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seeds Seedlings not looking too good after transplant, any suggestions?

TheFanMan

TheFanMan

A bit of background.
I had these seedlings in 8 cell trays in a cupboard with clf lights in it where they seemed quite happy.
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the mix in the seed trays wasn't very good so I potted them up and put them on the bench about 4 " under some fluros.
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For the first day or 2 they looked fine, after about 2 days a small number of the plants started shriveling up like they weren't getting any water or were getting cooked by the fluros.
i thought "oh well, i was probably a bit rough with those and broke some roots"
i lifted the fluros up quite a bit in case they were too close and cooking the plants.
it has now been about 1 1/2 weeks since i potted them up and it has progressed from only a small number of plants looking sick to pretty much all of them.
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from there they have just gone down hill, what was only a few plants looking sick is now most of them.
these last few pics were taken about 3 days ago and they have just gotten worse since.

They have been potted up into a mix of potting mix, vermiculite and coco peat, with a bit of dynamic lifter sprinkled in.

They were probable a bit small and underdeveloped roots to pot up but the seed raising mix i had them in was a mix i was trying out that ended up being terrible, i thought they would be better off getting potted up and into some good mix.


Firstly, has anyone got any suggestions on why they are looking so bad?
broken roots? don't like the cold out of the cupboard? too much fertilizer? too little fertilizer? somethings else?

secondly, any suggestions to fix them?
put them in warmer place? put them in cooler place? re pot with different mix? leave them and hope for the best? something else?

any suggestions would be most helpful.
 
Geez, mate, I thought I was having a shocker! Sorry to see things looking so bad for you. :(

I honestly don't know what's going on there but fertilizer burn maybe?? The mix looks pretty wet too... maybe it's holding too much water? What potting mix did you use and did it already have added nutes?
 
the mix is some elcheapo stuff i had, it had been sitting outside and was waterlogged when i opened it, thats why its so wet. dont think it had ferts in it.
 
Sorry to see TheFanMan.
Seems to me you stuffed up the roots. IMHO they were at the stage where they they don't like any mucking about with their roots at all.

When they are younger it's normally OK, that's why you can germinate on paper towels and transplant, or split a cell that 2 seedlings germinated in. But later on when they get a couple of true leaves it's better to leave them as long as possible, almost to the point of being root bound, before you transplant them. Early root development is critical and they hate it when there's any interference in that part of growing

At the stage you transplanted them in, touching them normally stuffs them up. If they don't die they normally get stunted and grow badly. I'm only saying that from my own personal experience as I've killed or stunted many doing the same as you did, transplanting too early/damaging roots.

Obviously the current potting mix is too wet, but I'm assuming that is the case only because they were already wilting, so you were adding more water only after the initial symptoms.
But looks like root problems to me ( root rot, fungus/damping off, mechanical damage) on seedlings looks exactly like what yours do.
 
Yeah, looking again, I reckon Pablo is right. It does look like the leaves aren't getting water.

Another reason I love the jiffy.... protects my babies roots from these rough hands here. ;)
 
Pablo_h said:
When they are younger it's normally OK, that's why you can germinate on paper towels and transplant, or split a cell that 2 seedlings germinated in.
Click to expand...

That would explain why the couple of tiny babies a transplanted seem to be ok.

Pablo_h said:
But later on when they get a couple of true leaves it's better to leave them as long as possible, almost to the point of being root bound, before you transplant them.
Click to expand...
I'v worked that out, about 3 days after these these guys fell on their ass. Oh well, live and learn i guess.
 
I had this happen to some of my sprouts recently. The ones that croaked looked just like yours. For mine, it was root rot secondary to overwatering. I "autopsied" them...much smaller root mass than when I had transplanted them. Pretty sure it wasn't from the transplant itself since it happened suddenly about 5 to 7 days later.

Agreed the soil looks pretty wet.
 
TheFanMan said:
i lifted the fluros up quite a bit in case they were too close and cooking the plants.
Click to expand...

i would definitely lower the fluros back down. Especially since they are t8 bulbs. You could probably get away with that with some high output t5's though. Also if you think they're getting too hot, throw an oscillating fan on them. Not only will it cool them off/ add c02 and fresh air, it will strengthen them. Good luck! hope that helped a little bit
 
yeh i probably should lower the fluros,. raising them was just an "oh crap there drying out, um what can i do" moment, thought it was at least worth a try.
 
TheFanMan said:
the mix is some elcheapo stuff i had, it had been sitting outside and was waterlogged when i opened it, thats why its so wet.
Click to expand...
If the soil was just sitting there damp for a long time time, it could have started to grow some molds/fungus/whatever that the seedlings aren't tough enough to overcome.
 
Wulf said:
If the soil was just sitting there damp for a long time time, it could have started to grow some molds/fungus/whatever that the seedlings aren't tough enough to overcome.
Click to expand...

That too. Not really a good idea to use bags of old potting mixes that have been sitting out in the weather and are waterlogged, etc...

(Speaking from experience here, so you're not the only one.... ;))
 
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