Seedling shriveling up

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bagspeed

bagspeed

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Hello, first time grower here. I started a few bag seeds with 2 CFLs (18W) until my new LED (80W, claims to be 600W equivalent lol) arrived in the mail. When it got here, I installed it like 3 ft away to avoid shocking the plants with so much more light. Unfortunately, I accidentally got some water on the leaves of the newest sprout. It seemed fine for a day but all of a sudden it took a major shit! Look at this:

today
20200601_013749.jpg


After reading some stuff on the forums, I'm worried it could be damping off. Maybe I just overwatered my crappy soil from outside? Any help or thoughts would be appreciated.

Here's some more pics of the one above, going back in time:

earlier today
20200531_232819.jpg

yesterday
20200530_112538.jpg

2 days ago (new light)
20200529_221732.jpg

week ago (old light)
20200525_121924.jpg


And the other seedlings which I don't want to let any potential damping off spread to:

healthy sprout #1
20200531_230012.jpg

healthy sprout #2
20200531_230002.jpg


Thanks for any help or advice
 
Last edited:
Ina

Ina

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After reading some stuff on the forums, I'm worried it could be damping off. Maybe I just overwatered my crappy soil from outside?
Looks like that,soil looks compacted,i guess it reatins moisture lot longer,also hardening the baby roots to grow.You should make it more...flufy somehow:)May be its not so crappy,looking rich but when watered it gets compacted.Ad more holes on the sides of the pots,you can dig the surface around the plants a little to promote some air....Leave them dry longer,as long as needed before next watering.When you transplant you can improve the soil aeration with more perlite and such....
 
Jimster

Jimster

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Yep, crappy soil, overwatered, and damp,d off. You will do yourself a major favor by providing the proper growing medium. Grass might grow in muddy dirt, but cannabis prefers something that it's roots can spread out thru. There are a zillion types of soils (Fox Farms) and a ton of soil-less mediums (Promix, Coco)... either one of these will provide the loose soil that the roots need and decent drainage, so that the plant doesn't damp off or rot. Be sure to have a lot of drainage as well. The medium should be damp, not wet. Also, you shouldn't use clear containers to grow in as the light can affect the root development... even sitting them inside another cup that is red or blue should help, although light proof would be best.
 
bagspeed

bagspeed

7
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Thanks for the help!

Any tips on transplanting to better soil? Should I try to shake off some of the old soil from the roots or just plop em in a bigger pot?
 
dire wolf

dire wolf

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Thanks for the help!

Any tips on transplanting to better soil? Should I try to shake off some of the old soil from the roots or just plop em in a bigger pot?
Be very delicate with your fragil seedlings , i would carefully plop the whole container sideways on a newspaper , then take a pencil or something and surgically remove heavy soil , then mist them with a hand sprayer and delicately place them in a deep hole that youve made in the promix or perlite promix or whatever light medium you use , bury a little deep so as to support the stem , dont water by pouring water on them , pre moisten medium and then givr a delicate mist to continue for a few days till babies are settled in ....
It will work , be gentle
 
bagspeed

bagspeed

7
3
Be very delicate with your fragil seedlings , i would carefully plop the whole container sideways on a newspaper , then take a pencil or something and surgically remove heavy soil , then mist them with a hand sprayer and delicately place them in a deep hole that youve made in the promix or perlite promix or whatever light medium you use , bury a little deep so as to support the stem , dont water by pouring water on them , pre moisten medium and then givr a delicate mist to continue for a few days till babies are settled in ....
It will work , be gentle

Are you saying remove all of the current soil or just some?

And would it be worth it to just move em to the 3-gal fabric pots I'm planning on growing em out in now? Or solo cups until they're bigger?
 
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Edinburgh

Edinburgh

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Crapy soil is not conducive to grow cannabis. If your gonna grow do it right with soil made for cannabis, bag seed can be funny sometimes if you can afford a growlight buy some feminized beans that way you will have a good chance of an all female grow, if you do not have a tent and your plants are suceptable to light leak try autoflowers first, they flower with age not photoperiod and wont go hermy on you if you get a bit of light on them after it is off, most beginner growers think you can buy miricle grow and throw bag seed in it and it will be fine, cannabis is very eaysy to grow its a weed, but it is not so easy to grow properly and the very first thing you need are good dirt and seeds, good luck.
 
Jimster

Jimster

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Are you saying remove all of the current soil or just some?

