Have you seen a Dawn Redwood sprout from seed?

I hope yours make it too! That tip Little Dingus gave above about not burying them too deep was key, I think. And after my experience, I'd say make sure they don't get too hot after they germinate!

It was just really eye-opening to see just how quickly they can die. Most of my seeds germinated, it was improper aftercare that got them.

They got really thin and weak right where the stem meets the soil and fell over and shriveled up.
 
Being in that little greenhouse, there's likely not a ton of air circulation either. A very gentle breeze will work wonders at keeping fungus issues down.

You picture is nearly textbook damp off :( Gentle air movement will solve that. If that greenhouse has vents..try to keep them open. Keep something open near the bottom to draw as well. Like a chimney...heated air rises out the top, draws cooler air in the bottom.

That may not be enough though since nothing is directing air across the shelves. A small fan or maybe even just keep the door unzipped...something to move air over the plants and ruffle their leaves :)

Just be watchful! More air will dry the soil faster so may need a little extra water from time time to compensate.

Fix one problem cause another!!!
 
Well, I took them out of the greenhouse last night and put them on the bench. But you're right, no airflow in the greenhouse.

I don't have any copper fungicide. I have neem oil, would that work? I may run to try and find some if I need to save the reminding plants. I'm worried, I've been watching them all day.
 
I don't mean to suggest ditching the greenhouse entirely...it solves a problem...while creating others! Such is the challenge of caring for living things ;)

What makes discussions in widely public forums like this so helpful...and so aggrevating!!! Is that there are many routes to the same destination! A good understanding of the interplay between the knobs you have available to turn will help you tailor a route that gets you to the destination.

To me, that dead seedling in your hand is a clear result of damp off. By the time you notice and can diagnose damp off, the seedling is dead. It may be green...but the transport from root to leaf is gone...the seedling is dead.

Your best defense against damp off is prevention: sterile soil to start, adaquate air circulation, adequate light and not to wet, but humid conditions.

The greenhouse solves some of that puzzle but at the expense of other pieces...you need to find your balance for your situation!
 
LittleDingus said:
Such is the challenge of caring for living things ;)
Click to expand...

You know, when I started down this path only a few months ago I told myself that my first year in bonsai would be all about simply trying to keep the trees alive in pots. At the time the thought reassured me, since bonsai is so daunting.

Now that I actually have the trees and observe them multiple times per day noticing discolorations, bug bites, curled leaves, differences between the species, etc. I'm starting to think that I underestimated the challenge!


Thank you for the diagnosis! I think you are right about the damp off, which I have observed in the past but never knew was caused by fungus. So I'm mentally prepared for the entire tray to be lost as I've read is often the case. I watched two shrivel up today before my eyes to help get me ready.

But some a couple show no signs at all yet and I want to give them a fighting chance. I googled neem & damp off and found a couple garden articles that said neem could work so I went for it.

I had already put them on the bench yesterday before you enlightened me to the damp off,


20210524_150501 (1).jpg
​

X sterile soil to start (What's done is done, I missed the boat here)​
✓ adaquate air circulation (it is in the open)​
✓ adequate light (full sun up until noon, filtered through the leaves of that birch after)​
✓ not too wet (The soil is half chicken grit, the surface dries out)​
✓ humid conditions (76% today)​
 
cornfed said:
You know, when I started down this path only a few months ago I told myself that my first year in bonsai would be all about simply trying to keep the trees alive in pots. At the time the thought reassured me, since bonsai is so daunting.

Now that I actually have the trees and observe them multiple times per day noticing discolorations, bug bites, curled leaves, differences between the species, etc. I'm starting to think that I underestimated the challenge!


Thank you for the diagnosis! I think you are right about the damp off, which I have observed in the past but never knew was caused by fungus. So I'm mentally prepared for the entire tray to be lost as I've read is often the case. I watched two shrivel up today before my eyes to help get me ready.

But some a couple show no signs at all yet and I want to give them a fighting chance. I googled neem & damp off and found a couple garden articles that said neem could work so I went for it.

