Hi, all,
I’m happy to be able to report that the majority of my seedlings are growing like weeds. Unfortunately, a couple of them have gotten to the first-true-leaf stage and then stalled. When watering one of these this morning, I noticed that it had only about 2 cm of very curly root. I expect this one will die. There are two others that are really lagging behind and I suspect they may not be well rooted either.
Does anyone know what causes this? Is there anything I can do, or does it just … happen?
I have seen this happen as well, and it is usually the result of the soil staying too cold and damp, resulting in root loss. Certain breeding lines are more prone to it, I suspect.
I have also seen a similar phenomenon in rose embryo culture where the growing environment is identical for all the siblings in the enclosed system, and all embryos have come from the same plant.
I have observed in this context, the occasional embryo that just fails to lengthen its root tip. Sometimes the root tip remains a short stump, sometimes it curls and then stops developing any further.
I don’t know if such embryos would ever go on to develop a first set of true leaves, as Fara’s have…I always discard them early on.
So this may not be directly relevant to your post here Fara, but the frustration is the same to be sure!