Seeds all germinate, but don't sprout when planted?

[crucialbunny]

Bluey These are about $8 on Amazon.

[Bluey]

I think they are a good idea

[Gingerbeard]

Brother Frank. The best thing you can do is put your seeds directly in the pot they will grow in. Every time you transplant you open yourself to damage and deal with a fresh medium. All the suggestions and such on GWE are great and work. But a lot if it is just unnecessary.
Plants should max out their development in whatever container they are in. I mean, a young seedling with a tap and a few feeder roots is a delicate thing that can easily be damaged. An established root-ball can take a lot more abuse. You can even cut and/or shave a healthy root-ball to encourage more roots.
The only advantage I ever found to using Solo cups was being able to chase the sun that comes into my apartment. Guaranteed more than one of those cups got knocked over.
Simplify, my new friend. Simplify.

[FrankC]

Bluey, can you explain the reason for rinsing the Coco with low EC nute and calmag, if I then use plain water afterwards? Thanks

[Bluey]

I wash the coco to clean it...if you run plain water through it you often get an EC reading so I clear that.

I then put a weak nute mix through it but it's often too strong for a germinated seed so then just add plain water to dilute it where the seed is. It leaves a bit of nute in the mix but not much.

It's just the way I have sort of settled on. You could just stick to plain water then add the week mix when you get first leaf. Don't forget your humidity domes.

Edit. I do foliar spray a calmag solution at 0.2 EC as soon as the sprouts open. I am no seedling expert though. It's the part I hate. The second part I hate is trying to control humidity mid grow in my grow room...it swings heaps

[Sixwinds]

I grow in coco/perlite only and listen to Bluey below! It's not uncommon to see very early nutrient deficiencies in coco grows if you do not provide some cal mag in the beginning. I learned this the hard way over many seedings :P

[Bluey]

Oh, I also use a very week nute mix to wash/rinse because I cannot accurately read the pH of rainwater without adding something to it so a little bit of nute gives me an accurate reading.

Measuring pH accurately in demineralised water costs a few grand in lab equipment so I just add a tiny bit of nutes to measure it accurately using my pen.

[golfnrl]

If you use coco wash it with a cal mag solution before you use it. Even if the bag says it is ready to use. Some coco comes pre-washed, some doesn't. I mix the coco and perlite at a 50/50 blend and then wash with a cal mag solution at the rate listed on the bottle, nothing else. The wash adds the cal-mag of course but it also washes the dust off of the perlite. I made the mistake, once, of not rinsing the perlite. That $hit got everywhere, clogged up my exhaust fan carbon filter and made me crazy trying to figure it all out. I'm not a fan of solo cups because of the hassle of transplanting. I've cut out Rapid Rooters in the germination process because they aren't necessary. I suck at the paper towel method of germinating. This is what I do. Drop seeds in a shot glass, soak in water 24-36 hours, the tap root sometimes shows sometimes not, usually about a 1/8-1/4" long, then directly into coco/perlite in a small grow bag, PH'd water when needed to keep the coco moist but not wet. T5 lights come on when the sprouts show themselves. Once the first set of leaves after the cotyledon's appear, start with 1/4 to 1/2 strength nutrients. I threw away the reptile heat mat. I'm convinced it was burning up my seeds.

[Bluey]

What's a grow bag? Like an old person who grows?

[Rootsruler]

You're a dad aren't you? LOL!

[Bluey]

That bad huh.

[Gingerbeard]

Either y'all are doing everything right or I am doing everything wrong.
Cloud Coco (I think), Mother Earth, and Fox Farms are the coco/perlite brands I have used. I have never flushed. The only thing I do is wet the stuff so it settles in the fabric grow bag I've used for years and never washed.

[Allenpro]

I dont flush or prep the coco unless I buy it in a block, and I have not bought it in a block in years. Mother Earth Coco Coir doesnt usually have enough perlite for me so I add a bit. Coco Loco from Fox Farms has some starter nutes in it so I dont usually feed any nutes until I am getting close to flipping to 12/12. If they get hungry they will let you know

[FrankC]

Bluey: Interesting! I had been feeding my seedlings (the ones that didn't grow at all) with tap water adjusted with "pH Down" to pH 6.0, according to my cheap pH meter. pH strips said it was much lower, but I trusted the meter more.

When I added 1/4 strength Fox Farms nutes to some of the "pH 6" water, the meter read ~ pH 4. So either the nutes are very acidic, so they lowered the pH considerably, or else the water was never really pH 6, but much lower , and the pH meter doesn't work well on very weak solutions.

Maybe that's why my seedlings didn't grow? The water I used for the initial paper towel germination was just plain tap water, so maybe that's why the seeds popped a tap root, but then failed when I planted them in Jiffy cubes and used the "pH 6 water".

[Bluey]

Get a good pH pen. Plenty of horror stories here regarding cheap ones. BluLabs and Apera make good ones. You'll need storage and calibration fluid also.

[Cougar672]

I use Fox Farm nutes and the pH always drops considerably after adding them to the water. Don't bother pH adjusting your water until after mixing in nutes.