And would it be worth it to just move em to the 3-gal fabric pots I'm planning on growing em out in now? Or solo cups until they're bigger?
Try to remove as much of the surrounding dirt around theroots, but if the roots and dirt are stuck together, take the dirt and all. Most growers startin cups or smaller pots, although I don't personally. With that being said, I have been doing this for a while now and I'm probably the exception to the rule. Gnerally speaking, most growers like to start in a smaller container, like a solo cup, and up-pot them once or twice then into their final home. I plant my sprouts directly into a 5 gallon bucket of pre hydrated and amended Promix. As the seedling grows it follows the water, which slowly dries up over the next week or so. After a month, I usually have roots coming out of the bottom drain holes. I use Promix which is almost impossible to overwater, but will hold enough water for good growth. It doesn't have any nutrients in it, so you need to feed your plants, which is another topic altogether. Go easy on the nutes and you should be OK. You will be surprised how quickly things can grow when you have happy roots and plenty of light!
 
dire wolf

dire wolf

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Hey bag , you can do either , smaller cups , but the roots are probably down to the bottom by now , so like jimster said might be a fine idea to leave a little original dirt around the transplanted root ( leave dirt so you dont tear or disrupt the root ) and you can go into your final pot if its easier , the main idea now is to get it surrounded by a good soil or soil less medium ,
Also i think you will be fine sticking with your regular seed , if you go feminized or auto seeds you miss out on a lot of learning experience , it may be more convenient to do fems or auto , but you will learn how to be a better grower if you tackle all the problems from the begining and not take shortcuts like everyone seems to be doing ....
Up to you
 
bagspeed

bagspeed

7
3
Thanks guys. The encouragement definitely helped before that procedure.

I moved the two ones that are doing okay into 3-gal pots with better soil. The roots looked healthy and white but small.
20200601 210616


The best soil I could find locally was this organic MG raised bed soil. I also mixed in some perilite. It's probably not the best, but hopefully better than what I had.

Interestingly, the one that was struggling appeared to be stuck in the seed shell underground.
20200601 205033


No idea if that was the problem, but I moistened and gently removed it. The smaller of the two healthy seedlings is still alive because I helped the cotyledon out of the shell. It was flopped over and dying stuck in the shell a week ago. I thought maybe it was worth giving this sprout one more chance, so I put it back in a cup with better soil, now that the seed is removed.

And yeah, I could probably save myself a lot of hassle for some plants that might not even be female. But DW is right, learning things the hard way is the best way to learn. I'll buy some seeds and FoxFarms if I end up failing this round.
 
dire wolf

dire wolf

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Hey , is that bill cosby on your avatar ? Funny
 
Last edited:
bagspeed

bagspeed

7
3
Here's an update:

Unfortunately the one that damped off never recovered with the new soil. But the other two are looking good!

20200619 020342
20200619 020403


Couple questions if any experts still around:
  • The taller one got maybe too tall from not having enough light early on. Is it a good idea to bury it with some more soil? Is it ok to bury lower leaves? Will this help the roots? I mainly just want to make efficient use of my vertical space (~2.5ft soil to light) in case it turns out female.
  • The shorter one looks pretty wonky. I had to help this one out of the seed shell and it may have suffered a bit from that. But if anyone recognizes a problem with this one, please let me know :) The leaves are slightly yellower than the tall one but still pretty green.
And thanks again for teaching me the lesson of bad soil. It may not look like much, but these plants are growing a lot faster than before. Probably because now they can build roots!
 
Jimster

Jimster

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Here's an update:

Unfortunately the one that damped off never recovered with the new soil. But the other two are looking good!

View attachment 988280View attachment 988281

Couple questions if any experts still around:
  • The taller one got maybe too tall from not having enough light early on. Is it a good idea to bury it with some more soil? Is it ok to bury lower leaves? Will this help the roots? I mainly just want to make efficient use of my vertical space (~2.5ft soil to light) in case it turns out female.
  • The shorter one looks pretty wonky. I had to help this one out of the seed shell and it may have suffered a bit from that. But if anyone recognizes a problem with this one, please let me know :) The leaves are slightly yellower than the tall one but still pretty green.
And thanks again for teaching me the lesson of bad soil. It may not look like much, but these plants are growing a lot faster than before. Probably because now they can build roots!
Unless the plant is falling over, ther isn't a need to bury it any deeper. If it does fall over, just mound some dirt/medium around the stem to support it. Within a few days it will be strong enough to stand on it's own, although you seem to be OK. I always mention NOT to "help" the seed from the shell, it is nearly impossible to do it without damaging the seedling, as you have discovered. Seedlings can split rocks... they can split their seed shell as well. If the seedling is suffering that much just shedding a shell, it is probably defective to begin with. Only time will tell if it will recover, but they are often small dwarf plants that don't seem to grow well.
 
bagspeed

bagspeed

7
3
Some more weird stuff from the wonky one:

The growth after the first set of true leaves was really tripping me out, but I think I see what happened now... but no idea why.

This weird 6-tipped half-stemmed leaf split from the main stem:

20200626 040112
20200626 040212
20200626 040230


In the first pic, you can see how the stem is not round, but half hollow. The second pic shows all six blades of the leaf.

Anybody know why this happened? Something to do with me helping it out of the shell?

And should I do anything about it like remove it?
 
Jimster

Jimster

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Leave it alone. The deformity probably happened when you helped things out, but I have never had the luxury of helping a plant shed it's seed casing without hurting it somehow, regardless of how gentle I try to be. The seed case will fall off on it's own unless the seed is funky, then there isn't much you can do.
 

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