Hi everyone.

Leslie - Your seedlings don't look too good and it's difficult to diagnose the problem from a photo. I suspect they are suffering from insufficient water. Your growing medium looks to be dry and small seedlings such as these should never be allowed to dry out.

Fertilising them won't help as a plant has to be healthy to be able to utilise the fertilise. Although I have never grown pineapple (ananas) seedlings I have grown many other genera and on the few occasions I have seen this problem I have done the following with success.

Take the remaining good seedlings out of their container and wash all of the mix from them. Give them a good soak in a reliable fungicide (as a preventative). I don't know what types are available in your country so you would need to consult another grower or a horticulturalist at a nursery for advice. Also be warned that some fungicides contain copper which can be fatal to bromeliads , so you want one without copper.

Once they have been soaked, plant them in a container of live sphagnum moss which you should keep damp, but not wet. Put them somewhere warm inside your house and in good light but not so close to a window that they will get burnt by the sun. Spray them each day with plain water to make sure they don't dry out again.

Don't get your hopes up though as there only seems to be two that have a chance of surviving.

Good luck.

All the best, Nev.

Too wet, too dry, wrong temperature regime, maybe a mite infestation...

I wouldn't use fungicide unless I had specific indications there was a fungus problem. Same goes for mites - never buy and apply a spray without positive identification first.

I'll try more water and hope for the best. You say not to get my hopes up, but it took so long to get them to this point that I hate to lose them!

Ever hopeful,

Leslie

I had tiny cryptanthus pups without roots. tried rooting them in moist perlite without success for a couple of months (enclosed).

then I read about long fiber sphag: put them in a closed tub in moist sphag and they plumped up immediately and were rooted in a month. they are still in sphag but open now an in some morning weak sun doing great.

at least put a thin layer of moist sphag on top of vermiculate and put a film over the top: they need to get much larger before you can open them up.

Okay, they're enclosed again, and I'll look for some moss ASAP. Thanks!!!!