seeds Is this light burn? Struggling to keep seedlings alive :(

avastcosmicarena

avastcosmicarena

Can someone help me out? I'm struggling here trying to figure out why this keeps happening. I'm using leds, and I keep thinking that this is light burn, but I'm really confused, because even when I back the lights off really, really far from the seedlings, this is continuing to happen. 

I've grown tons of other (non-pepper) plants over the years, and I've never encountered such sensitivity before. Usually seedlings are easy as hell for me, but I can barely keep these things alive. I'm using Maxibloom (very diluted right now for the early stages) because I've used it successfully with many other things and saw many have had good luck with it with peppers on here as well.

Is something else possibly going on here? Fungus or insects in the soil? The leaves keep turning brown and looking scorched and eventually falling off. Some of these still look salvageable, but I'm running out of ideas and getting really frustrated. It's like they can take no light at all.

https://imgur.com/a/M2rSe

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So the shape suggests calcium deficiency and there's not as much in the way of dried out, papery patches as I'd expect on genuinely sunburnt plants. The colouration, however, looks to occur before leaf death, so may well be the result of part-way purpling.

Can't say for sure what's wrong but I'm inclined to say "nutrient burn" of some sort. Cut out the nutrient mix for a bit and see how that affects the balance in the soil, then bring it back when the plants actually need it.
 
There seems to be circles that are less affected. Have you dropped something on the leaves? If you know what maybe that could be a clue as to what the problem is.
 
spicefreak said:
So the shape suggests calcium deficiency and there's not as much in the way of dried out, papery patches as I'd expect on genuinely sunburnt plants. The colouration, however, looks to occur before leaf death, so may well be the result of part-way purpling.

Can't say for sure what's wrong but I'm inclined to say "nutrient burn" of some sort. Cut out the nutrient mix for a bit and see how that affects the balance in the soil, then bring it back when the plants actually need it.
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Well, I'm in coco coir only, and I've only given them a half teaspoon per gallon dosage at most so far (normal strength is 1-2 teaspoons per gallon), and Maxibloom is not very high in nitrogen to begin with. I figured I needed to as they started to get a little larger since there are no nutrients in the coco. I started after the first few sets of leaves due to the seedlings looking really pale green. It seemed to me they needed to start getting some nutrients before yellowing, but I could be wrong and may have started too early.

I am relatively new to LEDs. Well, I've been using them very successfully with coco & basil for a few months now, but that's with large, mature plants, not seedlings. I've heard that the intensity from them can require extra cal/mag. I've never really needed to use it much before, but I don't have much experience with pepper plants specifically. Maybe, I'll try adding some epsom salts to the water? Do you think that would be sufficient or should I specifically look for cal/mag nutrient supplement?
 
Diafond said:
There seems to be circles that are less affected. Have you dropped something on the leaves? If you know what maybe that could be a clue as to what the problem is.
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Now that you mention it, and looking back over the pics, it does appear that there are circles of unaffected coloration. Strange. They all look to be almost perfect circles. I don't believe this is a result of anything falling on the leaves, as I usually push the leaves out of the way when I water. (This is a habit from growing basil... I don't like getting nutrient solution on the leaves, because with basil, I end up eating those leaves :P)

Could this be some sort of fungal problem? The only reason I ask is because of the seemingly perfect round shapes.... seems weird.
 
Also, they do tend to have a reddish/purplish tint before turning brown and papery. Is that sort of coloration normal? (before the brown death part, I mean, obviously)
 
The advice so far is solid, and I would check those first.
 
This is just a shot in the dark, but have you checked the pH or Sodium/Chloride content of your coco coir?
 
Some brands don't do multiple rinses so the NaCl salt content is still very high. It can be hard to diagnose because it can end up manifesting as multiple nutrient deficiencies at once.
 
I highly doubt it's too much light.
 
 
Doesn't look like light burn. That woild be a scorched white spot.
 
It looks like it could PH which determines which nutrients absorb better. Look up the PH chart on what nutrients absorb best at different PH.

Are you currently using a Foilier spray? They don't look dry... but if you need extra cal mag you can mix into a spray bottle..

I currently use 5mls of Foilage Pro mixed with a gallon of water and spray twice a day.

See nutrients below:
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I do not think it's too much salt in the coco. I've used this same coco many times with many different kinds of plants with no issues whatsoever.

I'm starting to think it might be a pH problem. To be honest, I've never tested pH while growing any other plants. Plain tap water + Maxibloom has worked well for me for many years.

It might be time to break down and buy a pH pen or combo pen and some pH up/down to find out for sure.

I'm honestly surprised to be having so many issues so far. This is quite frustrating considering I've got basil thriving under the exact same conditions, and from what I'm reading it seems to prefer the same pH range as peppers..
 
I know this is a late entry, but to me it looks like a fungal attack. If the plant is still up and around you could try Diatomaceous Earth(the fungus killer), either as foliar, sprinkled on medium and watered in or both. DE also adds silica.
 
I actually think the problem was simply cold temperatures in my apartment. I ordered a pH test kit to make sure that was in range, and, it basically was, although I improved it since then, but most importantly the plants seemed to start doing much better as soon as I started leaving the A/C set to a higher temperature while leaving for the day.

At least, that's all I could come up with. I now have many of the plants in the pics saved + a lot more newly started ones since then, and things are doing much better. I'll snap some pics soon.
 
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