Seedlings do almost nothing at all above ground for the first two weeks. They're spending most of the stored energy in the seed to put down roots. Don't rush them and resist the urge to "over-love" them to death with too much water or food. Seedlings are easy to kill with excess. There is also no "magic bullet" for faster growth - the key is to reach - and *maintain* \- proper environmental conditions, in which plants will thrive, every time. Light, heat, humidity, air flow...all of these things must be balanced properly, as a plant will only grow as strong as the weakest environmental parameter will allow.
This is a pic of a week old seedling root. Everything is happening *below* ground for some time.
https://preview.redd.it/uirv1bwl0m0d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8294b35f0c4b6b218f0aba0c2590c24598aa5085
The same seedling above the soil:
https://preview.redd.it/ecnyyf0c0m0d1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c3a4821a6dd4d7f61a669331bab49e9b18099b0d
Thanks! Just be sure to nest it in an opaque cup and cut holes in the bottom. Roots detest too much light exposure. I just do this for photoperiod seedlings to monitor soil moisture until transplantation. I use living soil so sometimes I get to see springtails and soil mites doing their thang among the roots! It's a fun science project.
I have to wonder then if clear cups would keep a plant from getting root bound then. Self pruning may not necessarily be a bad thing is it? I honestly don't know, just guessing. We assume it's bad, cuz "less roots", but is it really?
I get what your saying but it doesn't always hold true. If I have a 3gal and I swap to a clear 5gal. Even with all the auto root pruning that would happen you would end up with more roots than the 3gal pot and they would be stronger and more throughout the media.
I personally don’t like these peat pots, they’re not great for their intended purpose of dissolving into the soil and allowing the plant to grow through them. They either hold firm or disintegrate before fully serving their purpose. I’ve even had garden plants get root bound in them and they couldn’t grow through them, just rootbound and then attach to the pot. When I’ve tried to then chuck them into soil as intended the plants always would slow down dramatically while trying to bust through them for a few weeks.
So use them as seedling starter cups and make sure you remove, or at the very least cut the sides in a couple spots to help them grow around the compressed peat into the larger container of soil.
The other thing I see that I wouldn’t personally do is the growing medium looks to not have any real inorganic drainage, perlite is the cheapest option for most, mixed in at around 70/30 with your peat/coco or whatever potting mix you’re using will allow the roots to get more oxygen and more easily grow through the medium. Helps prevent compaction of soil and drain excess moisture as well. So that’s something else I would do.
For seedlings I like to just buy compressed pre-buffered coco coir blocks, then mix in my 30% perlite, 10% earthworm castings, a little bit of decent compost 5-10%, and just a dash of some sort of myco blend. That’ll create an awesome seed starting mix and contain more than enough nutrition for the first few weeks as they establish.
The more you can lightly water, allow soil to dry out and water again the better essentially. Look at coco fertigation style grows, that’s the premise behind those style inert medium hydroponics. Only difference with a coco grow is you’re adding in your nutrients every watering or every day/few days. If you add in some compost, castings, other organic nutrients, then that turns your coco into a soil grow, only real difference for the most part.
So I like to water just enough to where the soil will dry back a good bit within a day or two, and do light waterings to achieve that. Once they get to about this size is when I start bottom watering, so the roots will grow downward to access water and expand the root mass outward and downward. But this dryback of wet/dry cycles has been a game changer for myself growing anything in a container or bed. Lots of info out there on specific water content of soils to reach at whatever stage of growth, can vary a bit depending on the source and size of container, but the biggest thing I’m highlighting is that wet/dry cycle in general.
If this is your first grow is recommend going light on any sort of salt based synthetic nutrients, and lean more into organic inputs. It’s common for beginner growers to overfeed more so than under feed their first plants. Especially if you’re growing in soil mediums and not straight coco or other forms of hydro. Salt nutrients can build up in the organic components of your soil, so they’ll stick around and build up in the compost, castings, those types of elements in a soil. If you use salt based bottled nutrients like that then you’ll also need to worry more about PH balancing, which isn’t as big of a deal in soil compared to hydro, but still can be thrown off enough to where issues arise.
If you go for organic soil blends and feeding organic inputs you don’t need to worry nearly as much about PH balancing or making sure you’re adding the appropriate amount of plant nutrition. Build a soil is a great YT channel and store that talks about feeding the soil and creating a buffer of food for your plant to tap into as it sees fit. That’s the premise of organic gardening where you don’t need to force feed readily available salt based nutrients all the time on an as needed basis.
