epsom salt with seedlings?

Hey guys, was wondering if it was safe to put Epsom salt on seedlings. I have some dolomite lime powder in the soil that I just added, and I have no idea how long it will take before the calcium and magnesium in it become available.

I was thinking of adding some Epsom salt to help my seedlings; from what I've seen it appears to be phosphorus def./lockout from cold, but I had a handful of people say that my plants needed cal/mag (although only 1 isn't a seedling and I've been using tap water).

I've pH'd my water to about 5.5 (again, BC of the dol. lime) but I'm not sure how long it will take for the lime to start raising my pH. My soil pH reader isn't wprth a hill of beans, and I just don't trust it.

So should I add a little Epsom salt? If so, @ what concentration?

Based on the number of views but lack of responses, it doesn't look like anyone really knows. So, to give it a shot (and take this with a grain of salt ), I'd think the dolomite would cover you, depending on how bad/extreme your deficiency is. Pictures, of course, would help a TON! Anyway, you could always give it a go. Just put a couple of the pinkie-fingernail size chunks into a gallon of water (which shouldn't be too much to cause harm even if it doesn't do any good), let them melt some, then try it. Since no one here seems to know, share the results to enlighten the entire community!

Cheers and good luck!

Wait a second.....are you saying to do an EXPERIMENT?!?!?!

I have been thoroughly informed that, "that's a pretty poor way for me to learn" and that "my plants are just going to die" by setting up experiments like that. What was the other one? I think it was, "experiments won't help you learn, you'll just have to learn through trial and error".

...but anyways, so yeah I set up an experiment. Treated 4 of my sick plants. I have run out of controls, so I had to use plants that I had started pH'ing the water (putting some minus in it), which I should have been doing to all of them anyways. So I might not know if lockout was the problem or if the magnesium solved it, but that's Stoll less variables than if I used any of my other plants.

We'll see how it goes. I read to use a teaspoon per gallon, so I went with about half that, maybe a little less. I have realllly good soil drainage (like 60% perlite) so if it starts getting worse I should be able to flush pretty easily.

Hey just wondering. Why do you need it for your seedlings? Why cant you just soak for 12-24 hours in water and just plant it in your soil. The seedlings don't need anything special. Just soil and water. IMO i would never use that for my seedlings. My tap water and soil works fine.Hope it helps

doujadaze said:

Hey just wondering. Why do you need it for your seedlings? Why cant you just soak for 12-24 hours in water and just plant it in your soil. The seedlings don't need anything special. Just soil and water. IMO i would never use that for my seedlings. My tap water and soil works fine.Hope it helps

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You know, I've honestly been cramming so much information lately that I either forget or just completely pass up some of the most simple, obvious things.

I was having some problems and posted in another thread, I posted all of my pictures there (sorry for being lazy its really late). But I figured I either had nute burn or was locked out. I saw some pictures online that looked just like my plants (in their earlier stages of the crud) and it was a photo of phosphorus lockout due to cols temps and wet soil. I also had red stems (I know some just have them, but it can also be the result of a phosphorus def. Or from being locked out) and some seeds that were turning to mush in the soil, so obviously the roots were just getting too cold to stay healthy. I've had almost zero growth in a week, and have almost lost all of my plants BC of the problem. I bought some heating pads for under my trays, and saw my first growth in forever last night and today, buuuuuut its still not perfect BC the heating pads I bought have a damn automatic shut off function, so when I fall to sleep at night they kick off and stay off til the morning. In the morning I'm gonna try to cut out the control box and splice them so they stay on high and stay hot as long as they're plugged in and put them on timers (hopefully).

But while I had my pictures posted, a couple of people said it looked like magnesium deficiency, even though I didn't have the yellow spots with green veins. These pics are a little old but I'll post a couple.

Obviously these plants are younger, but it started happening to my older plants at the same time:

But I have had a little new growth, I'm hoping I can keep these roots warm and get back to them being healthy. I have new seedlings that survived the cold and I want this right before I lose them.

Most of my plants are bag seed and I could care less if they make it as long as I learn something from it so that I don't repeat the mistake. But 3 of my seedlings are my good strains I got from attitudes and I really want them to make it.

I used a epsom salt and water solution to hydrate my coir blocks that I put my seedlings in. It beneficial for seedling as long as you don't over do it

Sweeet thanks for letting me know man, I definitely don't think I went too crazy, but just to be sure I'm gonna water them a couple more times before I give it to them again. I heard plants can take quite a bit of mg, and that the sulfates were good for NPK uptake so as long as I don't let the pH get affected too much it should help.

I'm leaving my 3 good seeds alone, tho. The white widow is in the worst shape of my 3 'tude seeds ...I'm just so glad I waited to pop my blue dream, sour d, and og....