Home Roses Flooded tomatoes are dying plants. Why do tomato seedlings wither and fall at home? Wrong watering regime

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Flooded tomatoes are dying plants. Why do tomato seedlings wither and fall at home? Wrong watering regime

Causes of wilting and poor growth of tomato seedlings. Reanimation methods. Preparations and recipes for feeding after a pick.

Beginners and experienced gardeners are faced with a lot of nuances when growing seedlings at home. In addition to sowing, watering, caring for and feeding, each plant requires human attention and caring hands.

Tomatoes during the period of intensive growth in the open field are resistant to changes in day and night temperatures, and the intensity of sunlight. They are grateful for feeding and tying up the stems. However, from the moment of sowing tomato seeds to transplanting them into the open ground of the gardener, weeks of caring for young plants are expected.

We are talking not only about picks, but also the treatment of diseases, the organization of correct watering, temperature conditions, and light intensity. The main tasks are to preserve seedlings, prevent their wilting, slowdown in growth and development. Let's talk more about this in the article.

Why tomato seedlings die, disappear, do not grow or grow poorly after a pick: reasons

a man transplants tomato seedlings into another container

There are several reasons for the death and poor growth of tomato seedlings:

Transplant errors, when the root is incorrectly located in the hole or damaged; the earth is not sufficiently densely covered. In the latter case, the presence of air bubbles prevents the development of the plant's root system.
Lighting. Direct sunlight often causes burns on the seedlings, which negatively affects their health and growth.
Diseases such as black leg. It develops due to watering a tomato with cold water. Or a fungus in the soil, which penetrates the stem and forms blood clots. They impede the movement of sap with nutrients to the leaves.
Pests such as spider mites. Lesions are not noticeable at an early stage, but when the colony grows, it is difficult to save the plant.
Watering errors and drainage problems. Stagnant water causes rotting of the roots of seedlings, and watering with cold liquid - the development of a disease, the so-called black leg.
Poor quality soil with low mineral content. For example, iron deficiency causes yellowing and death of leaves, as well as a significant slowdown in seedling growth. Low nitrogen content is indicated by overly thin stems and sluggish leaves.
High indoor temperatures have an extremely negative effect on the overall well-being of tomatoes. If an excessive moisture indicator is added to it, the formation of putrefactive processes in the soil is expected. As a result, the root system and the entire plant will suffer.

What to do if tomato seedlings fall after a pick, wither, do not grow or grow poorly: a set of measures

young seedlings of tomatoes in a box on the windowsill

If the cause is soil fungus, treat it with a mild potassium permanganate solution. Then fertilize with potassium and phosphorus.
Pay attention to the temperature and humidity in the room where the seedlings are located. They should not exceed the permissible values.
An adult plant affected by a black leg will save the filling of soil under the root. This is how new roots are formed and the tomatoes will soon rise again and grow.
Compensate for the lack of lighting with red and blue lamps. The duration of their exposure is at least 10 hours a day. But leave the time even at night without lighting the tomatoes. So blue light affects the development of the plant, its ability to bloom, and red stimulates the formation of a strong trunk.
Feed your seedlings with a growth stimulant by preparing an aqueous solution. Sometimes the soil lacks nutrients, as evidenced by the wilting of the plant, the dropping of its leaves.

Caring for tomatoes, tomatoes after picking: description, tips

tomato seedlings after picking on the windowsill

Care is based on 3 points:

lighting
air temperature
watering

When you made the first pick of tomatoes, place them in a cool room, for example, on a loggia or a glassed-in balcony, so that there is a shadow above them. The air temperature is optimal during the day + 16 ℃, at night + 13 ℃. Lack of contact with direct sunlight will keep the seedlings healthy.

Please note that when the temperature drops to + 10 ℃, your tomatoes will stop growing.
A week after picking, water the seedlings and tear off the bottom pair of leaves so that the trunk does not stretch too high.
When the plants are strong, arrange for them to have access to sunlight. The duration of the baths is 10-12 hours, they will be able to tolerate well.
Remember that good drainage is essential for the health of the root system and the plant as a whole. Therefore, for excess moisture, be sure to organize an exit through the holes at the bottom of the container.
Avoid placing tomatoes on a windowsill over hot radiators. Better to put them on the table at least a meter away from the heat source. Seedlings should be hardened before planting in open ground.
Water abundantly and sparingly. Use water that has settled and acquired room temperature. The signal for watering is completely dry soil in pots.
Start hardening the tomatoes a couple of weeks before planting outdoors. Place them near an open window / window for a couple of hours a day.

