Seeds Keep Dying Please Help!

[GonnaGrow]

I've never had a problem germinating seeds. I usually use the paper towel method, glass of water, ect. Lately I've been putting the new seeds straight into rockwool cubes, near the opening with a little piece of rockwool covering the seed. That was working great, because I've been doing so many new strains that its a lot more tedious doing the paper towel or glass of water method because I have to keep them all separate. But in the past month a lot of my good genetics have been cracking open then immediately dying. Nothing's different. temp stays about 80 deg./ 80% hum. in the propigator. Some of my seeds are up to two months old but I have been keeping them in a cool dark dry place. Any input is appreciated I've already killed $300 in seeds.

P.s.- I've been running a lot of Bodhi seeds, Dinafem Blue Dream, Sour chiesel, and more.

Here's a close-up of a seed that cracked open and then died.

Sometimes they dont crack open at all. I usually get a few bunk seeds in a pack.

 

[Radogast]

How is your water PH?

Wouldn't your seeds do better at least 1/2 inch deep in the rockwool?

 

[Weaselcracker]

Any possibility of root rot/pythium having taken hold of things? Your rockwool looks kind of raggedy like you've been re-using it. I'm not any kind of expert on this subject but at one point I got down to close to zero survival rate on my clone cuttings, after years of near 100% success, and it wasn't until I started using beneficial bacteria and fungi that things went back to normal.

 

[GonnaGrow]

Any possibility of root rot/pythium having taken hold of things? Your rockwool looks kind of raggedy like you've been re-using it. I'm not any kind of expert on this subject but at one point I got down to close to zero survival rate on my clone cuttings, after years of near 100% success, and it wasn't until I started using beneficial bacteria and fungi that things went back to normal.

PH is 6.4 & I put the seeds in the cubes pre-made hole, pointy end down. The seeds in the last pic were ones that didnt make it, just laying on top. They are new cubes, but I've been leaving my x2 2'/4 bulb on 24/7 so some are getting a little green. I run compost tea/ sugars but dont usually mix it in with my seedling h2o, but I can try.

PS.
Purple Shit?!?!?!
Its not Clone-x or anything......

 

[Bapple]

Hello GG!

On the glass of water and too many strains issue; this grow I am yet to definitely identify one of my girls cos I threw all 3 of my first seeds in the same glass of water.

However, recently I was in a haberdashers looking for something totally unrelated when I spotted a Perspex type box with different types of beads and sequins in it. Did not need sequins or beads but paid the £20 cos the little box has 16 different compartments and is perfect for soaking my seeds and I will never have the problem of identifying my strains again. I am sure craft shops and haberdashers your neck of the woods will also carry something similar.

Sorry I can't help with your germination issue, so many things could be at play. I germinate in glasses of water and then pop them into root riots which are already sunken into substrate. Last year when I first started I also wasted hundreds of ££'s on failed seeds, but I am a relative newb and it sounds like you are an old hand at this.

If what you have been doing successfully up till now has suddenly stopped working, I would heed Weaselcrackers suggestion and if nothing else, have a super clean out of all your germination area and equipment and throw out old rock wool and start again.

Good luck

 

[Auggie]

Any possibility of root rot/pythium having taken hold of things? Your rockwool looks kind of raggedy like you've been re-using it. I'm not any kind of expert on this subject but at one point I got down to close to zero survival rate on my clone cuttings, after years of near 100% success, and it wasn't until I started using beneficial bacteria and fungi that things went back to normal.

Always interested in learning more about cloning ... what do you mean "using beneficial bacteria and fungi".
What do you use? and how do you use it?
Do tell ...

~ Auggie ~

 

[GonnaGrow]

Always interested in learning more about cloning ... what do you mean "using beneficial bacteria and fungi".
What do you use? and how do you use it?
Do tell ...

~ Auggie ~

So a user with good rep has this to say about using compost tea on mmj seedlings:


Medijuana
Active Farmer:
"Compost tea can be used from the start, as long as you haven't added any nutes to the compost that hasn't had a chance to rest. I've never used this trick on MMJ beans, but I always use a half compost tea, half distilled water solution to germinate veggie seeds for my garden. I get close to a 100% germination rate when i do this. Compost tea is magic stuff.

