• If you need help identifying a pepper, disease, or plant issue, please post in Identification.

lipstick decapotated

the666bbq

the666bbq

Hi, been a while since my last visit but I have a question at the beginning of this new season.

My Lipstick seedlings are having a strange issue : one got completely decapotated (the stem end in ... nothing but air), the other got very tightly stuck in the seed case (Lipstuck) and when I removed the seedcase, most of the 2 cotyledons where yellowish-brown (ready to be decapotated), all the other seedlings where fine so far, I have about 75 transplanted into separate newspaper pots, no sign of slugs/snails in the heated propagator (caught one outside of the propagator - the bastards killed too many young plants last year)

could it be the temp to high ? It is a thermo-probe/thermostat controlled propagator (probe in upper half of the soil, temperature set at 24°C (75 fahrenheit?) but apparently none of the other peppers is having this behavior, same propagator, same soil, same level of humidity,...

just bad luck ? any ideas ?

Peter
 
just hull bound seedlings is all, it happens. the seedlings are ussually able to pull off the hull on their way to the surface, but if the hull starts to dry out or something it will get stuck. most of the time they lose the little tips of the seed leaves but thats ok, all but the totally decapotated ones will be fine and even the decapotated one still has a bit of a chance of survival. the seed leaves don't actually turn green and start performing photosynthesis until after being exposed to light so thats why the ones inside the seed hull were still yellow.
 
you know, it seems I was reading somewhere that if the seed is not planted deep enough, it will not have enough soil to "pull" the husk off as it emerges after germination...I may have been dreaming....
 
AlabamaJack said:
you know, it seems I was reading somewhere that if the seed is not planted deep enough, it will not have enough soil to "pull" the husk off as it emerges after germination...I may have been dreaming....
Click to expand...

yuppers, that can happen too. i mentioned the drying out reason because a lot of people say leaving the humidity dome on helps and also because i haven't had a single hull bound seedling since i started using the wet paper towel method to germinate my seeds.
 
AJ
I believe your are right I remember reading on one of the many site I see just can not remember what one something about being 1/8 of an inch or more to pull the husk off
Dan



LET IT BURN
 
I have seen several recommendations to sand or slit the seeds before sprouting.

I will definitely try this!

Slitting them afterwards has roughly a 5% success rate for me.

I need a damn scalpal.
 
hmm, I tried not to bury them too deep this season, maybe that wasn't the best technique for the lipsticks, and their 'blanket' was composed of vermiculite+sowing mix so maybe too light material - however 95% of the other pepper coped under the same conditions...

a nice lesson to take along the next seasons (and for the tomatoes since they are the next batch of seeds to be sown)

thx
 
I bury mine about 3/8" of an inch (~1 cm) when I plant but still had a lot of "hat on" seedlings. Not many that were decapitated.
 
my orange habs didn't have ANY hats on, but i watered them good and kept the soil warm, plus i didn't sow them too deep either... O_o
 
I don't touch them anymore.
If they are in a good growing medium with good (bright) light, they should push out past the cotelydon leaves with the next set of leaves, but if not, they may decide it's not worth it.
But I'm talking fast healthy growth here.
 
pic.php
 
that's crazy awesome, i've seen where the cotyledons keeo growing out until just the tips are bound then eventually the hull falls off and the plant grows like normal but i've never seen the cotyledons stay entirely in the hull. plants are cool.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top