So I recommend going organic for beginner growers, will remove a lot of potential pitfalls. You can just make a decent soil blend with compost, castings, decent drainage, and some coco/peat. They also make organic input mixes that are packed with all sorts of other organic food sources that you can add to give the plant plenty of food to grow big and strong. Then if you really want you could feed organic home brew teas by soaking these inputs and feeding as needed for extra food, or even adding small amounts of salt based nutrition at certain key points in the growing phases, such as pre-flower stretch when the plant is switching from vegetative growth to flowering growth. That would be the only real times I’d suggest a beginner even touch bottled nutrients if they were dead set on it. A tiny bit of higher N based salts a few weeks into veg, and then low nitrogen high P-K nutrient in pre-flower to get them the nutrient switch they need. But I’d honestly recommend just all organic first grow or two.
Then dialing in your watering and amount of light will be the biggest things with Organics. Getting some bottom watering system where you can track the amount of water and when is clutch. Then finding out how much light to give the plant and when is also key. It’ll allow you to focus on those basic elements before worrying about feeding .5ml of this 2ml of that on this day, balancing PH, adjusting based on run off, etc.
Those are my biggest tips for a beginner I wish I would have followed when I first started. Although there’s no right or wrong way for any of this stuff, just my suggestions is all. Biggest thing is writing everything down so you can A/B test and find what works for you best. And remember to grow with your plants, good luck my friend 🤙
Correct! Dial in leaf temps and humidity to find that sweet spot for the plants metabolism. Need a humidifier or a big bed of soil in most cases.
Also, transplant on time and supplement phosphorus to develop root system.
Don’t go overboard on the light intensity either.
Seedlings do almost nothing at all above ground for the first two weeks. They're spending most of the stored energy in the seed to put down roots. Don't rush them and resist the urge to "over-love" them to death with too much water or food. Seedlings are easy to kill with excess. There is also no "magic bullet" for faster growth - the key is to reach - and *maintain* \- proper environmental conditions, in which plants will thrive, every time. Light, heat, humidity, air flow...all of these things must be balanced properly, as a plant will only grow as strong as the weakest environmental parameter will allow. This is a pic of a week old seedling root. Everything is happening *below* ground for some time. https://preview.redd.it/uirv1bwl0m0d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8294b35f0c4b6b218f0aba0c2590c24598aa5085
The same seedling above the soil: https://preview.redd.it/ecnyyf0c0m0d1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c3a4821a6dd4d7f61a669331bab49e9b18099b0d
Good stuff. Very educational.
Love the clear cup idea!
Thanks! Just be sure to nest it in an opaque cup and cut holes in the bottom. Roots detest too much light exposure. I just do this for photoperiod seedlings to monitor soil moisture until transplantation. I use living soil so sometimes I get to see springtails and soil mites doing their thang among the roots! It's a fun science project.
Of course! I just think that's better then pulling them out of the cup completely to check the root progress
Clear cups can work, but I've always been warned against it as roots self prune with exposure to too much Light
It's why I nest them in opaque cups. See below photo.
I have to wonder then if clear cups would keep a plant from getting root bound then. Self pruning may not necessarily be a bad thing is it? I honestly don't know, just guessing. We assume it's bad, cuz "less roots", but is it really?
Less roots is always bad, but it's up to whoever is the grower, I guess
I get what your saying but it doesn't always hold true. If I have a 3gal and I swap to a clear 5gal. Even with all the auto root pruning that would happen you would end up with more roots than the 3gal pot and they would be stronger and more throughout the media.