If you find that you aren't enjoying yourself dealing with all those nutes, you should consider SubCool's supersoil mix next time around. It does take some planning, as the mix has to rest for at least a month, but not having to stress about nutes for your entire grow does reduce the stress factor, especially for a newbie.

Medijuana, Apr 1, 2012"


Since that's been covered, Here are a few pic's of my little tea brewer I rigged up. Didn't cost me much for materials & the tea itself is dirt cheap. (Get it?)

Material's List:
Hefty 16 gallon tub.(I think) from Lowes= $8.00
EcoPlus Eco 396 Submersible Pump 396 GPH from grow shop= $24.00
3/4" ID clear tubing & plastic "T" fitting from lowes= $4.00
x2-Black hole drippers off ebay= $8.00
"Terra Tea" Compost tea + Kelp/pot ash + Organic Molasses from grow shop= $10.00
EcoPlus Eco 396 Submersible Pump 396 GPH + airstone from grow shop = $12.00


To make the tea I use:
1 tsp Terra Tea/5Gallon h2o
.5-1.0 tsp kelp/pot ash/5 Gallon H20
1 tsp Organic Molasses/ PER gallon H20

Mix everything together and let aerate for 36-48 hrs. before use. Also make sure to use de-chlorinated H20 because the chlorine will kill all your beneficial bacteria/fungi. This is why you always de-chlorinate even if your not using compost tea. Once its ready you can mix it into your water when you feed, or use it as a foliar spray. It can be used to flush, or as a supplement in between feedings. For seedlings I'm diluting it 5-1 with h20 then adding a little rapid root and liquid Karma. Adjust PH and your gtg.

Hope this helps!
-Gonna Grow

 

[GonnaGrow]

Hello GG!


However, recently I was in a haberdashers looking for something totally unrelated when I spotted a Perspex type box with different types of beads and sequins in it. Did not need sequins or beads but paid the £20 cos the little box has 16 different compartments and is perfect for soaking my seeds and I will never have the problem of identifying my strains again. I am sure craft shops and haberdashers your neck of the woods will also carry something similar.


Good luck

Bapple,
You sir are a genius. I will snatch up one of those boxes asap. I don't know what the hell Haberdashers is, but I assume its a craft store. We've go Hobby Lobby round these parts. They have all kinds of those boxes fo; cheap. Plus every visit you can get 40% OFF on your most expensive item.

Also, I'm defin. a newb. I just started within the last year also. I'm on my 5th grow cycle, but now Im perpetual so I don't know how that's gonna work out. I guess each time i put a group of plants into flower that counts as a cycle. Since I'm putting two plants in, every two week's I guess I'm on my 8th cycle now. Here's a few pic's of what's goin on in my flower room.

You can prob. tell I love the Bodhi strains.

 

[Weaselcracker]

Always interested in learning more about cloning ... what do you mean "using beneficial bacteria and fungi".
What do you use? and how do you use it?
Do tell ...

~ Auggie ~

Hi Auggie. (GG, whoever)

I'll type out a bunch of blather here, at the risk of straining my typing finger, and in some cases my knowledge, but hopefully this covers the basics.

I think my situation came about through neglect of my mother plants. At the time I was away a lot and my grow was on life support, and I was ignorant/ got careless. I was away every week from between 4 and 7 days and always in a rush. I had a couple mothers going and a few vegging plants and I kept watering the crap out of them every time I was there. It was after this period that cloning became nearly impossible. I would put cuttings in rockwool and three/ four weeks later had no roots and deteriorating cuttings. When I made an aeroponic cloner it allowed me to see the stems better and how they were slowly getting slimy and rotting at the ends. I had my temps and my ph perfect. I'd never had cloning conditions nearly so perfect in the past and I'd been getting near 100% success for years.
So this lead me to believe that my plants had root rot and I started to try and figure out how to deal with it. Looking at the roots of my mothers and vegging plants I could see that they were brown and shitty looking (literally). I'd definitely created great conditions for root rot by overwatering and neglect. I don't have any way to know for sure that this was what was going on but it seemed a fair guess. I'm making long story short here, because actually I went on blindly trying to clone for months, and convincing myself of all sort of reasons why it wasn't working. And yes I tried peroxide, I tried buying new equipment. I took some batches of cuttings to a friends place to clone there. I tried all sorts of stuff. I got about 4 or 5 clones going over a period of at least six months. Luckily I've got lots of bag seed and I grew that instead.

