Clone stems getting mushy....

[SeaMaiden]

Damping Off is a common scourge of greenhouse operations. Search the internet, not just IC. Once you know the keywords there is untold knowledge at your fingertips.

This pestilence has majorly compromised my growing this past year and a half. Only with sterile techniques and use of chlorine bleach at every stage have I been able to squeak by with enough survivors to keep going. Between every run I leave the cloner with pump operating for a day brim full of bleach solution, sitting in the bathtub.

Evidently bleach isn't always enough. Isopropyl alcohol will do a better job of disinfecting and is better suited for fungus. I was starting to look at antifungals when I was pointed towards Dutch Master Zone. Then a little bit of time reading on the internet and I found the copper-sulphate connection. You can buy the crystals cheap. The stuff is poison so only the tiniest amounts are needed. Obviously I have more reading to do. I bet if my cloner used copper pipe instead of pvc the fungus problem would be reduced.

Have you tried quaternary ammonium compounds? Isopropyl is definitely better than bleach, according to my surgeon anyway, but in the aquatic trade we use what we call "quats", quaternary ammonium. In the plant trade it would be, I think, Physan 20. In aquatics we got it in bulk. Net-dip and similar products are the same thing. It's also used in hairdressing and manicuring to sterilize tools effectively.

Bleach is definitely NOT the end-all, be-all of sterilization that people think it is.

 

[fizzbomb]

Temp- 78.6 Previously...dropped it down to 76.8

Your water temps are far to high Tyga, that's what is causing the mushy stem, ideally you want your water temps sitting at 68.0f (20c), anything above 69.8f (21c) your risking getting the mushy stem, 100% that is the cause of your problems, best of luck.

 

[SacredBreh]

Tagging on....