How often to water and what to water tomatoes, tomatoes after picking?

watering young tomato seedlings at the root with a small watering can

The frequency of watering tomato seedlings varies depending on the age of the plants. When the seeds have sprouted in all the holes, gently water the soil around the shoot, avoiding getting water on it. A douching bag will help you.
Before the first pick, when 3 real leaves have grown, moisten the soil under the tomatoes for 3 days.
After the first pick, water it after 5-7 days, the second - 10.
Then follow the soil. When it becomes dry, pour the seedlings abundantly with water at room temperature, which has settled. Once every 7-10 days may be sufficient.
Plan to moisten the soil before picking a few days in advance. This will minimize the chance of root damage.
Use complex mineral fertilizers as an additive to water for watering tomato seedlings once a month.

What fertilizer, folk remedy to feed tomato seedlings after picking: recipes, tips

liquid complex fertilizers for feeding are added to the watering can for watering tomato seedlings

The process of feeding seedlings is mandatory for tomatoes. This will activate its powers for harmonious development and healthy growth.

From folk remedies, aqueous solutions are suitable:

chicken droppings
wood ash
urea
yeast
nettles
mullein

Let's add several recipes for fertilizers with folk remedies.

Nettle recipe 1

a bucket of green nettle fertilizer for feeding tomato seedlings

Fill an enamel bowl with finely chopped nettles and fill with water.
Stir the future fertilizer daily for 2 weeks so that excess oxygen evaporates until its color changes to light.
To neutralize the unpleasant odor, add a few drops of valerian to the container with the nettle.
Prepare a watering solution at the rate of 1 part to 20 parts of water. Spread the liquid around the trunk at the root.

Recipe 2 with ash

tied stalks of tomatoes and a glass of liquid fertilizer from ash for feeding them

Dissolve a glass of ash in 3 liters of water and bring the mixture to a boil.
Leave to infuse for half a day.
Add clean water to a volume of 10 liters and rub some laundry soap.
Use fertilizer to spray the grown seedlings.

Recipe 3 with mullein

a bucket of ready-made mullein fertilizer for feeding tomatoes

Fill the container halfway with a mullein and fill to the brim with warm water.
Cover and leave to infuse for 7 days.
Stir the fertilizer and dilute it with plain clean water in a 1:15 ratio.
Pour 0.5 liters of liquid under each bush.

Among the complex means of industrial production, gardeners give preference to:

nitrophoske
mineral mono drugs - nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium
ammophosphate
"Ideal"
"Strong"

So, we examined the features of caring for tomato seedlings, identified the causes of its diseases, learned how to prepare fertilizers at home.

Remember that hard work, attentiveness, and the care of human hands are often the keys to a bountiful tomato harvest in the future.

Video: Caring for tomato seedlings

One of the stages of growing tomato seedlings is its picking. Seedlings are transplanted into larger containers. If this process is unsuccessful, gardeners have a question: why do tomato seedlings die after a pick?

Why don't tomato seedlings grow and die?

Seedlings when 2-3 leaves appear on it. It is very important to carry out the picking process correctly. It is imperative to pinch the central root by one third for additional root formation to occur. If this is not done, then the root system of plants will remain underdeveloped, this will slow down the process of their growth.

The result of an unsuccessful pick may be a phenomenon when tomato seedlings wither and die. This is possible as a result of the following actions:

Damage to the root system during transplantation. To avoid this, it is necessary to thoroughly water the ground before diving, and carefully remove the plant along with a lump of earth.
Bending of roots. When transplanting, you need to make a deep hole so that the long roots of the tomato can freely fit in it.
The formation of air pockets around the roots. To eliminate this, you need to carefully compact the soil around the roots of the seedling.
Pouring seedlings. The situation can be corrected by cleaning the drainage holes and loosening the topsoil.
Unsuitable substrate. There are times when the seedlings did not fit the soil. The only way out is to change the ground.

Diseases of tomato seedlings

Often the reasons why tomato seedlings die after a pick is its disease. The most common ones are as follows.

7 rules, following which, you can get excellent seedlings and a large harvest of tomatoes.

