I kinda started this in the Indoor forum, but now that it's a real problem... And apologies in advance for this being a little long.

I think I'm dealing with damping here, or at least that's the closest I can find. Germinate and plant a seed. Seed grows to an inch, inch and a half out of the ground and then the plant just falls over, dead. Here's pix:

Attachment 295178Attachment 295179

These seeds germinated in about 24 hours and were planted then. The "fall over" happened 8 days later (so a little over 9 days, including germination). Two seeds (completely different strains), both fell over the same night and they're the only seeds I started (so I'm considering this a 100% failure). In fact, this is round 2 -- the last 3 I planted went the same way a couple weeks ago.

Roots sure look (to me) like they're going good, then all of a sudden...

Shovelhandle mentioned using a hydrogen peroxide solution to start, and I've been doing this. Mixed 5:1 water/hydrogen peroxide and then pH balanced to 6.0. (Shov said to use 4:1, but I was being real conservative). These died in the same way and in the same amount of time as the last batch, so it doesn't appear that the H2O2 had any effect.

Soil is coco coir / perlite, so the plants haven't seen any food yet (no nutrition in that soil). Last round, I had already started diluted food (FF) by now, but that didn't help any. Soil is still just a little damp and I'm not overwatering. Lighting is 18/6 6500K T5.

WTF? Some sort of soil contamination? I'm about down to that. This isn't the same coco/perlite as last time, but it's from the same batch.

What would be the best "zero maintenance" real soil to try to eliminate this as a variable? Maybe some Ocean Forest? Any other ideas at all? Is it time to give up on the coco coir?

TIA
Token LaRoche Reviewed by Token LaRoche on . Damping? I kinda started this in the Indoor forum, but now that it's a real problem... And apologies in advance for this being a little long. I think I'm dealing with damping here, or at least that's the closest I can find. Germinate and plant a seed. Seed grows to an inch, inch and a half out of the ground and then the plant just falls over, dead. Here's pix: 295178295179 These seeds germinated in about 24 hours and were planted then. The "fall over" happened 8 days later (so a little Rating: 5