{"id":23592,"date":"2024-04-03T09:35:46","date_gmt":"2024-04-03T13:35:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/extension.umaine.edu\/gardening\/?p=23592"},"modified":"2024-04-03T09:36:25","modified_gmt":"2024-04-03T13:36:25","slug":"true-leaves-on-tomato-seedlings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/extension.umaine.edu\/gardening\/2024\/04\/03\/true-leaves-on-tomato-seedlings\/","title":{"rendered":"How long should it take for true leaves to appear on tomato seedlings?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Question:<\/h3>\n<p><strong>How long should it take for true leaves to appear on tomato seedlings? Can I rescue these seedlings? I planted tomato and pepper seeds on 3\/1 using an organic seed-starting mix &amp; following the instructions of your excellent seed starting video. I placed them on a heat mat. Within 4 days, the tomato seeds had germinated, and began to grow rapidly (Pepps took a little longer). When I saw the tom seedlings were getting leggy, I adjusted the grow light to be closer (6&#8243; or so). I also boosted the heat in their space to be around 69 at night and up to around 75 during the day. I put a fan on them. A few started to show signs of true leaves about a week ago, but the development is at a snail&#8217;s pace. Now they look yellow to me, and I fear I&#8217;ve overwatered. I am following the same process as last year &#8212; if anything keeping them warmer. Could it be the TP tubes? (A YouTube trick.) Could it be the grow light has lost its effectiveness? I&#8217;ve used the same ones for years. The pepper seedlings seem to be faring a little better.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3>Answer:<\/h3>\n<div><em>Jonathan Foster, Home Horticulture Outreach Professional<\/em><\/div>\n<p>You should normally see true leaves appear on tomato germinants\/seedlings somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-14 day after sprouting, so you&#8217;re definitely behind schedule. The seedlings you have are leggy and beginning to yellow&#8211;I fear the medium looks too wet, so you probably have some root rot or <a href=\"https:\/\/extension.psu.edu\/damping-off\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">damping off<\/a>\u00a0occurring. Your protocol doesn&#8217;t sound unreasonable to me, and the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/paulding\/2021\/03\/reuse-your-trash-to-start-seeds\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">toilet paper tubes<\/a>\u00a0aren&#8217;t a terrible idea for biodegradable seedling pots (though I would probably cut those in half&#8211;it&#8217;s a long tube of soil to drain), but I would switch to a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/extension.unh.edu\/blog\/2018\/03\/seed-starting-basics\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">sterile, soilless medium<\/a>\u00a0that will drain more readily and make sure there isn&#8217;t any water standing in the trays. Ideally, your growth medium will be light, moist but not wet, and somewhat loosely packed. I would advise starting with fresh seeds&#8211;efforts to dry the soil at this point probably won&#8217;t prevent weakened plants at maturity.<\/p>\n<p>While this may sound like discouraging news, you are actually\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mofga.org\/resources\/gardening\/seed-planting-calendar\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">still early to start tomatoes indoors<\/a>, anyway, so there is plenty of time to get a new batch of tomatoes going! And hopefully your little crop of vigorous pepper plant seedlings nearby will help soften the blow!<\/p>\n<p>Happy gardening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Question: How long should it take for true leaves to appear on tomato seedlings? Can I rescue these seedlings? I planted tomato and pepper seeds on 3\/1 using an organic seed-starting mix &amp; following the instructions of your excellent seed starting video. I placed them on a heat mat. Within 4 days, the tomato seeds [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[199,203],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ask","category-propagation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>How long should it take for true leaves to appear on tomato seedlings? - Cooperative Extension: Garden and Yard - University of Maine Cooperative Extension<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/extension.umaine.edu\/gardening\/2024\/04\/03\/true-leaves-on-tomato-seedlings\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How long should it take for true leaves to appear on tomato seedlings? - Cooperative Extension: Garden and Yard - University of Maine Cooperative Extension\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Question: How long should it take for true leaves to appear on tomato seedlings? 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