Help - container plants and brown stems

[b54red]

Scott I'm not telling you to plant them shallower unless you are setting them out in the garden. I also like to pot up deeper so more roots form on the stem but you do have to be careful not to use too dense a potting soil that holds too much moisture too long. I think you could do yourself and your plants a lot of good by buying some of the larger DE like Optisorb at O'reilly's Auto and mixing in a good bit of it into your planting mix. It will help keep it lighter and allow better aeration and quicker drying out. You could also use some aged pine fines and that would help but they will hold more moisture longer in my experience. When potting up go ahead and wet your potting soil mix to the point of being moist but not wet and pot them up but don't water right after potting them up. Wait til they show some sign of drooping a bit before watering them and then only give them enough to perk them up for the first few days after potting up. Good luck.

Bill

[ScottinAtlanta]

Originally Posted by Cole_Robbie

Tobacco farmers call it "falling over disease." It happens to young transplants when the weather is cold and wet in the spring. The exact same thing happens to me when I use compost in my media, or even organic fertilizers. My seedlings get cold at night, and that's the problem. Organic ferts depends on aerobic bacteria to make them decompose. When the temperature falls, the soil microbe environment favors the anaerobic bacteria, like pythium, and then your compost/ferts start feeding the bad bacteria instead of the good ones.

This fits my data set - by which I mean that we have had colder evenings than usual. I think you have it.

Thanks to everyone - Bill's idea to try Optisorb is a good one as well.

I succeeded in saving my last Lime Green Salad from my last seed - this plant had a withered stem, which I sliced away, and the stem is now growing roots. I will save this plant!

[zeuspaul]

Originally Posted by Cole_Robbie

Tobacco farmers call it "falling over disease." It happens to young transplants when the weather is cold and wet in the spring. The exact same thing happens to me when I use compost in my media, or even organic fertilizers. My seedlings get cold at night, and that's the problem. Organic ferts depends on aerobic bacteria to make them decompose. When the temperature falls, the soil microbe environment favors the anaerobic bacteria, like pythium, and then your compost/ferts start feeding the bad bacteria instead of the good ones.

This sounds a lot like my situation and I get a lot of damping off. My seedlings are outside from day one except they are brought indoors at night when very young or when temps drop to low 40's.

My mixture includes compost and DE and old potting mix.

My second round of seedlings are not yet showing signs of damping off. I am using the same mixture but the temps are warmer. Both early and later plantings receive plenty of wind and sun. It does seem like the longer colder nights may be the cause of my damping off problems.

I usually plant them in hopes that the plant will overcome the damping off and often they do fine. Sometimes my plants get some kind of vascular disease ?(if I cut the main stem of a mature dying plant it is white inside). I wonder if the weak stem allows penetration of some kind of vascular disease?

[Cole_Robbie]

Any damage to the roots or stem can be an entry point for systemic pythium. I lose a few plants from the wind cracking the stems, and then the stems rotting off where the wind damaged them.

[carolyn137]

My results are different from what several of you have said about cold weather, etc.

All now,was done inside.

When the seeds first germinated Icould see areas where the wee ones just fell over, yes, damping off, nothing to do with cold or wet weather. Just areas where one or more of the three fungi that can cause damping off happened to be.

Sometimes I never saw the brown consticted area at the base of the stem until the plants were as tall as about 5-6 inches and still inside waiting to go outside for hardening off..That bothered me until I found that could be true from one of my tomato pathology monographs.

Once I switched to using ONLY artificial mix for seed sowing that all stopped most of the time. The issues of what some use as mix for containers is an issue as well as what's put in raised beds,all to say that if I transplanted out healthy seedlings to what's called soil,some call it dirt, I never lost a plant to damping off.

Carolyn

[b54red]

When I switched to using DE for all my seed starting it virtually eliminated damping off for me which was a major problem before that. The only exception would be if I left the trays bottom watering for a few days and they just stayed too wet for too long. I sometimes have one or two tomatoes or peppers damp off when I pot up into potting soil if my mix is too dense and if I over water them right after potting them up deep.

During the hotter months of the summer I have learned to never plant deeper than the original depth in the cups when setting them out into the garden. If I do I am frequently rewarded with bacterial wilt or damping off especially if the soil is very hot and damp.

Bill

[ScottinAtlanta]

Folks, to be clearer, the seedlings were perfectly fine in the cups. It was only when I planted them outside in the containers that they suffered. The variable cold idea fits well with the conditions they faced.