I had already put them on the bench yesterday before you enlightened me to the damp off,



X sterile soil to start (What's done is done, I missed the boat here)​
✓ adaquate air circulation (it is in the open)​
✓ adequate light (full sun up until noon, filtered through the leaves of that birch after)​
✓ not too wet (The soil is half chicken grit, the surface dries out)​
✓ humid conditions (76% today)​
Click to expand...

I have come to the realization that I have a certain "style" in the way I setup my growing conditions that tends to work really well for some things and horribly bad for others :( I can't grow pines to save my life, for example! They germinate well, but I can't get them through toddler stage. Redwoods I don't tend to have much trouble with...though I understand others suffer greatly trying to grow them (yet they can grow pines!)

Sometimes it's just about changing the right things...be that your growing habits...or sometimes the species you try to grow :D

I am always sad when I can't grow what I want...but some things are just not meant to be, it seems...
 
Good point. First year for me is also all about figuring out what species I want to work with. I have a wide variety and there are already some front-runners.

The seedlings made it through another night. Actually look pretty good today. I'm feeling pretty good about them.

20210525_130325.jpg​
 
Excellent! I had some black pine, bristlecone pine, and black spruce that I thought were suffering from damping off. I turned to B-Nut for help. Turns out all they needed was more sun and water. I think yours are already looking better!

Here's my thread if you're interested:

Damping off?

Hi! I'm a rookie at this and would like a little advice. I am trying to grow some trees from seeds from a common kit. I had 3 types of trees sprout up. They seemed to be doing ok at first and then they kinda drooped over and died. The Black Pine is now starting to do this. I have been trying...
www.bonsainut.com www.bonsainut.com
 
I just felt like updating!

20210603_192709.jpg​


I have seven of what I would call "pretty good seedlings" that are working on their second and third sets of leaves.

20210603_192849.jpg20210603_192913.jpg​

And I have four sickly looking ones. They're having a hard time working out those second sets of leaves and have some brown tips on the first.

20210603_192959.jpg​

And I have some volunteers that came from helicopter seeds. They had landed in my various containers in the yard and started growing, so I gently moved them to the recently vacant pots of my seed tray. Some sort of Maple maybe? I have four of them.

20210603_192718.jpg​

And just yesterday I started to notice all these little guys growing in all of my containers. The seeds have just been "raining" out of my tall birch trees just to the west of my containers, so I assume these will be paper birch. Again, I just gently moved them from my various containers to this tray. There were a ton of them, so I put 5 to a pod for now. I have about 15 of those.

20210603_192726.jpg​
 
The helicopter seedling on the right looks just like sweet gum, which I have a bunch of right now. It looks different than the one next to it, so I'm not sure what that is.
 
When can I start fertilizing these guys?

20210611_184437.jpg
 
This is great. I think grow logs like this are super important and useful. I have learned a lot from reading logs such as these. Keep it up. I get my Dawn Redwood seeds and others by end of the week hopefully. Very excited and hope to be diligent enough to keep my own logs. Thanks for sharing
 
NGski86 said:
This is great. I think grow logs like this are super important and useful. I have learned a lot from reading logs such as these. Keep it up. I get my Dawn Redwood seeds and others by end of the week hopefully. Very excited and hope to be diligent enough to keep my own logs. Thanks for sharing
Click to expand...
Thank you that was my intent for all my tree journals.

Make sure you don't bury the seeds and BEWARE OF DAMP OFF.
 
Glad to see yours doing well!

50% germination for me this year via a landscape tree that produced cones last year.

little Utah juniper that I snagged from Sedona hiding on the left hand side - debating separating out some of the dawns to give the juniper more sun.
Cheers!
B3852A02-D576-40FA-8193-5FE2D51FDFC0.jpeg02CE5DB4-8DBA-4A1A-8C02-7AF0BB584236.jpeg
 
94 days. It was getting a little crowded.

20210803_173804.jpg

So I up-potted 10 of these guys today, along with two of the volunteers.

2 parts pine bark, 1 part grit.

I tried my best to not disturb the roots, but it was tough.

20210803_201659.jpg20210803_201705.jpg

20210803_192850.jpg20210803_192838.jpg20210803_193957.jpg
 
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