Any plant cannot live without heat, sun, water and soil. Tomatoes are no exception, they need for normal growth:

Quality seeds
Fertile soil
Adequate light
Moderate watering
Optimum ground and air temperature
Protection against diseases and pests
Fertilizing with mineral fertilizers

If you have fulfilled all the necessary conditions, then the plants will delight you with their powerful appearance and rich harvest. If at least one of the points you made a mistake, they will upset you with frail shoots and a meager, if any, harvest.

What to do if tomato seedlings are strongly stretched, become thin and long?

After the seedlings have appeared and have pleased their owners, the most important stage in the development of plants begins. At this stage, the plants should receive an acceptable temperature for growth of the earth, air, sufficient amount of light and moisture. What happens if optimal conditions are violated?

If the soil in the seedling pots is too cold and the air temperature is either too low or too high, the plants will not be able to develop fully.

They will also not be able to develop normally if they receive too little light. If the seedlings are stretched out from a lack of light, you can save it by giving a sufficient amount of it.

Why are tomato seedlings purple and grow poorly?

Why in a relatively warm house, if you grow seedlings on windowsills, does the earth remain cold? Because often and thickly, the cold that comes from the windows excessively cools the pots with seedlings. For the experiment, put a room thermometer on a windowsill or on the soil of your greenhouse if you are growing seedlings under plastic, and measure the temperature. The optimum soil temperature is from 16 to 18 degrees. If the ground is cold, plants will not grow well and the seedlings may turn purple.

Why do the leaves of tomato seedlings turn yellow: what to do?

The air temperature for seedlings should be from 25 to 28 degrees. Plants will be stunted if the temperature is above or below these values. Separately, I would like to say about the illumination of plants.

If the light is too little, the seedlings can stretch out in just a few days. It will be yellow in color and have thin, elongated stems. You can expect a good harvest from such seedlings only if you can give the plants enough light.

Why do tomato seedlings wither and fall?

Unfortunately, on a windowsill without additional lighting, even if the windows face the sunny side, the plants will not be able to receive enough light. The only way out in this situation is to use artificial lighting. These can be special lamps used in industrial greenhouses that are expensive or inexpensive fluorescent lamps.

The same failure can lie in wait for those gardeners who sowed seeds in greenhouses with film cover. Because in the early spring, the sunlight that can be lost when passing through the dense film is not enough.

Mold on the ground in tomato seedlings: what to do?

When watering seedlings, it is better not to add water than to give it in excess. It happens that gardeners are so keen on caring for plants that they begin to water them every day or even several times a day. They water it because they noticed the drying of the top layer of the earth in the pots, while there is an excess of moisture inside.

Black leg in tomato seedlings: control measures

Excessive watering leads to oppression of plants, creates a fertile soil for the development of fungal diseases of the root system and, ultimately, the death of seedlings. How do you know if your plants need watering?

The easiest way in this situation is not to water the plants before you notice some wilting due to lack of moisture. In this case, the leaves are less elastic and are somewhat lowered down. Water the plants with warm water. If using chlorinated tap water, remove the chlorine from the water.

To do this, it is enough to collect water in a bucket and let it stand for 2-3 days. Chlorine is a gas and lighter than water, so it will completely come out of the liquid during this time.

Feed the seedlings with mineral fertilizers. This should be done no more than once a week with complex fertilizers. You need to be careful about fertilizing like saltpeter. Due to the high nitrogen content in the soil, plants can stretch a lot.

Treatment of tomato seedlings from diseases

Prevent pests and diseases from infesting seedlings. Since disease contamination in a greenhouse or when growing seedlings on windowsills is mainly due to contaminated land, use only healthy soil for this purpose. If you take it in your garden, then take it from the beds where tomatoes and related crops, say potatoes, did not grow.

Phytophthora on tomato seedlings: combating it

Late blight is considered a disease of open ground and rainy and cool weather is favorable for its development. For plants to get sick with late blight, they need to be exposed to unfavorable weather conditions for 3-7 days.

If tomato seedlings are under cover or in a house, the likelihood that they will get late blight is very small. To prevent disease, you need to prevent water from getting on the leaves of plants and water only the ground. If brown spots still appear on the leaves, treat them with fungicides for late blight.

White spots on the leaves of tomato seedlings: what to do?

