Plant stems thinning out?

Question

I started growing some tomatoes and cucumbers in Dixie cups so I can plant them in the ground later. They just reached the stage where they loose the seed and have 2 leaves. When I moved them out a few days later the stems thinned out. One section of the stem about a centimeter long just thinned out and the plant is now drooping. What's going on? Can I get the plants back to normal and how?

I didn't transplant them. They're still in their dixie cups. I just moved them outside.

The dixie cups have proper drainage and not all the plants thinned out. In some cups I have 2 plants. one plant thinned out while the other didn't.

Answer 1

You just tried transplanting them too soon. The plants were just too young and tender. There is not much that you can do about it now. Trying to re-pot them would just be more stress. Just leave them alone and they might come along OK. In the mean time you should start you some more plants. You don't have too much time and money tied up in them yet. This time plant them in peat pots or the peat pellets. There will be less stress when you plant the whole pot and you will disturb the root system less than with the Dixie cups. Good luck.

Sorry Christigmc, I misunderstood your question. To an agronomist "setting out seedlings" means transplanting. So forgive the useless advice. Now I just have to more or less take a guess as to what your problem is. It sounds like you are doing everything properly. One thing it might be is that you have overwatered. After you have saturated the soil the Dixie cups wouldn't let the excess water drain off. That one plant you describe sounds a lot like a disease called Damping off. Seedlings that have emerged are usually attacked at or below the soil line. The organism can easily penetrate the young soft stem tissue. The infected stem portion becomes discolored and begins to shrink. As this occurs, the supportive strength of the stem's invaded portion is lost, and the seedling topples over. The fungi continue to invade the remaining portion of the seedling, resulting in death. This phase of the disease is termed postemergence damping-off.
Read the link below and see if this may look like your problem. Since you are located on a campus, run some of the worst plants over to the Agronomy/Horticulture Department and they can tell you exactly what problem you have and what to do about it.

Answer 2

You should wait till secondary leaves appear and the plant grows to nearly 6 inches in height, this is an indication that the roots have developed. You may try to put them back in dixie cups as the soil in feild is hard and may be harsh for such tender plants while the soil in dixie cups is soft and plant will easily grow there also this will give the plant some time to harden.

Answer 3

not enough light