Here is a definition of root rot -

"Root rot" is a common waterborne disease that can seriously affect indoor and outdoor crops year round. "Pythium" is a generic term for several different root rot and stem rot fungus species (including Pythium, Verticillium, and Phytophthora, and Fusarium). Root rot is also known as "damping-off" in seeds, seedlings and clones.

Pythium can rapidly infect crops in vegetative and flowering stages. Damage includes strain infection, reduced yields, and crop failure. Pythium is particularly damaging in high-density dwc / hydroponic / aeroponic systems, as these recirculating systems provide ideal conditions for rapid growth and spread of pythium spores. One infected plant can quickly spread rot to all plants if the system has an interconected irrigation system."

I copied that from this article - How do I identify and prevent Root Rot?

It was this great article from the Cap'n that pointed me in the direction of beneficials.
Live or Sterile? Why I choose Live

I'm not sure exactly how beneficial bacteria and fungi combat root rot. If I start trying to write about this stuff as if I'm very knowledgable, things are going to get difficult for me. It's a huge area of reading.
There are also just so many different bacteria and fungi which normally live with the plants. They do a lot of amazing, helpful and essential services. Because they're pretty much invisible, we tend to ignore them, but in nature things tend to be much more interconnected and complicated than is convenient for us to admit.
A venerable professor of mycology once told me something like-
"Most people have it backwards. Without the mushrooms in the forest the trees wouldn't exist. I look at the trees in the forest as being secondary. The trees are growing out of the mushrooms. The fungi was there first."

Beneficial fungi. Mainly consists of mycorrhizal fungi, as well as members of the Trichoderma family, to my knowledge.
Mycorrhizal fungi is a description of fungi which live in a symbiotic relationship with plant roots. The fungi feed from the roots while helping the plant in various ways. It's easier to understand, and pronounce, the word if you think of it's roots- 'myco' meaning fungi, and 'rhiza' meaning root. The Myco part seems obvious and Rhizae is pronounced either 'rye - zye' , or 'rye -zee'. Your choice.
Beneficial bacteria. There are huge number of bacteria, symbiotic and non, which a plant needs in order to function. They do everything from fixing nitrogen to killing harmful bacteria and fungi. A gram of soil contains over 10,000 bacterial species.

My first bennies were contained in a couple cans of GH Subculture. Subculture M is fungi, Sub B is bacteria. I mix this with my soil or peat moss/soilless mix before I plant into it, in the hopes of establishing a colony of beneficial fungi in my root system.


Establishment of a living colony aside, many growers apply bennies weekly as a root drench tea. I assume this allows the bennies to do their good work before they die, even though they can't grow a colony, in the form of a mycelium.

My plants look so happy and vibrant since I started giving them bennie tea every once in a while.
Also- I should mention of course, my cloning issues vanished.

Probably the original, most common, and cheapest form of bennies is obtained by brewing 'tea'. Compost or earth worm castings is the innoculant used to breed large amounts of bennies, using aerated water, and molasses and kelp or fish fertilizer as food for the bennies. The idea being to provide conditions right for brewing a large army of bennies, which will then be flooded into your root zone to do what they do best. The bennie tea, at least in 420 circles, became known as Heisenberg tea after a fellow of that name from another forum who did a ton of brilliant work. There are many recipes for the tea but they basically include - sources of beneficial bacteria and fungi, food for the bennies in the form of mollases, fish meal or kelp- and the mix is brewed for 24-48 hours in a bucket of water and a bubbler.

