Today is a clinic episode, a Seedling Troubleshooting Clinic to be exact, because if you’re starting seeds indoors, something is eventually going to look weird. A tray that was perfect yesterday is suddenly leaning. Something looks fuzzy on the soil surface. Or a seedling that seemed fine just flops over.

The good news is most seedling problems come from a small handful of causes, causes that we can actually control - light, temperature, water, airflow, or sanitation. And once you know what you’re looking at, you can usually fix it quickly or at least stop it from spreading to the rest of your tray.

So, I’m going to give you a simple diagnostic checklist and then we’ll walk through the most common seedling symptoms and what to do about each one.

Let's dig in!

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Just Grow Something episodes, videos and blog posts on seed starting: https://justgrowsomethingpodcast.com/search/seed%20starting

References and resources:

University of Illinois Extension: Troubleshooting seed starting problems: https://extension.illinois.edu/blogs/good-growing/2022-02-25-whats-wrong-my-seedlings-troubleshooting-seed-starting-problems

University of Minnesota Extension: How to prevent seedling damping off: https://extension.umn.edu/solve-problem/how-prevent-seedling-damping

Utah State University Extension: Seedling culture, airflow, temps: https://extension.usu.edu/yardandgarden/research/starting-vegetable-seeds-indoors-seeding-culture-and-transplanting.pdf

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