Damping-Off
Risk near you, next 48h
See whether your local forecast favours this disease right now.
When it strikes
Treat, then re-check in 5–7 days
Pick off the worst material, apply the organic option below, and look again after five to seven days. If the spread continued, escalate rather than repeating the same treatment.
Rain and irrigation splash
Water splashing off soil and infected leaves carries it upward and along the row. Watering at the base and mulching the soil surface break the route.
It carries over to next season in soil, debris or seed — which is why rotation matters here, not just treatment.
Keep out of the compost
This survives a garden heap. Bag it for municipal green waste, which is composted industrially at temperatures a garden heap cannot reach, or burn it where that is permitted.
When and where to look
Scout the planting while temperatures hold between 5°C and 20°C, with humidity above 90%, after rain or heavy dew, while the leaves are still wet. Risk builds after roughly 12 unbroken hours of those conditions, so the morning after such a night is the moment to look.
The signs that lead here
About
Damping-off (Pythium, Rhizoctonia and Fusarium) kills seedlings before or just after emergence in cold, wet, poorly drained or overcrowded conditions, a common setback for spring seed-starting.
Symptoms
Seeds rot before sprouting, or seedlings topple over with a thin, water-soaked, pinched stem at the soil line; roots are brown and mushy.
Organic Treatment
Improve drainage and airflow, let the surface dry between waterings, sow in sterile mix, and water with chamomile or a Trichoderma drench.
Chemical Treatment
Captan or thiram seed treatments; mefenoxam drench for Pythium in commercial propagation.
Prevention
Use sterile seed-starting mix and clean trays, avoid overwatering and overcrowding, provide warmth and air movement, and don't sow too deep.
Related problems
Damping-Off risk by location
Each location has a month-by-month profile computed from the weather archive: how many hours a year actually meet this disease’s thresholds.