Question about dead stems
 

So I was growing some plants and a few of them started to die a bit until I moved them from soil growing to hydroponic growing and they are starting to come back into it a bit, but some of the plants have dead portions. Should I cut them off or will this hurt the plant? The plants in question are really just seedlings no more the 4 inches tall 2 inches of which is dead and shriveled brown but the roots and other 2 inches are nice healthy green.

The dead parts won't do the plant any good, I would trim it off. But you don't just want to leave a stem. Cutting back to a point just above a good leaf, or set of leaves will give the plant a place to grow from.

awesome thank you for the advice I will try and trim those parts off tonight.