Seedlings with Pale Leaf Tips (pix)

Hi All,

I have two Northern Lights seedlings. I planted them in soil (1 part FoxFarm Ocean Forest, 1 part vermiculite) about a week and a half ago, and they both germinated about 4 or 5 days ago. Here are a couple of pictures of one of them (I just misted it, hence the water droplets):





You can see that the leaf tips are pale and faded (the second picture is without a flash -- it's not just the flash...). The other plant looks similar.

They are each under their own Nova N300S 300W LED, switched to the "veg" setting (so it's half power -- equivalent to about 150W MH or HPS), and the lights are about 38 inches above the tops of the plants. I have them on 16 hours of light and 8 of darkness in a 2 x 4 x 7 foot grow tent. I think the ventilation is adequate (S&P TD-100 through a homemade carbon filter; 6 inch intake powered by a 120mm computer fan). It's a steady 75 degrees Farenheit in there during the day, dropping down to 65 when the lights go off at night. The relative humidity has been low -- 25 to 30% (haven't figured out how to fix that yet -- hopefully when they're bigger they'll give off enough moisture to bring it up some).

Any suggestions as to what might be making the girls less than comfortable would be greatly appreciated.

I would water the seedlings with a water dropper and not "mist" them. I never spray mist my seedlings and plants as the water droplets act like little magnifiers and can burn them. Not to mention damping off or over weight of water will break them over. I start my seedlings with a small T5 in a dome, when they get you what you have I switch to a 100W "17w" daylight flood LED until there ready for the tent. Your seedling tips look burned by light or nutes or ?

FFOF is too hot for seedlings.

Thanks -- I'll stop misting. I could raise the lights if people think that too much light might really be the problem.

Do you think FFOF is too hot even when mixed half and half with vermiculite? Probably the answer is yes as evidenced by whatever's going on with my leaves. If that's the case, ride it out until they get bigger, or is there something else I can do to help them now?

Short of transplanting them I don't think there is a lot you can do. I think the vermiculite will definitely help, but like I said, short of transplanting to a different soil there isn't much you can do. Assuming they survive, which they probably will, you may need to veg them a bit longer to make up for the stress caused by the over feeding. I'd also think about giving them a 20/4 light cycle for now. It'll give them more light to try and use the excess nutrients they are receiving and keep the temps up for longer. Seedlings really don't like low temps and 60s is kind of pushing when they are that young. Also, I'd buy a humidifier. Preferably one that can do warm and cool mist. It'll get your RH up, which they will love, and I've found that if your space gets too cool at night using the warm mist setting will bring your temps up a bit.

So it's 5 days later; they're growing, but not looking good. Here's an updated picture:

I'm thinking of trying to gently extract them from their pots, gently shake off as much soil as I can, and then gently re-plant them in something more suitable. So my question: Is that crazy? Please let me know your opinion -- much appreciated.

As far as the something more suitable, it will depend on what I can snag at the store tomorrow, but maybe two parts FoxFarm Light Warrior to one part FoxFarm Happy Frog -- how does that sound?

to me they look over watered, probably not helped by hot soil, seedlings need way less water than we usually think they do. Have you flushed out the soil?

I don't think I'm overwatering, but this is my first grow -- what do I know, and something is definitely wrong. I haven't flushed the soil -- never heard of that before, but I just looked it up and it sounds like a good idea if nutrients are the problem.

But now I have three different diagnoses:

1) Nutrient burn.

2) Overwatering.

3) Light burn.

I'd love to get some more opinions, if anyone else cared to chime in.

With no other opinions, I'm going with nutrient burn. So yesterday I flushed the soil -- they're in 4 inch pots; I ran 6 cups of water through each of them. I'll report back in a few days when I see how it goes.

I think they look worse today than yesterday:

(Can't swear this is the same plant as in the previous pictures -- they might have gotten swapped during yesterday's flushing... But they're both looking pretty much the same.)

Surprisingly, the soil is pretty dry -- it was soup yesterday when I flushed it. Could the entire problem be one of humidity? (It's been around 30%.)

In any case I just added a DIY humidifier -- a bucket of water with a hand towel hanging in it. Hoping that will help (I'm pretty sure it can't hurt!).

Your thoughts, predictions, prayers, opinions, and comments are welcome, as always...

I also just raised the lights 4 or 5 inches -- they are now 43 inches above the tops of the plants.

dry soil to the point it pops out lke a plug, put the plug into some clean soil, like pro mix or happy frog if you have to. water 1/4 volume of your plant container only when dried and light next time.flushing the way you did doesnt remove all the salts as much as it chokes the o2 supply to the plant root system and kills beneficial organisms, dont do that.

Have you damaged the roots in any way? Overwatered? Flushed? Fed to soon? Man handling the pots? Bad drainage? Swaying stalk?

chemphlegm: So I guess you're casting your vote for nutrient burn as the cause, right? Is Happy Frog that much less "hot", compared to Ocean Forest? In particular, would 1 part Happy Frog to 1 part vermiculite or perlite be significantly better than my current 1 part Ocean Forest, 1 part vermiculite? (Not sure if I have access to ProMix.) Thanks much for the advice; they're pretty dry, and I'm considering transplanting tomorrow.

SPLFreak808: I don't think I've damaged the roots. Overwatering is possible -- first grow, and I wouldn't want to miss out on making every mistake. (From pictures I've seen, though, it doesn't look like overwatering to me. But please let me know if you disagree.) And yes, I flushed, as described a few posts up, to try to correct nutrient burn, in case that was the problem. (The flushing might not have helped, and might have hurt, but I did it after the problem showed up in the leaves -- so it's at least not the original culprit.) No feeding at all, so I'm innocent on that account. And they've been treated very gently, the drainage is good, and the stalks are as sturdy as could be expected for little things like that. Thanks for asking.

I think we might be in a similar boat. I'm sprouting under a 600w hps. But I have a RH of 30% and my seedlings have a light-green almost yellowish look to them. I think my light is too close too but I'll keep an eye on this thread and let you know if the humidifier works.

Thanks. My humidifier effort has been disappointing -- it goes up to about 50% at night, when my lights and ventilation are off -- but then gradually drops back to whatever the rest of the house is during the day, which is generally between 25% and 35%. But the good news is that the plants are looking better; new leaf growth looks healthy. I'll try to get around to posting some pictures tomorrow.

You're over watering. Stop watering. Why did you flush the soil? It's looked drenched in all of the photos.

CaliSmokes: Thanks. I flushed the soil because from the replies I got, nutrient burn seemed to be the most popular diagnosis. So I was trying to wash some of the nutrients from the soil. That certainly drenched the soil, and I haven't watered in about 5 or 6 days.

Here's a current photo, as promised yesterday:

Looks like overwatering has damaged the root. Flushing made it much worse. Seedlings can not take up much water and only need to be kept moist

I use ocean forest even straight out of the bag for seedlings and clones with no issues but it works best with about 20% perlite added for drainage.

Perlite is nuetral and helps with drainage.

Vermiculite is not and it holds extra water.

I water a 16 oz party cup once to runoff. Plant my seed in it and never do anything but watch it grow the first 5 to 7 days.

When the cup is light. Very light. I carefully drip water around the seedling careful not to damage the little fragile tap root.

By week 2 it is big and rooted enough to be watered more fully.

Advice: never listen to strangers on the Internet without knowing if the advice is good.

Great seedling care guide on Grow weed easy . Com. Better in books like Jorje Cervantes and Ed Rosenthal grow books.