big and green, the other set just a few days from fully expanded.

On Friday, I have them a foliar feed of epsom salts. 1 teaspoon to 1/3 gallon of water. This sunday, I came home and was doing the "sit and talk to the babies" deal I do every night, when I noticed some small brown spots on 4 plants. On the Choclate habs, which are much larger than the others, these spots were near the tips of the largest true leaf on 2 plants. On my Fatalis, which are much smaller and slower, the spots showed on the newest developing leaf.

I also noticed that where epsom salt spray had landed on each leaf, there were shiny green spots, almost like something had eaten away the waxy cuticle on the leaf.

Anyone ever had Epsom salt burn seedling leaves?

I'm just praying this isn't bacterial spot of some kind. It's only 4 out of 24 plants, so no big deal as of now, but if this is bacterial, and it spreads, I'll be in a bad mood from now till next year.

Pics when I get home for sure!
 
yeah, thsese are just generic house brand guys from the grocery store. At least I don't remember seeing anything except magnesium sulphate on the ingredients.

Plus they have directions for driking as a laxitive, so I'm thinking they can't be scented.

God I hope this isn't bacterial...
 
I have pulled off affected leaves without any ill effects on plants when I see spots like that and I usually do not have more pop up.
 
Seems silly to say this now, but I work in a plant pathology lab. I meant to bring in a sample this morning, but I was running late and didn't have time.

Even with 2 sets of leaves you think I can get away with plucking leaves?
 
FiveStar said:
Seems silly to say this now, but I work in a plant pathology lab. I meant to bring in a sample this morning, but I was running late and didn't have time.

Even with 2 sets of leaves you think I can get away with plucking leaves?
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yes


i have done this to a few of my plants.. plucked them all off and then just waited... after a little time they started to grow again..
 
That's good. Because I snipped all the leaves with spots off this morning and brought them to the lab. Looks like a great big mystery as of now. The lab tech, who has been doing this for 30+ years, initially thought it was bacteria.

We did a congo red/acid alcohol smear of the tissue and found very few bacteria. We're incubating a few leaves to look for fungal sporulation.

My guess was some opportunistic fungus caught these guys with their pants down after a heavy foliar feed, and broke in a few leaves. I'm just glad it only got a few plants :knocks on wood:
 
FiveStar said:
That's good. Because I snipped all the leaves with spots off this morning and brought them to the lab. Looks like a great big mystery as of now. The lab tech, who has been doing this for 30+ years, initially thought it was bacteria.

We did a congo red/acid alcohol smear of the tissue and found very few bacteria. We're incubating a few leaves to look for fungal sporulation.

My guess was some opportunistic fungus caught these guys with their pants down after a heavy foliar feed, and broke in a few leaves. I'm just glad it only got a few plants :knocks on wood:
Click to expand...


interesting...

do you have photos ?
 
Let me see what I can do. I may be able to get pictures of the slide mount.

It's a very simple test. You macerate leaf lesions in a drop of congo red stain with 2 razor blades on a slide until mashed into a paste. The resulting red paste is scraped into a thin film, nearly transparent, and allowed to dry. A few drops of acid alcohol are then dropped onto the red stained surface, which creates a negative background effect, making the bacteria easy to see. If you have a severe infection, it looks like a sea of TINY white rods floating in a blue background.

There were very few of these in my samples, so it's likely something else. Time will tell!

This is one perk of working for a local agricultural research and extension center.
 
thats actually what i wanted to do in school - lab tech -

sweet..

i meant photos of the infected leaves so i can get an idea of what it is you were actually trying to make sense of..
 
that would be awesome, thanks

curious because i also have been going through a few set backs.. jsut want to compare..
 
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