Possible to plant seedling upsidedown?

I have 5 seedlings, all doing well, with small leaves and three with roots.....except one......Its just an inch and half long white thing growing towards the light. Could this be the root and my seed was planted upside down. There is nothing on the other side of the rockwool. Its super beefy and if its a root its a beauty. Any advise would be fantastic! When should I ditch the dome?

id just cover it with a little more soil and wait for cotyledons to pop up

Yea leave it alone, maybe cover it a bit as KaleoXxX says. I have never seen a root grow upwards as if reaching for light before. As for the dome you should remove it as soon as seedlings break the surface, seedlings don't need the high humidity like cuttings do, in fact the high humidity can cause the seedlings to rot.

Got them under 3 cfls. You can see the date i germinated them. One of them blew out of the rockwool and stretched the first day, before any of the others even burst through the rockwool. I was not planning to use soil, should i put them in baskets with hydroton? I have an aeroflo2 60 pot but have never gone from seed before. Planning to grow them a bit in the flo then stick them in hydroton in buckets as mothers. Any thoughts?

Thanks again for the info.... newbie... been years since my last batch of tomatoes, always ran flood and drain.

wildcatsweetart said:

Planning to grow them a bit in the flo then stick them in hydroton in buckets as mothers.

Click to expand...

This sounds like a plan to stick to. The up growing 'root' will prob die, looks like it lost is first leafs (I know they are not rearly leafs but can't remember what they are called) so don't think it will develop any leave but it cert is not growing upside down, they always find their path and will grow around and then down of started upside down.
Do you have bigger rockwall blocks that the ones your currently growing in would fit into? You could start using the bigger blocks to give the tap root more depth.

I do have some rockwool slabs but I also have a small aero table I use for cuttings and veg. I would like to stick them in hydroton and into the table or do you think i should go for the slabs? I also have a 400w i could hit them with from a two foot distance?

The growing root never developed leaves. thats why i thought it was a growing root..... did i mention i have been sober for a while... no toky.... maybe that is where my growing root notions came from.

That is a strange little bugger. I have had seeds sprout upside down before, not often, but around 1 in 100 or so will do it (depending on the genetics, of course). When they do sprout upside down, normally the root will redirect itself into the rockwool by curling back and inserting itself back into the cube for anchorage, leaving a corkscrew in the lower stem. If I notice a root emerging first instead of a seed or cotyledons (first pair of round leaves), I gingerly remove the seedling and reposition it upright. Be very careful when handling seedlings, they are so much more sensitive than any other phase of growth. They won't always survive, and you need to catch them early; it looks to be a bit late to save your baby, but you may try peeling away the rockwool to see if there are still cotyledons alive inside. If they are green, try to save the plant. You'll know if they are dead, they'll be mushy.
Also, usually roots have root hairs coming off of them and I didn't see any signs of root hairs in your picture (good job including a good pic). Did the part that emerged first have fuzzy hairs on it at any point that may have died off?
High humidity can encourage roots to grow out of the medium, even upwards, if the medium is too wet. Make sure that the cubes aren't saturated, and acclimate the seedlings to normal humidity levels, over at least several hours. Ask if you don't know how to acclimate. Excess humidity during the seedling stage can also cause seedlings to stretch more than is healthy for them. Often, they stretch so much that they can't support themselves and collapse. It may be wise to support your seedlings somehow (I use a toothpick stuck into the rockwool with a twist tie around it, then bend the twist tie to support the plant without damaging it). I wish I had a picture, but you'll figure out a way to support them, us growers are innovative and creative
Please do make sure to take good care of those girls, a greenhouse mix pack gave me 2 exquisite mother plants, and I have head amazing things about AMS, AH #3, and the Rhino.
PS: You can still mist your seedlings several times each day, but make sure the leaves dry between applications or you may have problems with mold.

hydro table or slabs is a personal choice, do what you planned to do, I try not to alter plans to much as I end up changing to much and have a load of unused equipment left over. I personally use a flood and drain system in individual pots which allows me to use big rockwall cubes which I then put into Hydro pebbles when roots have developed. Its good to get into the bigger pots as soon as possible so if your hydroton system will get water to the roots go for it, cant see the harm as your tap root has already found bottom of the cubes they are currently in. I guess the 400w light is a halide or sodium light? way to much intense light for your babies at the moment, keep them under floros for now, I wait until the second set of real leafs have developed well before I switch to the powerful lights.

Don't put the seedling right under a 400W light! You have to do things gradually to keep the plants happy and healthy and vigorous through the whole process. Remember that any change in conditions takes energy away from the plant as it expends it attempting to compensate for the sudden change in environment. Fluorescents should work fine until you have a couple pairs of true leaves, then they can start taking more light.

Oops, right on, krustofskie. We must have posted at the same time.

no i was thinking buckets with hydroton and a drip system for the mothers. but wasent sure if i could go from the aero table to the slabs/buckets. Sounds like i cant and should stick to the slabs and pick up the dripper soon. yup the greenhouse mix pack...... funny since the first post i took the funny rooty looking one out of the dome and under the three cfls (the dome was under 1 cfl) and it bent over. So its still living and very sensitive i might add.

I have planted seeds upside down just for the hell of it and my results were:

1 seedling's root came up, I coverded it and it took four days longer than a normally down planted seed to sprout. Another seedling grew a 1 inch root (upward), yellowed and died. the others naturally found their way downward. ofcourse, they did take a little longer to sprout as well.

Rockwool will restrict the seedling from turning around and pushing the seed upward as there will be no room for it to do so. I always point the tap down and only lay them on their side when the tap root is curled. always point the tip down man! why chance it unless you have the resources to do so.

I recommend planting in soil/soiless if curled so there is space for nature to correct the little seed.

Its my instinct to use quarter strength gh 3 part... about 100ppm. like the i grow chronic guy...

oh yeah the little rooty seed.... not sure if it was upside down planted or not thats the problem.... it does have hairs and a green tinge to it today. It was white up until today