Tomatoes and damping off, survived, weird? Help!
nitram0606April 27, 2012
So,
I lost a lot of peas and other seedlings to damping off. None of my tomatoes actually died, but several (15/100) appear to have this odd stunted growth and all have the same symptom.
Here are pictures of what I'm talking about. Look closely at the base of the stem. Several are very dramatic, narrowed down etc. but most of the 15 simply have this "Ring" for lack of a better word, going around the base about 1/4" above the soil line..
My question: If I plant these in the garden deeper than that apparent damage will they grow up and be as healthy as their counterparts? Or should I toss them.
they will be fine. i've seen that before on some of my plants. bury deep.
Your first picture is the only one where I can clearly see the narrow brown constriction at the soil ine that is a hallmark of damping off, although several of the other pictures you show indicates at hint at that.
How tall are the seedlings now and I ask b/c tomato seedlings up to 5-6 inches can still go down with damping off. That was a surprise to me when I first looked at the picture in my tomato pathology book b'c most of the time it's newly germinated seedlings that fall over with damping off.
Were the 15 ones you mentioned from seed sown in the same seed starting flat and did you use the same seed starting mix for all 100 of them. And again I ask b'c sometimes there are just areas in a seed starting flat that have the spores of the three genera and species that can cause damping off, and not elsewhere.
Can I also assume that you used a soilless mix to start seeds which is much less likely to have those spores?
Carolyn
Thanks guys,
Yeah I used a soiless mix, organic seed starting mix. They are about 12" tall; the camera was just really zoomed in on the stem.
They were all started together which is why it's so odd, and I've had a fan on them until the last 10 days they've been outside (planting Monday - Thursday)
I'll plant really deep with those guys because it can't hurt anything really. If they don't grow I guess I'll pull them after a couple months and plant something else.
Sincerely,
Martin
Yeah, don't worry too much about it. Just bury them with the ring below the new soil line and they'll catch right back up with the others.