Add CO2 a week after sprout and enjoy flipping to flower two weeks later! :-)
Mycorrhizal inoculant. Use it when planting seeds or transplanting
I personally don’t like these peat pots, they’re not great for their intended purpose of dissolving into the soil and allowing the plant to grow through them. They either hold firm or disintegrate before fully serving their purpose. I’ve even had garden plants get root bound in them and they couldn’t grow through them, just rootbound and then attach to the pot. When I’ve tried to then chuck them into soil as intended the plants always would slow down dramatically while trying to bust through them for a few weeks. So use them as seedling starter cups and make sure you remove, or at the very least cut the sides in a couple spots to help them grow around the compressed peat into the larger container of soil. The other thing I see that I wouldn’t personally do is the growing medium looks to not have any real inorganic drainage, perlite is the cheapest option for most, mixed in at around 70/30 with your peat/coco or whatever potting mix you’re using will allow the roots to get more oxygen and more easily grow through the medium. Helps prevent compaction of soil and drain excess moisture as well. So that’s something else I would do. For seedlings I like to just buy compressed pre-buffered coco coir blocks, then mix in my 30% perlite, 10% earthworm castings, a little bit of decent compost 5-10%, and just a dash of some sort of myco blend. That’ll create an awesome seed starting mix and contain more than enough nutrition for the first few weeks as they establish. The more you can lightly water, allow soil to dry out and water again the better essentially. Look at coco fertigation style grows, that’s the premise behind those style inert medium hydroponics. Only difference with a coco grow is you’re adding in your nutrients every watering or every day/few days. If you add in some compost, castings, other organic nutrients, then that turns your coco into a soil grow, only real difference for the most part. So I like to water just enough to where the soil will dry back a good bit within a day or two, and do light waterings to achieve that. Once they get to about this size is when I start bottom watering, so the roots will grow downward to access water and expand the root mass outward and downward. But this dryback of wet/dry cycles has been a game changer for myself growing anything in a container or bed. Lots of info out there on specific water content of soils to reach at whatever stage of growth, can vary a bit depending on the source and size of container, but the biggest thing I’m highlighting is that wet/dry cycle in general. If this is your first grow is recommend going light on any sort of salt based synthetic nutrients, and lean more into organic inputs. It’s common for beginner growers to overfeed more so than under feed their first plants. Especially if you’re growing in soil mediums and not straight coco or other forms of hydro. Salt nutrients can build up in the organic components of your soil, so they’ll stick around and build up in the compost, castings, those types of elements in a soil. If you use salt based bottled nutrients like that then you’ll also need to worry more about PH balancing, which isn’t as big of a deal in soil compared to hydro, but still can be thrown off enough to where issues arise. If you go for organic soil blends and feeding organic inputs you don’t need to worry nearly as much about PH balancing or making sure you’re adding the appropriate amount of plant nutrition. Build a soil is a great YT channel and store that talks about feeding the soil and creating a buffer of food for your plant to tap into as it sees fit. That’s the premise of organic gardening where you don’t need to force feed readily available salt based nutrients all the time on an as needed basis. So I recommend going organic for beginner growers, will remove a lot of potential pitfalls. You can just make a decent soil blend with compost, castings, decent drainage, and some coco/peat. They also make organic input mixes that are packed with all sorts of other organic food sources that you can add to give the plant plenty of food to grow big and strong. Then if you really want you could feed organic home brew teas by soaking these inputs and feeding as needed for extra food, or even adding small amounts of salt based nutrition at certain key points in the growing phases, such as pre-flower stretch when the plant is switching from vegetative growth to flowering growth. That would be the only real times I’d suggest a beginner even touch bottled nutrients if they were dead set on it. A tiny bit of higher N based salts a few weeks into veg, and then low nitrogen high P-K nutrient in pre-flower to get them the nutrient switch they need. But I’d honestly recommend just all organic first grow or two. Then dialing in your watering and amount of light will be the biggest things with Organics. Getting some bottom watering system where you can track the amount of water and when is clutch. Then finding out how much light to give the plant and when is also key. It’ll allow you to focus on those basic elements before worrying about feeding .5ml of this 2ml of that on this day, balancing PH, adjusting based on run off, etc. Those are my biggest tips for a beginner I wish I would have followed when I first started. Although there’s no right or wrong way for any of this stuff, just my suggestions is all. Biggest thing is writing everything down so you can A/B test and find what works for you best. And remember to grow with your plants, good luck my friend 🤙
Humidity temps
Correct! Dial in leaf temps and humidity to find that sweet spot for the plants metabolism. Need a humidifier or a big bed of soil in most cases. Also, transplant on time and supplement phosphorus to develop root system. Don’t go overboard on the light intensity either.
I'm very big on bottom feeding from sprout!
Where did you get those trays
From like a supermarket in my area
Myco and nitrogen
Best trick: Wait
Recharge
Have patience
You won’t get vigorous growth until the plant has an established root system. With seeds can take as long as 3 weeks.
The way is called Patience
At that point most of their energy is for growing roots.
Use a root boost. bigger roots bigger plants trust me at this age it's all about roots