Beginner Gardening: Seed starting failure..., 1 by dreaves

dreaves wrote:
To me, it sounds like you have what is called "Damping off". It is a fungus problem and causes the seedling to wilt almost instantly. Do your seedlings have an area just above ground where the stem looks thin and shriveled? If you dig a seedling up, does the shriveled stem go below ground? Here's a photo of damping off from West Virginia University, http://www.caf.wvu.edu/resm/aee/cde/plantpath/CD/Tomato.html...

You can get more information by searching Google, but here is a page the might help you get started. http://www.avrdc.org/pdf/tomato/damping_off.pdf The best thing you can do is to be sure that you use sterile seed starting mix and that your starting containers are clean with no soil from earlier plantings.

David