Dunstan chestnut blues

[Angus 1895]

How come no leaf?

these been sticking outta the dirt 4 quite a while.

 

[Hoytvectrix]

The one near the center of the image looks like it might have damping off. I let mine germinate in cold storage and then planted them on the soil surface in pots.

What is the soil temp? How long has it been since you planted them and began watering? Is the soil staying too moist?

 

[Hoytvectrix]

Here are what mine looked like about 5-7 days after "planting" them

 

[Angus 1895]

Yeah I think I got them too wet, too cold, too heavy of soil.

 

[River-X]

After seeing this question I am wondering if I started mine way too early…here are just a couple of the weakest ones, and this picture was taken 2 weeks ago.

 

[River-X]

Im brand new to this, so take it for what its worth, but i tend to agree that yours may need more heat and less water. I had a few that I over watered and they struggled, so I re-potted them and that seemed to help.

 

[Angus 1895]

the weird thing is they are green and keep getting slowly taller.

I only got one with any leaf at all.

 

[River-X]

The good news is, all those in that picture I posted above were the same way. Those were the ones that didnt “come out swinging” and seemed to struggle. But they have all caught up and have many leaves on now. When I am back home from work, I will send you a pic of the rest of them and you will see. Just stick with it. Once they get going they seem to do just fine.

 

[River-X]

Angus, do you have any grow lights over them or are they just getting natural light from a window or something like that?

 

[Hoytvectrix]

the weird thing is they are green and keep getting slowly taller.

I only got one with any leaf at all.

There is a really good thread that @yoderjac brought over from QDMA: https://habitat-talk.com/index.php?...m-chestnuts-transferred-from-qdma-forum.5676/

I suggest checking that thread out.

I would try and get your grow lights as close to the seeds as possible. I eventually went with hypertough led shop lights.

Here is my latest setup. These were planted in January (probably a bit too early for when I will be getting them in the ground). Before I switched to some better bulbs, the plants were a little too leggy. Since then, plants have been focusing more on leaves and branches than on stem growth.

 

[River-X]

Hoyt,
I can’t figure out how to post a picture in the other place, so I hope Angus doesn’t mind me sharing a picture of a “sick” tree here in his thread.
I have a few that look like this…I have only seen this on lower leaves, never on the top leading leaves at all.

 

[River-X]

We have pretty hard water with lots of lime in it so I am wondering if it turns the pH balance of the soil too alkaline making it hard for the plant to uptake any nutrients.

 

[Angus 1895]

Looks like exposure to wind sun?

 

[River-X]

I would agree with you except those trees haven’t been outside at all yet.

 

[Angus 1895]

I would suspect they dried out in pots.

 

[Angus 1895]

I tried increasing light but I got sick of packing the big pots in and out.

seemed the direct sun burnt the stems back.

 

[Hoytvectrix]

Hoyt,
I can’t figure out how to post a picture in the other place, so I hope Angus doesn’t mind me sharing a picture of a “sick” tree here in his thread.
I have a few that look like this…I have only seen this on lower leaves, never on the top leading leaves at all.View attachment 42765

That looks like some form of water stress to me. The fact that they are between the leaf veins and it extends to the margins makes me feel like it is a water regulation problem, and not necessarily a pH or nutrient problem.

Any chance you are over-watering them?

 

[River-X]

Always a chance. I thought i was being careful not to over water but some of the pot have a slightly different soil blend in them and held moisture a lot longer than the others. I repotted them with new soil to see if it was that but still had it with a few.

 

[TreeDaddy]

.........thread title would make the perfect country and western habitat song

bill

 

[yoderjac]

Just a few thoughts for beginners starting indoors:

Start with containers. If you are not using a root pruning container system, all bets are off.

Next comes media. Unless you know what your are doing, invest in Promix. Regular potting mixes are not designed to grow trees in a root pruning container system.

Then water. You should be using rain water if at all possible.

Then watering. Water by weight. When you water, saturate them until water is running or dripping out of the lowest holes in the root pruning container. You can't give them too much water because it just runs out. You CAN water too frequently. I've described watering by weight in other threads.

Light comes next - Use shop lights that you can hang at an angle and organize your seedlings by height so they are equidistant from the bulbs. Fluorescent or LED shop light bulbs are cool enough to keep a couple inches above the seedlings. Light diminishes with distance squared. Don't worry about light color or expensive grow lights. Four 2 bulb shop lights can cover 6 Express trays with adequate light.

Fertilizer - Osmocote and Micromx or Osmocote Plus.

No matter what you do, some trees will just be inferior, cull them.

These few things should get you well on your way to success

Thanks,

Jack