More Purple Troubles

Six seedlings developed signs of the purple desease that affected #15 in the past. I am a little less pessimistic than the first time around but the concern is with this dramatic spread of this phenomenon on multiple samples over short period of time.

Here is #34 a week ago and today:

#34 January 6, 2013

#34 January 13, 2013

A week ago, only the very tips of the larger needles had purple color. Today almost entire plant is purplish grayish.

I sprayed all plants, affected and not with Chlorothalonil. Other affected plants have varying degree of the purple blight, with just a bit on the tips through most major needles completely covered. 

On a positive side, strongest seedlings show very minor signs of the desease at this time while growing at a brisk pace. The two leaders #38 and #39 both formed branches from which new needles grow. #38 formed only one branch (lower one in picture below) but it is so large that it now rivals the original branch:

#38 January 13, 2013. 1 month and 3 weeks old.

#39 on the other hand formed three new branches, all of which are smaller than the main, but they form a nice ball-shaped body:

#39 January 13, 2013. 1 month and 3 weeks old.

#38 is taking a very slanted position, while #39 remains mostly vertical. In both cases they apparently look very healthy.

There is also a nice cluster of seedlings in the 70 range at this time:

The "dead" #15 continues to grow vigorously beginning to catch up with the most of strong seedlings in the 30 and 40 range:

#15 January 13, 2013. 2 months and 1 week old.

At this rate #15 will become a rival for #38 and #39 in a matter of days.

Finally, my younger daughter requested that I would give her one of the sequoia seedlings so that she could take care of it all by herself. I gave her #44. It is the tallest one to date, with a reasonably developed core of secondary needles but without any new branches yet. It was also moderately affected by the purple blight. I decided to do an experiment with this one because the young girl would not be able to wait and most likely will subject #44 to frequent waterings. I explained to her how to use the moisture meter and asked her to keep it in 2 region. We separated #44 from the rest of the group in its own little setup:

The three original needles are purple while the rest is green:

#44 January 12, 2012. 1 month and 3 weeks old.

From the environmental considerations:

I decided to change this week watering to top watering from the side syringe injections. The soil on top of the plants was getting extremely dry and hard and I figured that's also not a good thing. It's a far fetched conclusion that it's causing plants to be unhappy and turn purple, but will see what happens. I added 150ml of water on top of the soil for all plants except #4. #4 which has original black and very dense soil still shows 3+ reading on the  moisture meter at 3 inch depth, so I left it alone.

I also added about 20ml each to all seedlings of the Fish plant food.

Finally, as noted above I sprayed all samples with Chlorotholanil as can be observed on the #44 close-up picture above.

More mortality statistics: #102 which had a fairly long but very thin root, died. #103 and #104, which I predicted the former would live and the latter would die, still both stand. Against my prediction #104 looks better than #103, now forming first appearance of secondary needles. #103 looks like it would collapse at any moment. #61, #89 and #90 also died.