Pythium in worm castings and questions about using soil that may be infected?

So unfortunately I got damping off for the first time with some seedlings. One of them win really young fell over and had to pinch stem and I looked it up and found out that it was damping off. I have three of them that have done that now and I tried to save them the best I could and they are growing with the other ones but they will not hold them selves up well. This has been a few days now and they’re still looking good but stems are still weak.

One of them win really young fell over and had the pinched stem and I looked it up and found out that it was damping off. I have three of them and I have done that now and I tried to save them the best I could and they are growing with the other ones but they will not hold themselves up well. This has been a few days now and they’re still looking good but stems are still weak.

Unfortunately it looks like the pythium or whatever fungus is also attacking my other seedlings. Most of them are older now and they seem to be passed damping off but they have withered and twisted leaves like somethings wrong. I have use some hydrogen peroxide neem oil and cinnamon and I’m hoping I can fight it off long enough for the beneficial bacteria to do its work. I’m in survival mode right now and one of my other concerns is that the worm castings are used from my own worm been caused this problem and are now in my super soil mix waiting to be used in the next month. I have it cooking and I’m not comfortable with anything right now so I don’t know if this super soil will cause me problems or not.

I have some extreme gardening azos and mycorrhiza Which I plan on introducing next watering and maybe even a little bit today. I really want to fix the situation because I really can’t start over from where I’m at so it’s pretty much all or nothing

Damping off is usually from overwatering, sounds like you are messing with the seedlings too much.
Seeds dont need much for the first couple weeks...I always do a 24 hr soak in h2o then straight to pure promix after seeds have cracked. Some homemade organic soils are too rich for seedling stage, best to use a mild mix that is mostly just pure peatmoss or coco until the sprouts harden off some and become less vulnerable.

waterproof808 said:

Damping off is usually from overwatering, sounds like you are messing with the seedlings too much.
Seeds dont need much for the first couple weeks...I always do a 24 hr soak in h2o then straight to pure promix after seeds have cracked. Some homemade organic soils are too rich for seedling stage, best to use a mild mix that is mostly just pure peatmoss or coco until the sprouts harden off some and become less vulnerable.

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If I could just have use happy frog than I Def would have. I bought a bag of happy frog for the seedlings. I’ve read a lot about earth worm castings and how people sometimes will just start their seeds in earth worm castings. Everything I read about castings is always beneficial but I can’t think of where else the damping off would’ve come from and less it was a fungus that was in my worm castings. Either way it sucks bad and I tried cloning them so we’ll see what happens but I’m definitely never starting In anything but rock wool cube or Peat pellet

edit: I also didn’t do anything out of the ordinary and didn’t mess with them at all barely if any. I’m good about not overwatering and also my soil was nice and fluffy with plenty of air

Did you plant in straight earth worm castings? EWC by itself can be pretty wet and heavy and usually needs to be amended for better aeration. Most soil base mixes start with 1/3 EWC, 1/3 peat, 1/3 aeration.

waterproof808 said:

Did you plant in straight earth worm castings? EWC by itself can be pretty wet and heavy and usually needs to be amended for better aeration. Most soil base mixes start with 1/3 EWC, 1/3 peat, 1/3 aeration.

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No I only added two parts worm castings maybe three at the most. I’ve never had anything like this happen to me but I’ve never experimented with my own organic fertilizers.

it was just happy frog worm castings and perlite. The soil was super fluffy and drained great. I have plenty of Experience with watering seedlings and young plants.

I cloned every single plant because I dug up the dirt on them and they all had cankers or pinched stems. It sucks really bad because it sets me back and I may have to scrap my project all together

waterproof808 said:

Did you plant in straight earth worm castings? EWC by itself can be pretty wet and heavy and usually needs to be amended for better aeration. Most soil base mixes start with 1/3 EWC, 1/3 peat, 1/3 aeration.

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The main thing I’m worried about now is whether or not my other soil that’s cooking will affect it when I put big plants in it. Because it has the same earthworm casting so now I’m wondering if I infested all of my soil even for my adult plants with dangerous fungi

Maybe next time try adding a little peroxide to your seeds when you do your initial soak to help sterilize them.