Damping off-the wiki

[TylerDurden119]

recently i lost a run of seeds to damping off. i was gutted. i had never heard of this disease and was powerless to watch my lil babies die. some i don't know if i'll be able to replace. so after this tragedy i vowed to never lose another seed like this. this is the best article i found. mostly preventative, it seems to come down to sterility. so from now on i will be seeding in grodans in sterilized trays and treating the grodan with captan fungicide.

terrible fucking disease.



just found two biological fungicides that when used together should offer significant protection.

http://agripacific.com/VendorStuff/GrowthProducts/literature/companion_powerful_hort.pdf

thats a vendors site but the bacteria is what were looking for. there are a few companies that sell it. do a search n you should find a couple different vendors.

this second is another biological agent. haven't found a vendor for this one yet.

 

[Unit541]

Consider your moisture levels more than sterility when concerned about damping off in rockwool.

Personally I think adding more crap is counter productive. Everyone who hates RW hates it because of damping off. I do very well germinating in RW, and once a seed lands in a cube, that cube is NEVER, ever watered again. Under a dome, there's plenty of time for the seed to sprout, and roots to make it through the cube, before it dries out completely. By that time, I'm watering the roots.

Most people losing seedlings in RW are watering the cubes. I'd be willing to bet, that if you watch the moisture levels, you won't need Captain Fungicide.

Oh, and make sure not to handle the cubes too much. If they get squeezed, even a tiny bit, there will be pockets of moisture in them that NEVER dry out, then bad things happen.

Take a look at the cube, bone dry.

 

[TylerDurden119]

cool thanks for the heads up on the rockwool

i think the problem i had was sowing directly into unsterilized coco, with moisture issues.

it was the first time going directly to coco, after reading some posts where guys sowed directly i figured i'd give it a try. lesson learned...