[Cougar672]

Just re-read your post. If I understand correctly, you mixed nutes in the water that you then gave to the seedling? If that is the case then I suspect the nutes killed your seedlings. I don't give any nutes until the second set of true leaves is growing, and then at only 1/4-1/2 strength.

[FrankC]

Actualy, I have the Apera pen - it cost a bit more then some, but seems pretty good.

[FrankC]

I started another grow with 4 seeds of the same 4 strains, all autos. This time, I made several changes:

1) I avoided cooking the seeds on the heat mat (last time the temp got up to 90 degrees at one point).
2) I waited until the taproot was about 1/2 inch long before planting them.
3) I planted the sprouted seeds in Coco coir/perlite in Solo cups rather than in Jiffy plugs.
4) I adjusted the pH of the water to about 6-6.5. (I also added a VERYT TINY dose of nutes and cal-mag, as Bluey suggested).

Success! (so far). Three of the seeds had a taproot long enough to proceed after 2 days (under wet paper towel in Ziploc bag). The fourth (Northern Lights) had no tap root after 4 days, so I sadly discarded it.

And after 2 days in Coco-coir, all three of the planted seeds have sprouted!

This is Tanya (Tangerine), the first to sprout:


This is Blanca (White Widow):


And the baby of the family is Betty (Bruce Banner)

[Gingerbeard]

AAhhhhh... it is so nice to identify and solve a problem.

[Bluey]

They are looking good. Don't give up on the 4th and at the moment just give pH'ed water. Wait for first true leaf to open then start nutes about as weak as you can, 0.2 to 0.4.

If the tap root is badly twisted best to start nutes a bit later and/or a bit weaker

[ChubbNugg]

them jiffy pellets used to work real good. then of a sudden, one day, they just don't work good anymore. I threw all mine out.

[FrankC]

Watering question (for new seedlings, one day after they emerged):

I am growing in Coco Coir/Perlite in 9 oz Solo cups.

I am using an AC Infinity seedling tray/humidity dome, and their brochure “Intro to growing hemp” says “Do not water the seedlings unless the bottom of tray, nursery bag or fabric pot feels dry”

But the article https://www.growweedeasy.com/coco-coir says (re seedlings): "When watering, keep giving water until about 10-30% extra runs out the bottom. Then don’t water again until the top inch or so starts feeling dry to the touch.

If I wait until the bottom is dry, then the Coco coir above will be very dry.

Any suggestions which to follow?

[Bluey]

Id be watering once a day...forget about runoff, it's a seed or seedling. pH that water and on first leaf give really week nute mix, if coco already had had a weak nute wash just before 1st leaf if it hasnt

[Bluey]

Id be watering once a day...forget about runoff, it's a seed or seedling. pH that water and on first leaf give really week nute mix, if coco already had had a weak nute wash just before 1st leaf if it hasnt, like 0.2 EC

[Allenpro]

Never let coco coir dry out, its hydro, I feed/water 3 or more times a day. That said I think it may be possible to drown a seedling in coco so when I use (vented) solo cups I put them in a tray and add water to the tray. The coco coir is like a wick and will soak it up and I think that lures the roots down to the bottom of the cup. Once I start seeing roots coming out of the drain holes in the cups I water from the top

[Gingerbeard]

Seedlings can stay wet longer than plants. Figure one way of getting things going is to towel sprout. They stay wet until put in soil.
Your seedlings are still young enough you can keep the soil wet. Until you have your first serrated leaves, you cannot give seedlings too much water.
Domes are only necessary if you are unable to keep at your seedlings to make sure they do not dry out. I never had a Solo go dry in a day.

[FrankC]

Next issue: My seedlings look "leggy", I think.


Blanca, Betty and Tanya - left to right


Tanya, on the right, has already had about 1/2 inch of coco added to help support her. Her stem is 1 1/2 inches tall (and it would be 2" if I hadn't added soil)

I read that too little light is one possible cause.

I have these seedlings in an AC Infinity propagation system with humidity dome with attached LED lights. Their brochure says to have the lights set on setting "1" for seedlings, with the lights a maximum of 1 inch from the canopy. But because I am using Jiffy Cups, I am using an extension that raises the dome and the lights by 4 inches, so the lights were about 5" from the canopy. Therefore, I turned up the lights to setting 5 since yesterday.



I read that other possible causes include being too dry - but I don't think that is the explanation, I have been keeping them pretty moist.

Any thoughts?

Thanks.

[Mollisol]

They don't look that bad to me. Usually the light being to far away or not strong enough causes stretching.

When you transplant you can plant them deep. Weed like tomatoes can generate a root anywhere on its stem.

[Allenpro]

They look pretty good to me, nice fat little stalks. Yes they probably are stretching to get more light, I would move them a little closer and I always mist my dome so they have a bit more humidity in there. Thats just me though.

[FrankC]

Today, 4 little droplets of something appeared on the leaves of the tallest seedling, Tanya. I did not splash water on in when I watered it about 1-2 hrs ago, so I think they are secretions from the leaves. The humidity in the dome is about 65-70%.

Any ideas what these are?

[Bluey]

Looking good

[Mollisol]

Yep. All good. You're like a new dad. Lol

[FrankC]

OK, googled it and found that it is called guttation, and is not necessarily a problem.