Seedling taking forever to grow & has weird looking first true leaves. What is the cause?

Hi everyone, just wondering if anyone has any answers to why this Kandy Kush CBD photoperiod seedling just isn't growing and what it has grown looks all wonky, one weird big true leaf then two smaller twisted looking true leaves. The cotyledons don't look too crash hot either. It's on day 15, shouldn't it be at least a bit more established by now? The first one I did of this strain didn't grow past cotyledon stage, literally wouldn't grow no matter what I did, second one didn't germinate at all and this is the third try of it. Could this be because I kept the seeds for too long before germinating? I've had them in storage for a good few months in their original package in a wooden box inside a draw which I did with my last seeds and they still worked. It's in Coco perlite Ugrow, under mars hydro led light 100w. Temp is nice and warm but humidity has been going up and down between 45% & 65% it's been hard to keep it consistent with the humidifier because the humidity is low as here right now. I have started the full Bio Diesel nutrients seedling regiment about 3 days ago, following the company's chart. If anyone can shed any light on what could be happening would be much appreciated, thanks very much

Not sure what their chart calls for, but I personally feed 100-200ppm in seedling stage until it has a couple good regular leaves. That's usually 7-14 days. Then I bump up to 400ppm or so until they tell me they need more. How often are you feeding them? How much?

I hope I'm wrong, looks like it's "damping off"

TCH said:

Not sure what their chart calls for, but I personally feed 100-200ppm in seedling stage until it has a couple good regular leaves. That's usually 7-14 days. Then I bump up to 400ppm or so until they tell me they need more. How often are you feeding them? How much?

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It's in Coco so feeding once a day when it starts to look like it's drying a bit, feeding at 100ppm. Could it be a pH issue because I just re tested my nute solution & it's jumped from pH 6 to pH 6.7, I only made it up 4 days ago now, it's too hard to make up small amounts every day with measuring tiny amounts of nutrients already so I made up 2 litres days ago and the pH changed dramatically, have no idea why but maybe that's it. I just flushed the medium at 5.8 to get it back down. I'll check the pH everyday from now on but that solution has only been used for a few days and I've had this problem for weeks now. Thanks very much for helping me out with this, I just can't figure out what's wrong. I'm germinating two Harlequins now, did the pre soak with a few drops of hydrogen peroxide 3% for 30 hours now as of last night they are in the paper towel in a sandwich bag that's open inside my clone dome on-top of a heat mat for when the temp drops under 20 but no sign of tap roots yet but I'll give it 72 hours before putting them in the medium, hopefully I get some tap roots by then.

Hugo Phurst said:

I hope I'm wrong, looks like it's "damping off"

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I hope not, can damping off happen in Coco?

BibbyMcBuds said:

I hope not, can damping off happen in Coco?

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Yes, can occur in any growing medium as far as I understand

BibbyMcBuds said:

It's in Coco so feeding once a day when it starts to look like it's drying a bit, feeding at 100ppm. Could it be a pH issue because I just re tested my nute solution & it's jumped from pH 6 to pH 6.7, I only made it up 4 days ago now, it's too hard to make up small amounts every day with measuring tiny amounts of nutrients already so I made up 2 litres days ago and the pH changed dramatically, have no idea why but maybe that's it. I just flushed the medium at 5.8 to get it back down. I'll check the pH everyday from now on but that solution has only been used for a few days and I've had this problem for weeks now. Thanks very much for helping me out with this, I just can't figure out what's wrong. I'm germinating two Harlequins now, did the pre soak with a few drops of hydrogen peroxide 3% for 30 hours now as of last night they are in the paper towel in a sandwich bag that's open inside my clone dome on-top of a heat mat for when the temp drops under 20 but no sign of tap roots yet but I'll give it 72 hours before putting them in the medium, hopefully I get some tap roots by then.

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It could definitely be the pH, but it could also be a bunk seed. When mine are seedlings, I don't really feed until runoff. I just keep the coco dampened with feed until the plant starts taking off. I feel like while it is static above ground, it is sending the roots out looking for feed. So I dont overwhelm it with solution. Just enough to maintain dampness and not dry back. Once it starts growing up and out, I start feeding til minimal runoff. What you may try doing is when you mix up your nutes, mix them the day before you need them and drop the pH to 5.6 and see what it drifts to overnight. If it's still under 6.0, use it. If it has creeper over 6.0, add a bit more pH down and see if it settles down.