White spots on the leaves of seedlings can be the result of burns from the sun or the lamps that light up the plants. So, if the seedlings, which are not accustomed to sunlight, are transferred to the beds or put the pots in the sun, the plants will not cope with the load that has arisen and will receive burns.

Prophylactic measures against burns can be the gradual adaptation of plants to a new light regime. If burns have already occurred, the affected leaves can be torn off. The plant will gradually bounce back and give new leaves.

The leaves of tomato seedlings curl, wither and dry: what to do?

If the leaves of the seedlings curl, this can be both the result of diseases and the result of oppression of the plant by pests. What to do if the plants get sick and by their appearance you cannot determine what is happening to them?

The only way out in such a situation is to try to correct errors with the temperature regime, lighting the plants, watering and treating them with fungicides for diseases and pests.

Whitefly - white midges on tomato seedlings: how to fight?

Maybe someone will be surprised that plants located on a windowsill or under a film cover can have pests.

They are, sadly enough, if the land infested with these pests was used. In particular, the whitefly and its larvae can inflict tremendous harm on tomatoes, which in a matter of days can turn a green plant into a stunted and weak. They will help to cope with the problem of spraying leaves with remedies for this pest.

Aphids on tomato seedlings: how to fight?

Aphids can appear on tomato seedlings if soil contaminated with this pest was used. You can fight aphids by spraying plants with aphid chemicals. Such as tanrek, confidor, bio spark and others.

Unfortunately, it happens that all efforts to heal the plant are in vain. This can happen if improper care of the plant, illness or oppression of the plant by pests was too long. The only way out of this situation is replanting the seedlings.

How to choose tomato seeds?

Sow only proven, quality seeds. If you buy seeds in stores, use only trusted retail outlets. Because counterfeiting in the seed market has reached catastrophic proportions due to the fact that it has become simply unprofitable to trade in quality seeds.

Quality seeds are half the success of growing a tomato

If you collect seeds from your tomatoes, choose for this purpose only healthy and powerful bushes that have yielded a good harvest. Sometimes seed disinfection is required. Because they can be infected with disease-causing viruses. Disinfection, if done correctly, does not affect seed quality, but it can reduce germination. Therefore, you will have to increase the number of seeds sown.

In what soil do tomatoes grow better?

Sow seeds in ideal soil for this crop. The seedling soil should not be too light or too heavy. It must be said right away that the land taken from the garden bed will be heavy if your garden is located on black soil. And the soil bought in stores called "for seedlings" will be too light due to the high content of peat in such soil. Therefore, this option would be ideal: mix 50% of the soil from the garden bed and 50% of the soil for seedlings and fill the seedling cups or pallets with this soil.

In advance, you will need to think about the fact that excess water after watering the plants will have to freely leave the cups. This means that they must have a sufficient number of holes at the bottom to drain excess water.

All these wisdom are easy to remember and use them when growing tomato seedlings. And the most important thing - if you still fail in growing seedlings - do not give up, but roll up your sleeves and correct your mistakes, grow new beautiful, healthy and powerful seedlings.

VIDEO: How to grow healthy seedlings?

And by planting peppers in a greenhouse, it is difficult for plants to tolerate due to the combination of many "apartment" destructive factors. Why pepper seedlings fall and disappear:

Lack of sunlight, inevitable due to short daylight hours. Some apartments do not have windows located on the south side of the building. Therefore, seedlings are necessary.
Heat of heating devices... It does not replace the usual greenhouse effect. This warmth dehydrates young plants and soil.
Excessive watering, which is often found due to the common myth that the soil in the box should not dry out. Such a water imbalance is fraught with the development of roots and stem.
Insufficient watering leading to dehydration of pepper, stem, root.
Container tightness dangerous competition of peppers for heat, water and space. At the same time, stronger plants pull moisture onto themselves, infringing on weaker and smaller peppers.
Unusual cold drafts from window cracks, painfully perceived by seedlings.

Important! All of the above risk factors are fraught with water imbalance, leading to wilting of peppers, either through the development of a fungal infection or through dehydration.

How to help?

First of all you need to identify the reason why pepper seedlings fell... If 1-3 plants have fallen, then, most likely, they are weakened by competition for resources.

Expose the root of the stunted plant itself and inspect it for:

drying;
putrefaction from excess moisture;
signs of "" - fungal infection (blackening and thinning of the root part of the stem).

