Seed casings crisis

[GigaGrew]

Long story short, i have an auto northern lights that has germinated and rooted, but the shell casing is still firmly attached.

I have removed a seed case from another plant, but it only had 2 cm of tap root at the time and the operation killed the plant.

This one was planted on the same day as a wembley auto and the wembly has grown triple the size of the NL (practically overnight and since losing its seed case).

how long can i wait till its death or surgery.
is there any special way to get it off?

ive tried catching my nail in the crack in the hopes it will just fall off, but that thing is on there good and strong =/

 

[ledtron]

Drop a couple of drops of water on it to see if that softens it up. then get a pair of tweezers and gently try to pull it off. Don't force it, if it won't come off try again later. but you need to get it off soon or it will take too long to recover or it won't recover at all. good luck!

 

[nibec]

i myself have never had a casing cling onto my leaves. BUT, i would follow ledtron.

is it wrapped around both cotyledons? or is it just hanging off of one? if its just hanging off, i wouldnt suspect it to cause much issue, and i would just wait a bit.

otherwise, like led said, drop/mist a little water onto it, and gently give it a tug, dont use your fingers, if you are like me and clumsy, you'll probably end up ripping the whole leaf off.

 

[GigaGrew]

just thought i would follow up, nothing quite like being left in the dark as to the results.

this seed unfortunatly died. a subsequent seed had the same problem and i think i have rescued it.

the water on the casing was a good idea, but to be honest the water just rolled right off again, so i used a tiny bit of tissue to help keep water in contact with the shell.

this 2nd one almost died i could see it strting to blacken and rot so i forcibly removed to casing.
when i opened it the false leaves (is that what you call cotyledons?) where an ugly white and slighlty transparent and even with a ton of light they were just dying, but there was a miniscule center of green(the first true leaves) so i disected the false leaves and the real leaves are ever so slowly growing (diamiter of about 3mm now, lol)

for further updates on this surgical recovery see my 2nd grow journal =)