Damping off is driving me insane, please help.

raggyb said:

I haven't done it but Lactic acid bacterial, LABs, is said to be able to help prevent damping off. You can make your own. I imagine you dilute it and put it in a spray bottle to spray your seedlings and soil.

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i have some lyophilized lactobacillus acidophilus tablets in my fridge, i'll check in the morning if they are usable or not.

depressedbud said:

i have some lyophilized lactobacillus acidophilus tablets in my fridge, i'll check in the morning if they are usable or not.

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wow, great! I've never heard of those. I wonder if it would give you full strenth labs. I'm not sure how much you have to dilute in that case. Maybe 100:1. You can spray labs on the soil a few weeks before planting also to let it settle in. Also not sure if you should add sugar to the labs before diluting so it has something to feed off of. Wish I new more to help you better.

curious2garden said:

Major cause of damping off is infection of the germ by handling. Consider planting directly into your substrate so you don't inoculate them

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cannabiscrusader said:

I always Crack my beans in water from the dehumidifier with a dash of h2o2. Some beans just choose death np matter what you do. Try bottom watering until you get roots poking out. This keeps the soil around the stem dry while also forcing the taproot down to find the water. Be light handed, be gentle.

Speak softly, but carry a big stick

-Teddy Rosevelt on growing weed, probably

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I personally believe these combined are the best ways of preventing dampening. Plant directly into the substrate, bottom water, and space out how often you water your plants.

Once a week for seedlings should do it.

depressedbud said:

I bought apple fritter and super silver haze seeds from amsterdam. oh i was so happy. ive been trying to grow some seeds for a month, so far, 2 apple fritters and 2 ssh died due to damping off. i sterilized my soil. my humidity is 60%. my soil mix is light and fluffy, doesnt compact at all. i have %40 perlite in it. i use drinking water and ph it. i wet some soil and mix it with dry soil so the medium is moist but not damp, just moist, doesnt stick to my hand. nothing works. this shit never happened to me before and its driving me insane. i bought a reptile heating mat, my soil temp is 25C, air temp is 26C. i dont know what am i doing wrong anymore. is this a me problem or the seeds are just shit, i dont know. any advice is appreciated.

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I took all of your comments and methods to consideration and came up with something a little too much yet soothing for my biologist brain.

I developed a protocol for my chronic dampening off problem and it worked like a charm. Here is the protocol:

-sterilized soil with H202 method, then dried in the oven at 80C for 30 mins. Set aside in a sterile container.
-paper towel method for germination, autoclaved paper towels, water + container.
-sterilized the seed surface with %6 bleach solution, and throughly rinsed (you can find a protocol for this in pubmed).
-germinated the seed until it was ready to shed seed covering to give it a head start against fungi spores, so it would have thicker stem when the spores were colonized enough to attack the stem and the roots.
-i dampened the soil (%50 perlite) with autoclaved water, and added the same amount of dry soil and mixed. mixing damp and dry soil gave me a perfectly moist medium.
-transplanted the germinated seedling. RH was around %50, temp 24C, so no dome. it acclimated in few hours.
-i let the soil get dry 3cms deep. then i bottom water the pot. never from the top.

so far it worked wonderfully.

I SOLVED THE FUCKING PROBLEM.

IT WAS THE SOIL. Let me explain how.

My soil was a basic mix of perlite and peat before. Nothing else. I changed the light, sterilized the soil, changed my germination method, used a heat mat, nothing worked until I did something so simple yet so effective.

I added 20% worm castings. That's it. Worm castings provided microbial protection. Beneficial bacteria from worm poop competed against fungi for nutrients and suppressed their growth.

Never underestimate the power of microbes. EVER!

20% worm castings, %30 perlite and 50% peat was the perfect combination, my plant is THRIVING!