Dehydrated or oversaturated plants place in separate cups, observe the correct water regime, which does not allow the soil to dry out or the formation of wet mud at the bottom.

A fungal infection affects a young plant rapidly, it can be impossible to save it. Direct your efforts to save the remaining plants: change the soil in the box, carry out preventive watering with a fungicidal preparation, potassium permanganate solution, sprinkle the soil with wood ash.

What to do if pepper seedlings fall? If you have not detected fungal lesions in the seedlings, then hurry up to provide the plants favorable conditions for growth:

Build two-layer cups with holes, plant peppers in wooden crates with pallets - provide adequate soil drainage in order to avoid stagnation of water at the bottom of the tanks.
Tightly block large gaps in the windows... Air the room through a window that does not have seedlings.
Place the drawers by the lightest window, which provides your apartment with the maximum length of daylight hours.
Cover the battery or place a protective cardboard under the box with seedlings, which will prevent heat from the radiator from entering the soil. If, on the contrary, there is not enough heat for the peppers, place a damp cloth on the battery, and then the radiator will evaporate warm humid air.
Spud the plants, loosen the soil well, add sawdust, wood ash, peat.
Choose a water mode for your peppers.

Important! Optimal watering prevents the plant from drying out or excess water accumulating at the bottom of the container. Water the seedlings with a small amount of water 2 times a day when you see that the top of the soil has begun to dry out slightly and form a crust.

If the lighting is not sufficient, use additional lighting sources... Special seedling lamps are installed at a height of 50-60 cm from the tops of the plants. They provide optimum illumination of the peppers on cloudy days or early spring evenings.
As the plants grow, gradually temper them at lower temperatures.
Plant peppers in the greenhouse as early as possible.

Tomatoes are a whimsical plant. And the foundation for a successful future harvest is laid precisely during the formation of the bush, even before it is planted in open or protected ground. From weak seedlings with great diligence, you can grow healthy fruitful bushes, from a sick one - it is almost impossible to do this. Therefore, it is so important to see the first signs of their ill health. Understanding the reasons and taking urgent resuscitation measures can save the future harvest.

There may be many of them, and not all of them indicate that the bush is dying irrevocably. To find out the true reason, you may have to sacrifice one seedling, carefully get it out of the ground along with the root and take a good look at the plant from the root to the very crown in good lighting.

The appearance of the plant usually provides a clue as to what exactly caused the wilting. By and large, there can be two of them - care errors and infectious contamination. You should be aware that diseases are also often the result of errors in the conditions of detention.

Reasons associated with improper care

Unsuitable soil

One of the common reasons for the poor health of seedlings is increased acidity and excessive soil density. In this case, an urgent transplant to another land is required, otherwise the plants will die. In addition, any soil, incl. and ready-made purchased soil, requires preliminary disinfection. There are several ways - watering with boiling water or a solution of potassium permanganate, calcining or freezing. This will reduce the risk of disease and pest infestation.

Thickened fit

Plants can die from crowding. When diving, you should observe a rate of at least 2 cm in a row and 5 cm in aisles. If there is a suspicion that the plants are dying due to lack of space, they need to be thinned or planted, and the vacated space should be covered with wood ash or calcined sand. This is necessary for the prevention of "black leg". Tomatoes will not come to their senses immediately, they will stand sluggish for another 2-3 days, this is normal and does not require intervention. But, if after 4 days they did not come to their senses, one should look for another reason.

Violation of the rules of picking

This point can be attributed to belated advice, but it is necessary to find out the reason.
Analyze if the following rules were followed:

Excessive watering and poor drainage

With an excess of moisture, the cotyledons are the first to suffer. If they turned yellow and fell off, this is a signal to reduce irrigation. It is better to use a transparent container, the presence of drainage holes is a prerequisite.

In "non-breathing" plastic containers, they must be made not only in the bottom, but also in the side walls. They are needed not only to drain excess water, but also to saturate the soil with oxygen. Therefore, a large plastic container with one hole in the middle of the bottom for growing tomatoes is considered unsuitable.

The growing roots may have blocked the drainage holes! In this case, they must be thoroughly cleaned and ensure oxygen access and moisture removal.