Hugo Phurst said:

Yes, can occur in any growing medium as far as I understand

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Hmm that sucks. The roots are healthy white, could it still be damping off with healthy roots do you think? It does look like it's damping off, possible that the Coco I used was contaminated

TCH said:

It could definitely be the pH, but it could also be a bunk seed. When mine are seedlings, I don't really feed until runoff. I just keep the coco dampened with feed until the plant starts taking off. I feel like while it is static above ground, it is sending the roots out looking for feed. So I dont overwhelm it with solution. Just enough to maintain dampness and not dry back. Once it starts growing up and out, I start feeding til minimal runoff. What you may try doing is when you mix up your nutes, mix them the day before you need them and drop the pH to 5.6 and see what it drifts to overnight. If it's still under 6.0, use it. If it has creeper over 6.0, add a bit more pH down and see if it settles down.

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Could totally be a bad seed. I'll stop feeding till runoff. That's a great idea, will be interesting to see how far it jumps up overnight, hopefully it lands perfect. I think also my pH pen might need to be re calibrated so I'll do that too and see if my pen is off as well. I'm also having trouble germinating when I usually don't have trouble at all, does the pH water at the paper towel stage have to be spot on? Because I know that the paper towel itself changes the pH so I'm thinking it wouldn't really make sense that the pH at that stage would have to be perfect but I don't know. I can't figure out why I'm having so much trouble. Thankyou very much for all your advice, much appreciated

BibbyMcBuds said:

Could totally be a bad seed. I'll stop feeding till runoff. That's a great idea, will be interesting to see how far it jumps up overnight, hopefully it lands perfect. I think also my pH pen might need to be re calibrated so I'll do that too and see if my pen is off as well. I'm also having trouble germinating when I usually don't have trouble at all, does the pH water at the paper towel stage have to be spot on? Because I know that the paper towel itself changes the pH so I'm thinking it wouldn't really make sense that the pH at that stage would have to be perfect but I don't know. I can't figure out why I'm having so much trouble. Thankyou very much for all your advice, much appreciated

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Save yourself a lot of headaches and stress and pop the beans directly into your media in the future.

TCH said:

Save yourself a lot of headaches and stress and pop the beans directly into your media in the future.

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Yeah that might be the way to go, I'll definitely give that a go in future if these two I have in paper towel don't work. If after the 72 hours they haven't popped I'll chuck them straight into the Coco and see what happens. Have never had this much trouble it's weird. Thanks very much for all your help

They look too wet for seedlings which can cause the yellowing and poor health. Do those containers have drain holes? IME, water seedlings with a shot glass or even a dropper or sprayer for a couple / few days until they get established a bit.

SheeshM said:

They look too wet for seedlings which can cause the yellowing and poor health. Do those containers have drain holes? IME, water seedlings with a shot glass or even a dropper or sprayer for a couple / few days until they get established a bit.

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Yeah they are little peat pots with a hole in the bottom, the water just drains right out. I always thought you couldn't over water in Coco but now I'm thinking that's only true with an established plant. I'm using a 10ml syringe. I'm only going to make the Coco a little wet now instead of till drain off. Maybe I should be using jiffy pellets? I'm still having trouble germinating the other two seeds, they just won't pop. It's been like over a week for one and still nothing. Should I try scarification?

BibbyMcBuds said:

Yeah they are little peat pots with a hole in the bottom, the water just drains right out. I always thought you couldn't over water in Coco but now I'm thinking that's only true with an established plant. I'm using a 10ml syringe. I'm only going to make the Coco a little wet now instead of till drain off. Maybe I should be using jiffy pellets? I'm still having trouble germinating the other two seeds, they just won't pop. It's been like over a week for one and still nothing. Should I try scarification?

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Which of the Ugro coco structures are you using? If your coco contains a lot of coco peat (coco dust), it compacts the coco and can suffocate young roots. In that case, you would want to water with a dryback protocol as you would in soil. After a couple of weeks, you'll be able to fertigate multiple times daily.

Target the pH to be in the 6.0-6.2 range, around 200 PPM (500 scale). Make sure you calibrate your pen every couple of weeks. Bring the pH down to the high 5's for mid and late veg.

ec121 said:

Which of the Ugro coco structures are you using? If your coco contains a lot of coco peat (coco dust), it compacts the coco and can suffocate young roots. In that case, you would want to water with a dryback protocol as you would in soil. After a couple of weeks, you'll be able to fertigate multiple times daily.

Target the pH to be in the 6.0-6.2 range, around 200 PPM (500 scale). Make sure you calibrate your pen every couple of weeks. Bring the pH down to the high 5's for mid and late veg.

