I have been growing for several years now and have never had issues with mid-late veg or flower. But I always seem to have issues with early veg. I am usually getting about 90% of seeds to pop using the paper towel trick but when I add those into a seed starting substrate half the time they die before ever showing there first true leaves and the ones that do survive will stall for 2-3 weeks with only there first true leaves showing. I’ll list my steps below.
using RO water I wrap seeds in wet paper towel and put in bag.
Once the root shows in the paper towel I transfer to a sanitized seed starting tray. Usually using a seed starter mix I get at Home Depot.
once first true leaves show I’ll feed with RO water and a 1/4 strength fish hydroslate.
after a couple days of first true leaves showing I’ll transfer from the seed starting tray into a sanitized red solo cup with either Fox Farms Happy Frog or Build A Soil Lite Recipe. I prefer the BAS Lite but it is a drive across town to get.
From here everything stalls. I am using a heat pad at all times during the process. I don’t not place the tray directly on the heat pad. I usually have a tray as a buffer between the heat pad and tray holding the seeds or young plants. My temps are a little on the lower end of 72-75 day and 68 night. I try to keep the humidity at 60-70%. Lastly I am running an exhaust fan and pole fan. No intake fan though.
Sounds like you pretty much have it down. The one thing I would mention is that I see no need to go from a starter tray to a solo cup. Things are fragile at that point meaning the fine hairs on the main root.
When you transfer them at that young a stage you may be inadvertently tearing the fine root hairs up. I always go directly into a solo cup sized container or even bigger like a 16oz chicken liver container with the seed, then directly into the final container.
Transplanting always slows things down if only a few days. And I always wait to see roots coming out of the bottom hole of whatever container they are in before going to the next size up, that way the root ball is holding the soil and keeps it from tearing the roots up. I have never used either of those soil mixes, so hopefully someone else will chime in they may be “too hot” ?
I use promix hp. I do it the same way minus a heat pad. Then i put the seedling in the tiny 2oz size solo cup and put it in a tiny dome to keep it from drying out!
One thing I noticed is your temps might be on the lower end for seedlings. They typically thrive at around 77-80°F during this stage. It’s great you’re using a heat pad, but you might want to bump the temps just a bit to help them speed up. Also, the humidity could be dialed in a bit more – keep it around 70-80% early on to help prevent them from drying out.
As for your medium, since you’re using Fox Farms and BAS Lite, make sure they’re not too heavy on the nutrients at this early stage. Sometimes a more neutral starter mix can help avoid burning the young roots. You could also try bottom watering for a bit to keep the seedlings from getting stressed by top-watering too soon.
Lastly, if you’re stalling after transplant, make sure the solo cups have drainage holes and aren’t sitting in stagnant water, which could suffocate the roots.
Where are the seeds coming from ?? could be HLV or some other viroid that’s latent in the seed. when the little plants that die is the tap root withered ? looks dried out/rotting? I’ve read that if it gets too wet and cant breath properley it can cause
This soilborne fungal disease, caused by Fusarium virguliforme, can lead to root rot, including the tap root, and foliar symptoms like yellowing and browning of leaves.
A disease caused by Xylaria necrophora, a newly identified pathogen, can cause seedling death and seed rot, and also affects later stages of soybean development.
Symptoms to Look For:
Discolored and decaying roots.
Brown to dark gray discoloration in the taproot’s woody tissue.
Foliar symptoms like interveinal chlorosis (yellowing between veins) and necrosis (browning).
Premature plant death.
“Dead man’s fingers” (fungal growth) at the base of the plant or on residue.
Stop using frog products for the babies. It is hot and usually kills babies. Its fine for teens and adults. You want a blank medium to start with or very little nutes in the substrate in the beginning.
I would bet thats why you like the lite soil initially.
And get a fan. They sweat out their pores on top of the leaves. Air Becoming stagnate in their area hurts them too.
50/50 coco pearlite, real loose and light. No nutes until they get the first real set of leaves, then half strength of whatever I am using nute wise… I used to put in a lot of other stuff like worm castings and compost, but i found that simple is best, they have enough to get to the first leaves all by themselves. They just very light water and half strength nutes until they go into the final pots then whatever the nutrient chart recommends for veg.
I have some beans from a herm plant that I saved years ago. I’ll give this 50/50 a chance. I always have perlite and coco choir on hand. What I have heard with coco is it is sometimes too acidic.
I would love to raise the temps but I have 3 tents in my grow room, 2 flower and 1 veg so I like to keep the room temp at 70 so the plants in flower don’t get too warm.
These are peat moss and coco. The others are tree bark… i have only been using these this round. I haven’t used them before. The others i know didn’t break down. I’m not sure on these yet. I’ll let you know.
I think I finally figured it out. The seed mixture I was using was bad. I used the same seed mix for my tomatoes and they all died before the true leaf’s came out. I bought some new seed mix this weekend and the seeds I put in on Friday are already showing their first true leaf’s. So don’t buy the cheap Ferry Morse seed starting mix. Spend a couple extra dollars on Burpee or make your own.
I thought I was the only one experiencing this problem.
Question: how long should it be kept in that tiny 2oz solo cup before transplanting to the pot/bag? That cup is so tiny, I dont see how any decent roots have room to develop so that the plant’s root structure isn’t ripped up during transplanting.
Thats the magical question right. And wouldnt you be surprised to find out it could be weeks about 2 weeks 3 maximum. But it will push roots out of the cups bottoms and if theres water in the tray those roots will get big and the plants will outgrow the tiny domes fast.
If you want to see how long watch me grow 8 plants. Im doing it right now in my seed test room thread.
