I have a question for some of you smarter than me blades out there... I had 6 Feminized seeds planted for my next grow... all six popped (using peat pots). Once these babes got their first set of leaves, I planted into small cups and placed them under my baby lights (which is a homemade hood with 6 23w CFLs). Everything was looking fine (temps about 78-82), lights were about a foot/foot and a half away, etc... THe strangest thing happened, which has never happend to me before... 3 of my lovely babes withered up and died on me and one (that was almost a goner) I was able to nurse back to health (and is looking fine now). The one I nursed back to health required me to cut the lighting in half (down to 3 of my lights), and from then on it took off. My question is are some strains/genetics more sensitive to light in the early stages than others? Ive never grown more than 1 or 2 strians (and generally those are from clones) so the loss of a few was a bit disturbing to me... Any insight would be quite helpful to store in my personal knowledge bank.
I've never heard of too much light. Too much heat yes, but too light...no. Must be something else. Your temperature sounds good,so that leaves us with food/water. Are u giving them nutes yet ?
I usually don't nute until they've gotten at least their 4th set of leaves and that's just a mild dose of earth juice grow...
Did the stem look pinched? And then they keeled over? If so, damping off killed them! Easy fix for damping off- microwave your damp potting soil until it steams! This will kill the fungus spores that cause damping off. This is smelly to do, so you may want to take the microwave outdoors to do the nuking. be sure your soil is all the way cooled down before adding your sprouts. Granny
@Storm Crow: YES!! That is exactly what happened... I researched "damping off" and now I know how to combat this next time I grow from seed (which should be some peppers I have waiting for the spring)... Thank you so much for that! Still make me sad I lost my G13 Labs White Widow... oh well, still have a few good genetics to pick mothers from... Cheers to you all.
mold is the biggest threat to seedlings. my friend lost a few to "damping" and its quiet common death for seedlings unfortunately. good air flow is probably the culprit. make sure your seedlings get plenty of air moving around them, this will naturally control fungi in your soil. just remember, stagnant air leads to plant stagnation.