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Please Help - Sickly Sprouts

E

EBHarvey

Hi all, first post here - longtime reader.

I'm stumped as to what's wrong with my seedlings. They are 2 weeks old, started in Jiffy pellets, kept at a constant 85 degrees on the heat mat, and for the last week have been under T8's at 6500k. The first to sprout seemed to come up quick then stop growing, curled their cotyledons, and now look to be dying. They were probably a little too wet from the start, although not swimming by any means, and I dumped water from the humidity domes a few times a day to try to dry things out a little. Yesterday decided to take the domes off completely to see if that helped. It didn't, and this morning everyone looked much worse so I just put the domes back on.

I know peat-based growing mediums can be highly acidic and lacking in nutrients, but I've never had any problems before, although I've never used the puck/pellet things before this year. I haven't tried correcting the Ph or adding any nutrients, only spraying with a diluted chamomile tea solution to combat some mold early on. Is this a PH issue, a lack-of-nutes issue, something else.....?

Please help.

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And I'm assuming that inhibits nutrient uptake so the little guys, having used up the energy in their seeds, are now essentially starving?

I'm going to put individual domes over the sprouts, open the domes up again, and see if I can draw some of that excess moisture out. Also going to see if a weak nutrient solution helps at all.

Any other ideas, or is this pretty clearly a too-wet problem?
 
I can't view the pics, there aint much you can do except control the temps and moisture, giving em nutrients may help, I don't use peat pellets maybe somebody here that has experience with em will chime in. GL..
 
I don't see the pics either. Try wicking out the moisture by putting each peat pellet on paper towels for 1/2 hour without a dome. Check after the 1/2 hour and repeat if necessary. The spouts shouldn't need any nutrients if they're tiny just yet. Since I can't see the pics, I'm assuming they're still pretty small.

Let us know what you decide to do and if anything works.

Are there any gnats flying around?
 
I give up on getting images to work.

Anyway, they're tiny, the oldest having poked up about 5 days ago. Their cotyledons are curled or bent and a few are even rolled-up from the ends. None have grown appreciably.

No gnats, no.

I have the dome off now and little clear plastic cap-like things over a few of the sprouts and raised the lights a few inches since being out in the dry air and directly under the lights seemed to have made their condition much worse. The pellets appear to be drying out a little.

I did also notice at least one of the early sprout's roots seem to have rotted off below the soil line, so I'm not holding my breath for the rest at this point and will probably try germinating my remaining seeds in a drier, looser seeding mix in plastic cups just so I'm not left empty handed and out of time.

Thanks for the responses.
 
Mine did the EXACT same thing. Same setup and all. I repoted them into 160z solo cups and they took right off (some stunted plants where over a month old).
 
After leaving the humidity dome off for a few days the pellets have definitely dried out significantly and while the sickly seedlings haven't improved, the newer ones look much healthier.

Thanks for the replies.
 
WIt could very well take up to a week to see an improvement, give them time and as long as they aren't getting worse leave them be. Bigger plants can take more stress, but if your seedlings were over-watered and the small root system drowned and died back, then it'll take awhile before it recovers. Dying back on a more established root system should recover quicker as the plant has more stored sugers.

If you have more seeds you may get better results by starting a new batch and using the best you have by planting size.
 
You need a host site for the pics, like Photobucket. Once the photo is on a site copy the direct link. Here you click on the TV looking icon to open up the photo window. RIGHT click in the box, do not left click, then paste the url in, hit OK and the pic is up.

If you're seeing mold that's a good indicator of too much moisture. When your seedlings pop it's best to get them under some light and get some air movement on them. That will strengthen the plant and dry the top out which will keep the mold at bay. Good luck.
 
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