What do you think, am I ready to harvest? Seriously, though, this is my normal death point, where the the plant lies over and dies. I planted this one 4 days ago and I have not poured one drop of water on it since. I have a clear plastic dome over it, and I have misted the plant twice today. It’s ILGM Gorilla Glue in Happy Frog at 75 degrees.
Before this poor thing dies like the others, any suggestions? What do you do at this stage? Nothing?
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You haven’t added any water to the soil? If this is true give it 1tsp=5ml of water. Water in a circle around the plant approximate 1 inch away from the plant. This will make the roots look for water and grow out toward the side of the pot. Eventually we want you watering 5-10 ml around the out side of the pot but that is down the road a little.
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It still might make it.
Mist the clear dome, keep the rh up.
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Done, sir. As you described.
Will do. I’ve done a lot of doming and misting in my time. A lot of plant killing, too, but that’s another chapter.
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Well, hold on. I watered the soil when I planted the seed. And just now, 5ish ml 1 inch out, like u said. Geez. Did I kill it now? 
No the soil looked pretty dry. How wet was it when you planted the seed? If you water too much you can drown the plant. The water pushes the air away from the roots and it can die.
I probably poured in a quarter cup. Enough that a little dripped out the bottom after I buried the seed.
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That my have been on the verge of too much. Most the inside of the dome. They like humidity, at that age the get a lot of water from the air.
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Will do. Will report back, dead or alive. The plant, I mean. The plant will report back.
Oopsiedoodle.
@Larry, If that is your normal death point, you gotta change up what you are doing. First ditch the peat pots (hold too much moisture) and get some solo cups.
I planted this 6 days ago, also an ILGM Gorilla Glue (fem) in Happy Frog, my tent is 75F as well with around 30RH.
Let’s see what we did differently. We both watered the soil fully until a little runoff (not popular around here, but I do it and have done it for decades without failure), I used 3-4 oz water, so pretty close there to your quarter cup. After letting the cups drain for a few minutes, I move them to a dry saucer, then I put them under my seedling light - a 125 watt cfl at a couple feet away, mainly to keep the temps up and stable but not close enough to dry out the soil. Light on 24/0. No fans, no exhaust, no air movement. Then I walked away from them and did nothing else. 5 days later they sprouted. No domes, no misting, no additional water at all, with a 30RH.
This is day 6 for that sprout, 1 day out of the ground and growing like a weed and will be watered for the first time tomorrow because the cups still have a little weight to them, even though the top of the soil appears dry. Tomorrow they will get another 3-4 oz of water, allowed to drain for a few minutes, moved to a dry saucer, then I’ll walk away and leave it alone for a few days until it needs water again.
I would say all the doming and misting after fully watering and using a peat pot all caused your soil to be too damp, slowing down and stunting your seedling.
That’s a problem of taking a little advice here and a little advice there, many methods only work when you fully follow them, when you mix together methods (someone told me to fully water, someone else told me to dome and mist) they can often not work, as you are experiencing.
If one method does not work for you, change it up, try a different way.
I’d start some more seeds, life is too short to wait on slow growing runts.
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That would most likely be what is called damping off, a soil borne fungi that attacks seeds and sprouts caused by too wet conditions, poor drainage, usually from over watering
The cause of the damping off:
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Thanks for taking the time to give such a detailed response! Interesting that we both planted the same strain of seed from the same place at about the same time. I’ve got my last four GG seeds in water as of right now. This time I will use Solo cups and I won’t dome and mist. (Sorry, domers and misters.) Also, I’ll turn off my fan and just let the Solo cups sit under the light until the seeds sprout. I’m using a 300 W LED about 20 inches above the plants. I don’t have a CFL, yet. My temp and RH are about the same as yours.
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I am using a 300W LED.
@Larry, just need to get past that critical sprout stage so you can go on to grow some buds.
Yeah, big coincidence that we’re both growing the same seeds at that same time, same soil, similar conditions.
I bought the KO Heavy hitters mix pack a couple/few months ago and just recently harvested and moved the plants in veg tent to the flowering tent. So it was time to try some seeds.
I planted all 5 of the Gorilla Glue, 4/5 sprouted 5 days later. The 1 that didn’t sprout, I dug up to see what happened to it, it got stuck under a mini-log in the soil and was wrapping the root around it. So all the seeds were good, any problems were user error. It may have come up eventually, but I don’t wait for stragglers so ditched it and moving on with the 4 sprouts.
I just watered the little girls just now, a few ozs of water til I got a little runoff first watering since watering the soil originally 7 days ago. I let them drain a few minutes, then moved to a dry tray, don’t want them sitting in the excess water and soaking more up. Here is how they look right now:
The yellow bits sitting on the soil are Mosquito Bits as I noticed a couple fungus gnats (they’re everywhere outside right now), this will take care of that.
Some more tips if you try my method:
Start with a 24 hour soak for the seeds in tap water
Prepare the solo cups, I cut 3 big “slots” in the bottom side of cup for great drainage
Water the soil before putting the seed in the soil. Poke a 1/2 inch hole in the middle of the soil and place seed in hole, pointy side down if possible (I use tweezers for this). Then lightly cover the seed by pushing over some soil to cover the hole (don’t cover with mini log if possible like I did LOL). Here’s where you can use your mister to spray a couple spurts over the seed to help the pushed over soil to settle in a bit. Watering after the seed is placed can cause the seed to go deeper or move around too much.
Put cups under light a couple/few feet so it does not dry out the soil, no fans, no air movement,
This is the important part here - now leave them alone. No more water, no spraying, no covering, just check that your temps are ok (72-77) and wait. My seeds always sprout 4 to 5 days later )good viable seeds anyway). They basically leap out of the ground and start growing like a weed.
After they have sprouted and grown a day or 2, I lower the light some so the stems don’t stretch too much and turn on a 6" fan on the slowest setting to get some air movement between the light and top of the sprouts. You want to see the sprouts just vibrating a little, not blown over. This will also help dry out the soil a bit faster (along with the lower light) you can expect to water again in a few 3/4 days this time. After the soil appears dry, pick up the cup and feel the weight, it should feel almost like an empty solo cup before you water again. Don’t want to over water and slow down growth.
You dome misters out there, I’m not saying there is anything wrong with your method, I’'m sure it works great for you and the key to it is using minimal amounts of water and upping humidity by way of a dome and misting to keep rh high in the dome. I understand all that, just find that method makes daily work (misting) that I find unnecessary. I like setting up the cup and seed and walking away for 5 days and coming back to sprouts. To me, it does not get any easier than that. Can my method fail? Sure, over or under water and it’s dead. Same as with the dome and misting method, someone loves their plant too hard and mists/sprays too often and they damp off and die or get stunted and slow, not enough, they dry up and die.
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I will do exactly as you have described. My new seeds have been soaking for a few hours, so I’ll plant them tomorrow and wait for them to sprout. Thanks for the advice. It was specific and detailed, which I like.
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LOL, good luck guys.
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