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My last grow went fantastic with the Ugro max air but this time I was short on cash so I got the Ugro Air which doesn't have the perlite mixed in so I put my own perlite in for extra drainage, is it possible the perlite is contaminated because I stupidly left it in my green house outside with it taped shut in a bag so maybe it got fungus or something but the roots on the plant are white and healthy. The bag says it has a low percentage of coir fibres, not sure how low though. I'm watering much less now so hopefully it comes good. If I get another to pop finally which I'm having heaps of trouble with im thinking of going without perlite maybe? I'm actually buying a new pH pen tomorrow, the bluelab pH pen & I'm going to get the care kit which has all of the calibrating stuff in it & I'll get the guys at the shop to calibrate it which they didn't do last time. I didn't know that was a big thing when I got the AZ one I have now, it's super slow, it has no indicator of when it's finished reading and it's never been calibrated so that's probs why. I'll calibrate the new one every few weeks like you say & keep on top of the pH. Thanks heaps for all your advice, really appreciate you taking the time to help me out. I have a harlequin in the hydro peroxide 15ml in 80ml of spring water soaking for 24 hours this time, maybe that will get it to pop easier, then if it does germinate I'm going to buffer a brand new peat pellet in the bio diesel buffer nutrient solution then water very sparingly. Fingers crossed it does the trick because I should be like a month into a new grow.

It's from lack of food I think. You waited 2 weeks almost before feeding. I think if you feed and PH correctly they should bounce back.

I used to never feed seedlings for the first couple weeks which was never a problem in pro mix. But I noticed when switching to coco they need food almost immediately.

It could also be from being too damp, but I doubt it if the seedlings are in Jiffy sized pods. I've seen it happen with coco if the plant is way undersized to the amount of coco available.

BibbyMcBuds said:

My last grow went fantastic with the Ugro max air but this time I was short on cash so I got the Ugro Air which doesn't have the perlite mixed in so I put my own perlite in for extra drainage, is it possible the perlite is contaminated because I stupidly left it in my green house outside with it taped shut in a bag so maybe it got fungus or something but the roots on the plant are white and healthy. The bag says it has a low percentage of coir fibres, not sure how low though. I'm watering much less now so hopefully it comes good. If I get another to pop finally which I'm having heaps of trouble with im thinking of going without perlite maybe? I'm actually buying a new pH pen tomorrow, the bluelab pH pen & I'm going to get the care kit which has all of the calibrating stuff in it & I'll get the guys at the shop to calibrate it which they didn't do last time. I didn't know that was a big thing when I got the AZ one I have now, it's super slow, it has no indicator of when it's finished reading and it's never been calibrated so that's probs why. I'll calibrate the new one every few weeks like you say & keep on top of the pH. Thanks heaps for all your advice, really appreciate you taking the time to help me out. I have a harlequin in the hydro peroxide 15ml in 80ml of spring water soaking for 24 hours this time, maybe that will get it to pop easier, then if it does germinate I'm going to buffer a brand new peat pellet in the bio diesel buffer nutrient solution then water very sparingly. Fingers crossed it does the trick because I should be like a month into a new grow.

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I grow in straight coco, but I filter out much of the coffee ground sized coco peat so the media is mostly fibrous coco. I can water daily right from go with most seedlings. I think growth is a bit faster for the first week or two when using perlite due to the extra aeration it provides, but I hate dealing with bags of dusty perlite (have to use N95 mask because that shit is very harmful for your lungs), so I stick with straight coco.

Remember that pH is on the logarithmic scale, so a point difference is 10x. At 6.7pH you are out of range but being that your pen isn't calibrated, I wouldn't be surprised if it's into the high 7's. When you get your 7.0 reference solution, dip that pen in and see what it reads to get an idea of how off the pen is.

I see someone else said you waited almost 2 weeks to feed. Now I see in your OP that you went 12 days. When you prepare your coco, the final step is to run a feed of 0.4EC (200PPM on the 500 scale) thoroughly through the coco to charge the media a day or two before you plant so the taproot will have access to a light nutrient mix. You can continue to feed that 200PPM feed right from go once it emerges from the coco.

With that extra information, I think the leaf twisting is from too high of pH. The cotyledons turning yellow is definitely a nitrogen deficiency. The missing leaf pair could be calcium or boron deficiency - they both can present with incomplete/distorted leaf formation before necrosis starts. If that weird leaf is thick and brittle, it's probably boron. But none of that minutia matters - just hit it with a good dose of some food.

MidnightSun72 said:

It's from lack of food I think. You waited 2 weeks almost before feeding. I think if you feed and PH correctly they should bounce back.

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Agree. Just needs some nutrition and the pH corrected and will be fine.

I'd say it was a pH problem. My guess....the pH is too low. I'm just coming out of dealing with a similar issue.

Where are the seeds from? I've been getting some duds lately that start like that. If you baby them through it they can bounce back but a higher humidity 60%-80% can help alot.
Get your ph down.
These are 2 seeds from blimburn "glookies" started the same way at the same time. Both around 15 days as well.