Please Help!!!! Healthy Seedlings Dying FAST!!!

Help urgently needed!!!

I'm afraid my seedlings aren't going to make it through the night. I started them in seedling trays after germination in the paper towel. After a week and a half in the seedling trays, I noticed that they seemed to be going yellow and not looking very healthy, drooping. I figured that they needed more space than the seedling tray cups and thought it was the right time to move them up. I transplanted them into plastic cups. The medium is straight vermicompost which I believe is supposed to have the NPK ratio as 1:0:0.

During transplanting, I noticed that all the seedlings had good, long roots, usually twice the length of the seedling itself and some were even good enough to bring up a good chunk of vermicompost with them. After planting them in the cups, I placed them under the sun and in the evening, placed them under a 110W CFL 6500K. The distance is about 4-5 inches. The seedlings immediately responded and stood up straighter. However, subsequently, there was not much improvement. The leaves are still yellow, they're still drooping and 2 have already died. They all started out beautifully, lovely dark green leaves fully extended and happy looking. This is my second grow. The tap water where I live is very bad with about 165ppm of dissolved stuff in it which could be anything. But I should point out, it is safe for humans to drink as I do everyday.

Additional Information. I've only got 2 fertilizers, both foilar spray one is 19:19:19 and the other is 13:0:45. The triple 19 says on the instructions that 1 Kg of the stuff should be mixed with 1000 liters of water and then sprayed on crops. I took a pinch between my thumb and forefinger and dissolved it in 2 liters of water and sprayed sparingly out of desperation once. Pics. included, please please help

Is it nutrient deficiency? or micro nutes? I have no idea why this is happening. last grow was my first and even then, I used straight vermicompost and 9 plants reached 12" inches in height before a mixture of friends and heavy rain killed them all. I don't want to lose this batch as I don't have any more seeds left. HELP!!!

I'm going to sit here refreshing the page so I can see replies in real time.

master19999 said:

During transplanting, I noticed that all the seedlings had good, long roots, usually twice the length of the seedling itself and some were even good enough to bring up a good chunk of vermicompost with them.

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You mean you pulled them out of the soil when transplanting? which is what this sounds like. That would be a problem.

Don't know much about the nutrient properties of vermicompost but it might be kind of hot, plus it looks dense like it could use about 30% perlite added.

The way leaves are curled down I'm thinking overwatering and/or they sit in a dense soggy soil that wont drain, both of which will lead to chlorosis.

I can't get perlite where I am, do you think coco peat could be a good alternative? because I have that. As far as pulling them out of the soil is concerned, around 3-4 plants, when transplanting had their roots visible as sizeable chunks of soil had fallen off. The rest took the entire root ball with them

and vermicompost is basically worm castings with some other composted material. I know for a fact that the nutrient ratio of vermicompost is 1:0:0. What bugs me is that I'm using the same method I used last time, but this time it's failing.

any more replies??? Anybody?

How is it you can get worm poop but not perlite? I've done my own worm farming in the past, and I would not use that sticky poo all by itself for a potted plant medium. I'm not saying it couldn't be done, but you've got to deal with issues like organisms invading the worm doodie and lack of oxygen in the root zone. In other words, what you're doing is a bit unconventional, which means you're on the uncivilized frontier of horticulture where a lot of stuff can go wrong. I just looked at vermicompost websites and one said that more than 50 percent vc in potting medium has been tested and found to be counterproductive. Mostly, it's recommended as an additive to other media.

thanks for the reply, I just transferred one to straight coco. People here think it's nute burn.

Do those cups have drainage holes in them?

Red1966 said:

Do those cups have drainage holes in them?

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yes they do. After transferring them to coco and giving them a thorough flush, the deterioration seems to have stopped

Here's what I don't get though. My first grow was 17 seedlings. 11 of them managed to grow up healthy before heavy rain killed 2 when they were 6 inches high. The 9 that remained live to grow to 12" before an idiot friend I asked to take care of them left them in heavy rain for 4 days straight. They just snapped down the middle. But what's important is that during that grow, I was using the same vermicompost with small amounts of coco and red soil added to it. Coco was around 10% and soil taken directly from a field was also 10% in the mix. The rest was vermicompost. I figured that was a good method as it gave me quite a few healthy plants, 11, right in my first grow.

I tried the same method this time, keeping everything the same and I've already had around 15 dead plants so far. These 8 are looking like they've been wasted too. I hope they'll live and the deterioration seems to have stopped, but I don't have many hopes for them.

So the question is, why would a method that worked once fail immediately the second time I try it?

ltecato said:

How is it you can get worm poop but not perlite? I've done my own worm farming in the past, and I would not use that sticky poo all by itself for a potted plant medium. I'm not saying it couldn't be done, but you've got to deal with issues like organisms invading the worm doodie and lack of oxygen in the root zone. In other words, what you're doing is a bit unconventional, which means you're on the uncivilized frontier of horticulture where a lot of stuff can go wrong. I just looked at vermicompost websites and one said that more than 50 percent vc in potting medium has been tested and found to be counterproductive. Mostly, it's recommended as an additive to other media.

