wtf am i doing wrong?

i am sure i am doing something wrong, but i'm not sure what. i can't seem to get seeds out of the seedling stage.. here's what i do



i put the seeds into room temp water overnight. we have well water and our well is 180' deep. out of the tap the pH is 6.5. i don't have a TDS meter (yet) so i have no clue what the EC/TDS is, but being untreated well water, i can't imagine it would have chlorine or other additives.

after about 18 hours, i skim the seeds that haven't sunk and toss them. i take the seeds that did sink and look for signs of germination. usually the shell is splitting by this point. i take these seeds and put them in a moist/wet washcloth and put the washcloth on a grow/heat mat.

while they are in the washcloth, i presoak rockwool cubes. once the taproot is exposed about an inch, i move the seed into the rockwool cubes and put them under a humidity dome on a heat mat. i usually see 1" of taproot within 2-3 days.

after a day or 2, my seeds will start to spout. they grow to about 6" pretty quickly, sprout their first set of true leaves and that's when everything comes apart.

if i leave them under the humidity dome, it seems to stunt their growth. the edges of the leaves curl over the top and start to wither. from what i read, this is caused by excessive moisture, even if though i have not yet added water since the presoak. after a week of no growth on my first batch, i pulled the rockwool cubes apart and found virtually no root system. the root had grown straight to the bottom of the cube in a single root with several minor and short roots off that. i never got any sort of wonderful root growth. the tips on several of the roots where they exited the bottom of the cubes looked black.

so, a couple questions here. how long should i leave them in the humidity dome? from what i've read, the entire seedling stage should take around than 2 weeks from germination until they are ready to transplant into the hydro system. again, from the massive amount of reading i have done, i am under the impression that the plants should be pretty well pot bound in the germination tray and should be around 9" tall... but i can't seem to get mine that far....

I say try getting those plastic cups and putting a few in potting soil and see if you have better luck.

"if i leave them under the humidity dome, it seems to stunt their growth. "

Other than that take them out of your humidity dome before you start seeing the problems and see how they do after that.

If the rockwool cubes are staying saturated with water all the time, that will cause problems, same as overwatering. Sounds like too much water to me.

Don't worry about the well water, you should be good, if you can drink it, it's good enough to grow with, unless you go hydro then the PH will be wrong.

i'm not sure how well transferring them from potting soil to expanded clay would go. seems like it would end up a muddy mess.

if i leave the humidity dome on the cubes will stay saturated.. if i take the dome off, they dry quickly. i screwed up the second batch of seeds because i took the dome off and the rockwool dried. i was under the impression that i shouldn't have to water the rockwool cubes after i pre-soaked them. it just seems like i'm overwatering them and they aren't developing a root system as a result. the second set that just died off were about 10 days out from planting, hadn't grown at all in 5 days, and i was able to pull the entire root system by pulling on the stalk of the dead/dying seedling.

i am certain i should be seeing more rapid root growth. it just seems like i'm killing the seeds by overwatering them, or not watering them enough.

a little more on the setup: they dome/tray is about 1' under a 200w fluorescent which is on an 18/6 cycle.

i do plan on going hydro, as i have the hydro garden already built. i set my res pH to 5.5 and check it daily. i am not actually feeding any plants with the res yet, just getting the practice in on maintaining the solution.

I wasn't talking about transferring them, I was meaning to start them from seed in the cup with the soil. Just let them do their thing without all the extra steps you are doing know. You may just change the way you grow. I just keep things as simple as possible. Get 2 plastic cups, drill holes in the bottom of one, fill it with soil and put the seed in. Water it and it grows until it needs transplanted. Just my way of doing things, not saying yours is wrong, just the way I do it. No humid-dome or anything like that. Put the cup under the light and in 3 - 7 days it's sprouted.

Other than that it sounds like overwatering to me, especially with the black roots.