The plant disease 'Damping off' is a preventable

The plant disease,'damping-off' is really a fungal infection usually attacking seedlings causing the stem near the ground-line to rot and topple the plant. It usually attacks if you overwater your plant for a period of time and if conditions are damp and humid.

It hardly ever seems to attack mature plants but I have had it happen to me twice - I lost two mature green pepper plants to it and I was not pleased...

A hydroponics system is always damp by virtue of design so may be more prone to it but there is an easy, foolproof way to prevent this fungal infection.

When I lost my pepper plants to this infection I looked very closely at where the plants were placed, how much nutrient water received, etc. and I came to the inescapable conclusion that my plants were sitting too low in the ebb/flow system so the actual stem of the plants were getting washed in nutrient solution several times a day.

The infection, in this case, was completely preventable...

So, how would you guard against this? If you look at a plant near the base of the stem there is almost a clear division where the stem starts and the upper root system begins.

Make sure your plant is sunk in the growing medium to a point where the nutrient water line is below this division; where the beginning of the roots have to drop down to reach the nutrient solution. Do this and 'damping-off' disease will merely be something you read about and not have to experience.

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