How to fight damping-off

kro-magnon · Jan 23, 2021

Hi fellow IC Magers, I recently moved in a new place where humidity is pretty high, there is always a bad smell when you enter in the building at the first floor just above the caves who are totally soaked and stinking of mold.
I started a new grow after a few months without gardening and I experience for the first time in my growing career a seedling suffering of damping-off. I noticed that my soil was not drying properly despite giving small amount of water to the seedlings, a nasty green stuff even started to develop on the top of the soil so I increased air flow and heat to dry the soil. But it was already too late a seedling fell yesterday and can't stand on his own anymore, that's when I understood I had to deal with the most feared seedling disease, the damping-off. I took the sick seedling out of the grow and today I mixed some baking soda and marseille soap in water to spray the stems of the seedlings and the soil, I hope it will kill the spores and stop the spreading of this doom.
I'll update here the progress of my fight against the nasty mushrooms.
How do you deal with this when it happens in your grows?

NEW ENGLAND · Jan 23, 2021

Theres a product called Zerotol for spores on plants that works well,and approved by the dept of agriculture.Can be applied directly to the plant.
Also a product called Sanidate 5.0 for your area,not to be used on plants.
As far as the top of the soil,you can spray a diluted peroxide to the the affected area ,and cover the exposed top soil with cardboard to keep from direct light.
Has worked for me over the years, hope that helps.

NEW ENGLAND · Jan 23, 2021

Forgot to mention,just scrape that algae off.
You need to control the humidity, and maybe a couple of drops of super thrive to help that seedling along.

Hammerhead · Jan 23, 2021

Do not water at the seedlings base. Water off to 1 side.

kro-magnon · Jan 23, 2021

@New England, thanks for the input, I'll get some product to deal with this shit in the future because I'm scared I gonna have to battle it again. I didn't think to cover the soil from the light, nice one against algae.
#Hammerhead, I water the seedlings by spraying the side of the pot but before transplanting I've put water in the tray directly so the soil soaked it all and I put too much of it.
I hope I won't loose too much seedlings because of this but lesson learned, shit even afters so many years of practice I still learn stuff the hard way.

aridbud · Jan 23, 2021

kro-magnon said:
@New England, thanks for the input, I'll get some product to deal with this shit in the future because I'm scared I gonna have to battle it again. I didn't think to cover the soil from the light, nice one against algae.
#Hammerhead, I water the seedlings by spraying the side of the pot but before transplanting I've put water in the tray directly so the soil soaked it all and I put too much of it.
I hope I won't loose too much seedlings because of this but lesson learned, shit even afters so many years of practice I still learn stuff the hard way.

The fact that you're learning and not repeating is a good sign.

Watering seedlings, they only need a damp area below to thrive....not a pond. You'll get it growing! Good luck!

Hammerhead · Jan 23, 2021

No spraying. Pour water in from the top away from the seedlings stem. Damping off occurs where the soil line meets the stem. If it's too wet and conditions good mold will attack the stem.

kro-magnon · Jan 24, 2021

@Hammerhead, I understand how this shit occurs but I have to deal with an environment problem, I live in a very rainy area during winter and my building has not been built correctly so humidity level are high in the caves, stairs and appartements. I have to buy a dehumidifier for this grow space to be ok I think, that's nuts because in my previous appartement in the same city the air was too dry so I had to buy a mist maker for my grow space. What I don't understand is the hygrometer shows a RH around 50% so I wasn't alarmed by anything, how is it possible to have a normal RH but the soil doesn't dry normally without giving abnormal level of water ?
Today there is no progression of this shit, all the seedlings are holding straight by themselves and I don't see anymore algae on the top of the soil, it looks like what I've sprayed was effective but I have to wait a few days to be sure the plants are out of trouble for sure.
The sick seedling is still alive but it doesn't look very good on his stem. I will keep it away from the others until it dies or I'm sure there is no more spores who could fly.

VerdantGreen · Jan 24, 2021

a few tips to reduce the chances of damping off:

Use small pots for seedlings so that they don't stay wet for so long.
Always fill the pots to the top! if you leave a big gap from the top of the pot down to the soil, this creates a pocket of damp stagnant air which is going to bring these problems.
Have airflow over the seedlings, this helps dry the soil surface, stops spores from settling and makes the stems stronger.
Plenty of light to stop them stretching.

Green algae on the soil surface isnt a problem in itself... but it shows that the soil surface is staying too consistently wet.

VG

bigpeter · Jan 24, 2021

copied from Botanicare website, Botanicare Hydroguard contains Bacillus amyloliquefaciens, a natural bacterial root inoculant and water treatment that helps suppress and resist damping off diseases in soil and hydroponic gardens. Use with every watering — from seedling to harvest — to create a healthy, disease-free environment.

kro-magnon · Jan 24, 2021

@Verdant green, I did all that as always with my seedlings but in this new place I had damping-off for the first time so it was not enough to prevent it from happening. What is strange is my hygrometer doesn't show unusual high humidity but I had never seen the soil staying wet for so long despite giving small amounts of water. I think I reacted fast enough to stop it from spreading to several seedlings, I hope that's the case anyway. For now no others seedling is damaged, they are all standing on their own and growing nicely since yesterday.
Do you think I should spray more baking soda and soap diluted in water today or wait one or two days before giving more of it?

kro-magnon · Jan 24, 2021

Double post.

Hammerhead · Jan 24, 2021

Got any pics?. Once it sets in rarely will they survive.

https://extension.umn.edu/solve-problem/how-prevent-seedling-damping

kro-magnon · Jan 24, 2021

I"ll take some tomorrow but my only camera is on a shitty phone so I hope it will be possible to see enough details. It certainly didn't have time to start on others seedlings or they wouldn't be as healthy as they look now. The affected one is not dead yet but the stem doesn't look good.

VerdantGreen · Jan 25, 2021

hi again, not sure but i think the most important thing is that the soil surface dries out
if you are finding the soil stays wet.

What are the pots sitting on? if it is a cold concrete floor that doesn't help.
VG

kro-magnon · Jan 27, 2021

The soil is dry now, when I noticed the damaged seedling I gave more air flow and more heat so it's under control now. There is still no other seedlings affected only one was damaged, I'll upload some pics later
This a pic of the affected seedling as I told you the quality is bad so it's not easy to see details of the affected area.

kro-magnon · Jan 27, 2021

It looks like it stopped spreading , I will check if the plant can stand on its own. If it stands straight by itself do you think I can put it back with the others under the light ?

kro-magnon · Jan 28, 2021

VerdantGreen said:
hi again, not sure but i think the most important thing is that the soil surface dries out
if you are finding the soil stays wet.

What are the pots sitting on? if it is a cold concrete floor that doesn't help.
VG

Hi, no the seedlings were not directly on the ground but in a plastic tray on two pots to have the seedlings at the same heights than older plants I have in grow as well.

How to fight damping-off

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