Some commercial bennies I have are:
-Botanicare Hydroguard ( bacteria),
-Botanicare ZHO - Trichoderma and Mycorrhizal fungi.
- GH Subculture M and Subculture B ( beneficial fungi and bacteria, respectively)

Others I've heard good things about are Recharge and Great White. There are many dozens of bennie products out there now.


Brewing your own benny tea


Beneficial microbes -why to use them, how to breed them


GreenthumbJ was one of the Cap'ns followers. In the beginning of his last journal he talked a bunch about his use of Subculture and teas and root drenches.


GreenThumb J's Perpetual Multi-Strain Journal!

GreenThumb J's Modified Heisenberg Tea

 

[Bapple]

Good looking grow GG

 

[Weaselcracker]

So a user with good rep has this to say about using compost tea on mmj seedlings:

As for that- I think a lot of people don't know about tea and beneficials. It's new stuff for me anyway. But a lot of stuff is new to me because I live like a caveman. Just happy to have cool new things to learn.

 

[uptheholler2]

I guess I'm just either lucky or I germinate so stinking many seeds a year that it just becomes a blur. I germinate on a year between 50000 and 75000 total plants. Mainly tomatoes, cucurbits and peppers but also eggplant and of course weed. Just some important general guidelines.

- From the minute your introduce water to the seed.....your baby watch begins.

- Before you begin sterilize. I disinfect my bench tops in the greenhouse as well as all of my flats. Also it's a good idea to monitor low and high temps during a day in your germination area. Make certain that the range is appropriate for the crop you are germinating. A high low thermometer is the way to go on this.

-By far the most common problem in consistant germination is maintaining the proper moisture level in the germination zone. Not too wet ...not too dry.

I am critical when it comes to Marijuana seed companies and their germination rates. I would never accept germination rates of 60 -80 % in any of my seed sources. This however is common in the pot seed industry

If anyone can head me in the right direction I have a germination, grow and smoke report on my summer auto grow so far. This should be of interest to our sponsor Auto Seeds as I chose 6 varieties of their offerings, as well as a report on some of the free seeds that I received. I just can't figure where to post it! I know..... I know...... I am the old guy in Walmarts parking lot looking for his car! My Bride always gives me trouble. I can climb the ridges and wander and stay out for a couple of days at a time and still figure out how to find my way home. Walk out of the Walmart that I just walked into 20 minutes ago and I look like that I have walked out into a strange new world!! Now I know I HAD a truck!

 

[Radogast]

I guess I'm just either lucky or I germinate so stinking many seeds a year that it just becomes a blur. I germinate on a year between 50000 and 75000 total plants. Mainly tomatoes, cucurbits and peppers but also eggplant and of course weed. Just some important general guidelines.

- From the minute your introduce water to the seed.....your baby watch begins.

- Before you begin sterilize. I disinfect my bench tops in the greenhouse as well as all of my flats. Also it's a good idea to monitor low and high temps during a day in your germination area. Make certain that the range is appropriate for the crop you are germinating. A high low thermometer is the way to go on this.

-By far the most common problem in consistant germination is maintaining the proper moisture level in the germination zone. Not too wet ...not too dry.

I am critical when it comes to Marijuana seed companies and their germination rates. I would never accept germination rates of 60 -80 % in any of my seed sources. This however is common in the pot seed industry

If anyone can head me in the right direction I have a germination, grow and smoke report on my summer auto grow so far. This should be of interest to our sponsor Auto Seeds as I chose 6 varieties of their offerings, as well as a report on some of the free seeds that I received. I just can't figure where to post it! I know..... I know...... I am the old guy in Walmarts parking lot looking for his car! My Bride always gives me trouble. I can climb the ridges and wander and stay out for a couple of days at a time and still figure out how to find my way home. Walk out of the Walmart that I just walked into 20 minutes ago and I look like that I have walked out into a strange new world!! Now I know I HAD a truck!

I'd say create a new thread in Seeds, Clones & Strains

Title it something like UpThe Holler's Critica Kush Auto - Seed, Grow and Smoke Report

Then link it in your signature

 

[uptheholler2]

Thanks Radogast! I started my blog so I will try to figure it out.