Serious Germination Issue

Hey everyone,

I really need some help. I'm having a serious problem germinating lately.

Technically the seedlings germinate fine,. They pop out of the Coco, through their shell and the set of round leaves and the first set of true leaves look 100% healthy. Then all of a sudden at day 3 the stem is weakened about half way up )looks like they were pinched) and they fall over. It is almost impossible to brng them back to life, even after proping them up with excess Coco. I have them under floros with a small 4inch fan blowing fresh air in(not directly on the plants, so its not the fan blowing them over, in fact i was thinking maybe i dont have enough air on em and they got too weak?). I am doing everything the same as I used to with a few exceptions. I presoak in room temp water for 12 hours, place in moist room temp paper towel until tap root shows, then I plant about 1/2 inch deep in Coco Coir that has been rinsed with ph 6.0 room temp water, in 5 inch cups. The only thing different is I am using Coco, and ph adjusting my water. Previous attempts I did not have this issue and was using potting soil with non-ph'd water (its at about 7.5-8.0 ph before adjusting)

My thoughts are:
1) Maybe not enough wind? Although ive never used a fan until about day 7 in previous attempts and they were fine.
2) Maybe they need more alkaline water to start? Maybe too acidic at 6.0?
3)Its the coco. I'm not sure why, but possibly over or under-watering.
4)Ive been seeing little gnats, sort of like fruit flies, could they be damaging my seedlings?
5)Is back-filling soil to help with the initial seedling stretch a bad idea? It seems to be right above the level that i back-filled to that it is becoming weak at.

Please any thoughts or advice, ive lost a kushberry and a gws already
Ill try to get a pic or 2 up, my Mom has the camera atm though.

Kill the gnats thats for sure. No pest strips. You could be over watering. I also am sure your not nuteing them?

if your lights arent close enough they could be stretching

i had this same exact thing happen only with aok cubes, like rockwool. i sat and watched. i figured out that the cube was not retaining water for as long as the soiless mix im used to growing in does. so id water the top and the bottom would never get any. then a day later the thing would flop over. then i pulled out my cube and realized it was practically bone dry the bottom 2 3rds down. i watered the hell out of it and a few hours later it was pointing to the sky again. just misting the tops like soil was my problem. i actually soak that bitch 2 times a day now, 3 sometimes. theres no other reason i could think of. if it was nutes then youd have yellowing and necrosis of the leafs......ph wouldnt do it either. has to be water reatining properties of the cococoir shit

jordisgarden said:

i had this same exact thing happen only with aok cubes, like rockwool. i sat and watched. i figured out that the cube was not retaining water for as long as the soiless mix im used to growing in does. so id water the top and the bottom would never get any. then a day later the thing would flop over. then i pulled out my cube and realized it was practically bone dry the bottom 2 3rds down. i watered the hell out of it and a few hours later it was pointing to the sky again. just misting the tops like soil was my problem. i actually soak that bitch 2 times a day now, 3 sometimes. theres no other reason i could think of. if it was nutes then youd have yellowing and necrosis of the leafs......ph wouldnt do it either. has to be water reatining properties of the cococoir shit

Click to expand...

thanks guys for the replies, ive been in panic mode since I got home to see half of em flopped over lol.

I think you are right, the problem is the coco medium. For one I think I am under-nuting the coco when I prepare it, and also like you say the bottom is drying out too quickly, and ive been misting the tops cuz im used to soil. BAH im an idiot. The batch before this, which was my first shot at coco, showed deficiencies early. I think I am about to see the same thing with this batch unfortunately. Also, about 4 days ago I started a second kushberry just in case, and now Im glad I mixed half potting soil and half coco, and used the same nutes as the first coco batch for that second kb. So I figure with the extra nutes in the soil and the extra water retention, that one kb should turn out like my first few grows that miraculously made it to flower before any health problems whatsoever. Now that i have some experience I am having issues lol. Oh well as long as im able to figure them out i shouldnt have the same problem again, i enjoy gaining more experience too.

Long story short I think from now on I will start em in my potting soil mix and then switch to coco when I transplant. I really recommend anyone thinking of trying coco does the same. In small containers the shit is mighty hard to control moisture wise if you are hand watering and arent home half the day. I stuck my white rhino which was in a 3gal in soil into a 5gal with coco and the roots exploded, so it is very effective in larger containers.

Hopefully I can recover this batch, if not I do have more seeds of the same strains here, so im not completely SOL.

Ill post in a few days to let you know if any survived the recovery of my horrific coco experiment gone wrong.

you say that the stem weakens, like it had been pinched,

where it weakens is it a lot thiner at that point, almost to the point where it looks dead at that part.

if so it could be damping off

speedyseedz said:

you say that the stem weakens, like it had been pinched,

where it weakens is it a lot thiner at that point, almost to the point where it looks dead at that part.

if so it could be damping off

Click to expand...

hrmm I just read up a bit on that, and it does sound like that could be the problem since I had been misting them a fair bit, and backfilled a half inch of soil to counter any stretch. I will try putting the fan on them earlier next time to see if that helps and ill get them closer to the lights so I dont have to backfill any soil. I hadnt really noticed but thinking back I had my floros like 2 inches from the tops of my first few grows, and didnt have this issue. This grow they were about 4-5" away.

Sigh, doesnt look good for this batch. We'll know in a day or 2 if they are going to recover. If not, at least I know all the things I foxed up on this time.

Thx again for the replies.