Lack of moisture

In case of insufficient moisture, the soil in the container becomes dry and crumbly, or knocks into a dry ball. But, if the bushes have already begun to suffer from this and wither, abundant one-time watering is still contraindicated for them! You will have to moisten the earth a little, adding a tablespoon at a time under each root at a time during the day, avoiding overflow. If, after one extreme, the second is allowed, the plants will die.

Practice dry watering often! To do this, you need to carefully loosen the top layer of the soil for unhindered access of oxygen.

Wrong light mode

Tomatoes react negatively to both lack and excess of sunlight. The optimal daylight hours for them is 12 hours. During the period of growing seedlings, it is usually shorter, therefore, it must be illuminated with fluorescent lamps (phytolamps).

Without enough light, the bushes begin to grow, become long, thin and weak, which leads to their wilting. The problem is easily identified by their appearance. But overdoing it on this issue is also not useful.

Backlighting at night is harmful for tomatoes! For high-quality assimilation of nutrients, they need not only sunlight, but also complete darkness.

Failure to comply with the temperature regime

The maximum air temperature for tomatoes is + 36C. If the thermometer rises higher, the plants wither, dry up and die. For comfortable health and growth, it should be within 20-22C. At values of + 15C and below, growth stops. If this temperature is kept for a long time, the shoots die. Correct hardening of seedlings is also very important; for this, the temperature is gradually lowered by 3-4C at night.

Draft

It is unacceptable! The movement of not only cold, but also warm air for tomato seedlings is fatal. During airing, even in warm weather, the boxes should be removed from the windowsill to a protected place.

Growing tomato bushes must not be kept near heating radiators! For them, this is tantamount to a draft.

Bad choice of location

For growing seedlings, the windowsill is traditionally used as the brightest place in the apartment. However, this is not the best option and this place is by no means ideal. It pulls cold from the window in winter and early spring, and if there are small cracks, then this air movement can become critical. It is better to provide additional illumination than to deal with unstable temperature conditions.

The northern side is the least suitable for cultivation, followed by the southern one. Despite the cold coming from the window, the bushes can get burned by direct sunlight, wither and die.

Incorrect feeding

An oversupply of fertilizers is even more negative than a lack of them. A sign of an overabundance of fertilizers in the soil is a whitish crust on its surface. The roots get burned, the leaves wither and the seedling dies. In this case, the crust must be removed, filled with high-quality soil and watering with a weak humate solution for several days for high-quality soil restoration.

Disease-related causes of withering of tomato seedlings

Fusarium

The disease is fungal in nature. Sometimes fungal spores are carried along with the soil, sometimes already infected seeds come across. The vascular system of the plant is affected in this disease. The leaves begin to wither starting from the bottom row. Gradually all the leaves become lethargic and turn yellow to the top and the seedling dies. At the first signs of this infection, diseased sprouts should be removed completely, and not tried to save, otherwise the infection will spread to all plantings. The remaining bushes must be transplanted into clean, disinfected soil. And only after that, they begin to use special drugs to combat this disease (Fitolavin, Fitosporin, Profit Gold, Bravo and others).

Blackleg

A very common and very dangerous disease of a bacterial nature. Among all the reasons for the wilting of seedlings and their death, the black leg is in the sad first place. The stem of the stem at the base becomes thinner, darkens, the leaves, devoid of nutrients, wither, and then the plant falls, as if decapitated. It is possible to save already affected bushes only at the earliest stage of the disease, and even then not always. Trying to reanimate heavily affected seedlings is pointless, it is better to immediately destroy them as infectious. The soil should be disinfected with a solution of pharmacy potassium permanganate.

The best way to prevent infectious diseases and tomatoes is to buy varieties that are resistant to these infections.

Black rot

It affects tomato bushes, which are kept in conditions of excessive moisture, but insufficient heat. Rot affects the leaves, which wither, lose color and fall off, causing the death of the entire bush. It is no longer possible to save the affected seedlings, they should be removed by the root, and the remaining healthy ones should be transplanted into another container and into another soil.

This material gives an exhaustive list of reasons why tomato seedlings wither when grown at home. With the exception of the infection introduced into the soil, all of them can be predicted and eliminated. And cultivating the land before planting seed will significantly reduce the likelihood of infectious contamination. Attentive attitude and comprehensive competent care will minimize the risk of losing future tomato harvest at the stage of growing seedlings.