I’m having trouble germinating seeds.
I’ve attached a photo so hopefully someone might know what’s going on. The seed is a northern lights auto and was planted in a peat pellet that was expanded using tap water PH’d to 6.3, TDS of 100. Seed was not soaked before planting, then peat pellet was placed in jiffy humidity enclosure and put on a heat mat. Air temp in the dome sits around 33C @ 50%RH. Tent temp is around 20C @ 30%RH.
After about 5 days it looked like the photo. Tap root has curled around itself and gone down then back out of the pellet wall and green cotyledon leaves just breaking the surface.
It’s stayed looking like this for 4 days. Has it died?
After it just started to break surface I turned on my light (300w 120true LED) at max height available on a 18:6 schedule.
Does it look alive or dead? The root that breached the side wall hasn’t grown at all since first noticed either. Any clue what I’ve done wrong here? This is the second seed to have similar results.
Thanks
It doesn’t look dead, I would cover any exposed roots with tissue paper and/ or medium.
Bugger. Just tried that with tweezers. The root had completely folded back on itself almost immediately behind the cotyledons and when I tried to make the green point upward the stem snapped. Oh well it’s been like that for about 4-5 days with no change so I had little hope for it anyway.
Is there something I can do in the future to stop it from growing sideways? I think I planted it a bit shallow (roughly 5mm - just less than 1/4inch) and I didn’t pat it down after planting, just very lightly covered to shield from light. Thinking maybe the soil was too loose for the seed to correctly orient itself as it had no resistance above it so the root actually grew upward and pushed through, found light and made a u-turn but used all its energy doing that. The root itself was about 1.5 inches long if it were straight. It looked like the root stopped growing in length after day 5 though when it broke through the side wall of the pellet.
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Just make sure then u put it in the medium that u plant it with the tap root going straight down
suggest you soak in water for 24 hours…then place in moist paper towel.
Check every 8 hours or so…once tap root has grown 1/4" + put in clear plastic cup with soil with tap root going down. Place head just at ground level.
Once roots are crawling all over the inside of the cup…place in final home. Best if 5 gallons.
The failed seed started sideways and did all it could to grow right. Frustrating, but, growing IS a learning curve.
Good luck…
The starter plug looks kinda dry to me. They should be just barely not dripping when the seed goes into them, so they stay moist. It looks like it hasn’t even completely expanded maybe.
