hey guys it's Nate storey with bright
Agrotech and today we're going to talk
about mold and algae issues on the tops
of seedling plugs so we get questions
all the time where people say hey Nate
I've got this problem we're using flexi
plugs we're using a soil mix of some
type and we keep getting mold algae
growth on the tops of the plugs
now for most plugs that's a little bit
of kind of green algae that will kind of
form a slime or kind of coat the top
surface of the plug for others you see
little fruiting bodies so this is a
fungus that's growing in there a mold
and it will grow sometimes through the
plug and just fruit on the surface or
grow on the surface now it's not always
a problem okay so it's not always a
problem sometimes it's a little bit
unavoidable it's only a problem when it
begins to smother the seedling or keep
the seedling too moist right around the
crown right where the stem is stem is
starting and so that's when we grow
concerned about it there are a few
things that you can do to actually
reduce the the probability this will
happen to you if it's algae oftentimes
it's light and moisture related so you
can either you know if your seedling
grows a little bit faster if you can
push the seedling along faster it is
going to shade out that algae so that's
one way to deal with it oftentimes
you're keeping your seedlings too moist
okay so it's basically holding too much
moisture you're watering it too often or
the seedling medium itself is just the
wrong type of medium and it's holding
too much water so those are usually the
three things that contribute to algae on
the surface of your plugs now if you
have mold issue oftentimes it's similar
stuff usually moisture related or you're
using plugs or something that already
has those spores in it when it gets to
you and so as soon as you start to water
it those spores will take off and you'll
kind of get fungus growth on the surface
of the plug and sometimes through the
plug now that's not ideal alright and so
you want to look carefully and use high
quality media
so if you're if you're if you're
ordering different types of media from
different places make sure you're
ordering good quality stuff name-brand
stuff and preferably if you're doing
this indoors sterilized media that's
going to eliminate a lot of those issues
for you so the other two ways that you
can fix kind of both of these problems
are to reduce humidity so in the
seedling growing environment if you
reduce humidity so the top of the plug
will dry out in between waterings that's
going to really reduce the incidence of
algae and fungal growth on the seedling
plug itself and the other thing to do is
to speed the time to transplant so this
is mostly a problem at seedling stage
once you transplant the plug into your
NFT channel into your zipgrow towers
into what-have-you
this is usually not an issue from there
on out so the goal is to get this plug
from seedling stage to transplant as
fast as possible speeding that along
will definitely help eliminate the
problem as well hey guys hopefully this
was useful to you if you're having
problems with fungus or algae growth on
or in your plug let us know and maybe we
can help if you have questions leave
those below please subscribe and as
always thanks so much for watching