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The vermicompost I'm using isn't top notch, that means that it's not all worm castings. It's a fair amount of worm castings mixed with other composted matter. The first time I grew using this method, the plants grew fine. It's this grow (my second) that's giving me so many problems. Could it be that this batch of vermicompost is richer in worm castings than my last one? Because this one is definitely much more lumpy. The vermicompost I used the last time was very fine with very few lumps that had to be broken by hand. Plus, I remember that the old batch of vermicompost was also darker in color than the one I have now. Seeing as you've done worm farming, could you give your thoughts on this?

Wow..there are so many things from what you are telling me that could go wrong it would be hard to pin point.If i had to guess id say your PH is way off.
I recommend you go to organics and start reading about sub cools super soil.Plants will run perfect in it and as good as a soil/poop grower can do.
Seedlings just plant in some basic light organic dirt like MG organic dirt and dont fook with em.
Perlite allows better drainage of the soil and root formation. It does not hold water like peat.
Perlite although in small bags can be purchased at lowes or mennards at the right time of the season..that would be spring.
Rock,volcano rock and things like that can be used as a substitute for perlite.
Start out growing bag seed until you get the hang of it that way you are not wasting money on expensive beans and killing them.
Hope this helps out.I know it will if you take the time to start reading.Organics..and sub cools super soil.START THERE.

OK, quick update:

Last time I used livechat, people there told me that it was a clear case of nute burn. So what I did was take the plants and (OK, here, you may stop reading, because what follows is an example of sheer stupidity and getting lucky and basically carnage committed agains beautiful weed plants) gently pull the whole soil ball out of the containers, break it apart so that I could see the root ball and then replant those into 100% coco peat. I did this because coco is neutral and has no nutes. After this, I gave them a thorough flush. That seems to have halted the deterioration. It's been almost 2 days now and most of those plants look a wee bit better than they did before. I also had 4 healthy seedlings planted in a different mix of soil and they seem to be working through this stage in their life without any problems.

So I think that's it till the next week as they seem to have resumed growth, albeit very slowly, but today morning, I saw a small set of leaves appearing on one of the plants that I had assumed was just going to die. I'll post pics soon as the get a little bit better. I also moved the 4 healthy seedlings in a different soil mix closer to the light because I noticed they were stretching a little bit. Now they seem to be doind great. They've got big leaves that are getting bigger and new ones coming up pretty quick (they weren't there last night)

I read somewhere that you should start giving nutes after the 4th node appears, is this correct? Can anyone please confirm this?

Thanks for all the help guys!

Sorry, I read that ferts could be applied after the 5th node develops, not 4th as I posted earlier. Can someone confirm this? On my most successful plant yet, I didn't use nutes till the 2nd month of veg was over, but it never slowed down or showed any problems of any kind. I want to hold back on the nutes because that plant did great without them and I want these others to be like that one. But I'm open to using nutes if the plants need it to get as big or bigger and stronger than my current flagship plant.

The bottom line is that what you're attempting is tricky as hell. I wouldn't try it myself, and I've grown some really finicky plants like insectivores and orchids, lithops and coffee. Generally I use organics only outdoors and mostly in the ground, not containers. Only organic fert I'll use on indoor plants is fish emulsion or kelp. Lots of growers can make organics work indoors, but it's a lot more complicated than using store-bought potting soil and MiracleGro. If you're new to horticulture in general and haven't previously grown any veggies or houseplants, you might be in over your head. Or maybe not, I can't really say without more info. Anyway, don't give up. Good luck.

master19999 said:

My first grow was 17 seedlings. 11 of them managed to grow up healthy
So the question is, why would a method that worked once fail immediately the second time I try it?

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11 out of 17 is not that much of a success.

You have some questionable soil, and transplanted (manhandled) them twice in the seedling stage..... I think you are lucky to have anything alive actually.

Hang in there but I think these guys are going to have a rough time pulling through.

Next grow start with a good soil mix with some perlite or vermiculite. Not sure of the exact problem (nutes and/or water drainage) but whatever is wrong it is caused by your soil mix, in my opinion.

Thanks a lot for the replies everybody. So right now, the deterioration seems to have stopped completely. I'm also seeing some new leaves on the still living plants. Around 3 couldn't make it and died. The rest still have yellow leaves but are not drooping. What's surprising is that the same soil mix is being used for all of them and 4 seem to be doing much better than the rest. I get the fact that I'm trying something new, that's why I couldn't find any direct help online in the forums and threads. However, it is great to be able to pipoint the problem to the soil mix being too hot. The coco seems to have been a good idea. I'll post pictures soon. Also, I'm thinking this thread is going to be my grow journal. Regular pics and posts are coming.

Apart from that, I have another question. I've got 2 bigger plants that have been vegging for over 8 weeks now. I switched them to 12/12, meaning just put them out on the balcony as the day here is 12 hours followed by 12 hours of night. I noticed something resembling a pre-flower after 2 days on the second node from the top, however, this growth has not gotten any bigger and there is still nothing on any other nodes. How exactly can I get my plant to pre-flower and show its gender?