Help, ALL my seedlings keep dying on me

Hi all,

First of all, thanks to the creators, moderators, as well as the great members of this site. It's been wonderful read. I had successfully grown 2 female plants in 2011, and it was a great experience.

Anyway, getting to my point, I want to ask for some advice on how to overcome this really annoying and frustrating problem I can't seem to get rid of since last year. So, in August 2011, I had 20 seeds that I ordered in 2011. 10 Autoflower strain, and 10 regular indoor/outdoor strain. Germinated 4 seeds from each strain no problem, planted, and reaped the reward within 2-4 months (I got 2 females from each strain, but due to limited grow space, only 1 female from each strain were grown to harvest). Very nice sinsemilla smoke, awesome taste and aroma (I got a lowmaster and crude oil, both from dutchbreed).

But then in early 2013, after careful storage of the remaining seeds (i placed them in airtight container along with some rice grains at nice constant cool fridge temperature), I wanted to relive the thrill. Most of the regular strain germinated fine within 2 days time (the autoflower seeds seemed to have died off, all didn't germinate). But that's all they did.. germinated and sprouted till about 2 inch in height, showing only the first pair of true leaves. Some only germinated, but won't even break through the soil level. The ones that do make it to 1 -2 inches stopped growing and then died either from wilting at mid-stem, or just turned yellow, withered and died.

Then I thought the problem is that the seeds are old. So I ordered new seeds early this year, but the same thing keeps happening again. I've tried all possible remedies for damping off/pythium/rhizoctonia, such as chamomile tea, garlic, cinnamon, h2o2, fungicide, but none has been helpful. I even tried growing them at 2 different indoor sites (in different houses). I'm in a tropical country with about 75 Fahrenheit average room temperature. My grow setup is the same as my last successful attempt, with CFLs and vermiculite / coco peat / perlite soil mix. But all the same. Here's a picture of my latest seedling. It's been the same size for 4 days now, same green color though, but I'm afraid and almost certain that in a few days time, it will follow the footsteps of its dead peers and simply fall off to its demise

Can anyone please shed some light on what else I should do? I'm down to my last 4 seeds (it's killer super blueberry, and I hear its a really nice strain)

Many thanks in advance.

Get some MG seed starter. It works great for seedlings and then you don't need to mess with nutes until she is established. I go into solo cups with about 30% added perlite.

My guess would be a problem with PH, over nute, or overwatering.

I agree, you should make sure the medium is properly drying out. I hope you are not using ANY Nutes until the first set of true fan leaves and a little after that as well. What is the pH of your water?

Yep, soil issue. Either too hot or too wet and rotting the root.

I just looked at the poc and I would say the droopy leaves indicate overwatering as well..how much have you watered them?

hi guys, thanks for all the input. i've been making sure not to overwater the soil, no nutes, and definitely pH within acceptable range (6.2 - 7.2). i even tried it in 100% perlite, 100% coco, 100% startup mix, 50-50 perlite/vermiculite, 50-50 perlite/startup soil, prior to this latest arrangement (right now it is 100% vermiculite). all to no avail... i wish there is a clear cut solution to this issue. maybe it's just global warming and there's no way to contain those destructive spores......
will update with pics periodically until it either take off or perish.....

sowing seeds too deeply, soil too wet and or over watering causes seeds to "dampen off".
i usually water the soil i'll be planting in and let it drain for a couple of days before sowing seeds. i sow seeds about 1/8" deep. GL

Soil or growing medium is most likely the cause of the issue, however, I am pretty consistant on germinating and sprouting seeds. But Every female/reg auto seed I have ever tried to grow either germinated didnt germinate or germinate didnt sprout or sprouted and then died. Sounds like the same problem I had. Some breaders are known for certain issues. Im dont want to kick anyones nuts but the only auto seed co I went with was short stuff. How to eliminate if its a soil or seed issue, try to get some bag seed and see what happens.

hey rolling1up, thats actually a good idea. i'll see if i can pop some bagseeds, most of them are too young and too fried to hatch though.

anyway, here's day 5 after emergence from soil.

Im goin thru the same with coco. My conclusion being the pots were just to big (1 gallons) for the seedlings. I went and bought small 4"x4" pots with fresh soil and will see if this does it. How big is the pot that your seedlings are in? How often did you water them? I watered the coco before sowing the seeds and a week later they were still pretty moist. No good.

Sir KK

hey sir KK,

i highly doubt the size of the pot has to do with the seedling stunting.

right now the seedling is in a plastic planting pot 3 inch diameter, 2.5 inch height. i've watered (actually just misted) a total of 3 times in 5 days, when the dried up vermiculite particles on the top layer moved when the pot shaken mildly.

but yeah, coco peat hold water for quite a bit. my first and success grow was with 100% coco peat during seedling stage. i remember watering that particular seedling very seldomly, about once a week, even then it was still pretty moist (top layer still damp to the touch) come watering time. i NEVER had problem with damping off/stunted growth back then, whatever my soil mix was, however damp my soil mix was.

there is a theory i read somewhere that some governments spray fungus spores all over the world to kill this species. i first thought the idea to be ridiculous. now i think there may be some truth in it.

Looks like too much vermiculite for CFL. If you were growing under high heat like a HID, vermiculite would make sense. But, under CFL I don't think I'd use any. (I've never grown in coco.).

If you're worried about burning through your good seeds, get some bagseed. You can get relatively inexpensive seeds from marijuana-seeds.nl. They have "value packs" and 2-for-1 sales. I think these are great for new growers because it reduces the stress of "wasting" expensive seeds.

Start them out in Root Riot blocks then put in medium. Solved.

thanks for the references, budman and az2000. root riot seems great, unfortunately none is available here. will search for its equivalent, though.

anyway, my seedling isnt dead just yet. its even growing new set of true leaves, although still very tiny. its not gaining height either. this setup may work this time, but looks like i'm getting a micro pheno.