That is just what I was about to ask about. I think between 5 & 7 days above ground. I’ll have to check my notes to be sure but I can’t do that for a couple hours.
My best days for transplanting will be Sunday or next weekend. They are all growing their second leaves now. They all receive about 1/3 cup of water twice a day. Excess is running out the bottom of the peat cup & through the surrounding soil. They will be transplanted into a 50-50 coco-perlite soil & need nutrients after transplant. Nutrients will be Jacks 1-2-3.
Because of the soil & nutrient needs, do I do it this weekend or wait until I have a third set of leaves and more roots?
Also, when I transplant, should I half bury these stems?
I’ve transplanted anywhere from 5-10 days. Depends on controlling the stretch. I’m sure Sunday would be the best time to do that. I moved to germinating in nursery bags so I can put the bag right in the pot, previous transplant with just coco and solo cup can get a little risky. I would soak that peat cup pretty good and cut it down the sides for the transplant. I learned to never use those again after 2 of my plants suffered root bound. I also start adding calmag at first sign of flowering
My seedling mix is peat moss, perlite, & horticultural silicone - no added nutrients.
I think what I’ll do tomorrow is rip the pot off and keep them in the seedling mix inside the coco-perlite mixture. I’ll add jacks 1-2-3 and half strength.
I wasn’t feeling it tonight but made myself do it anyway. I’m glad I did. It took longer than I expected and when I peeled the peat pot off, I could see the roots had barely started touching it.
I’m flushing them with water and setting up my new watering schedule.
The irrigation return pump is not working out as well as hoped. Now I’m looking at wet vacs. I’ll just have to half the watering cycle when I go out of town to minimize runoff.
After a day, the transplant, new watering schedule, & nutrients seem to be going okay. The White Widow just grew its third set of leaves. I also cranked the light up to 100% today.
The Golden Leaf photo started looking wilty this morning and still looked wilty tonight.
I figured out that my nutrients weren’t completely dissolving. The crystals on the bottom of the bucket were making the irrigation water more salty on the bottom and less salty on top where I was measuring.
I dumped the bucket, rinsed, and mixed new nutrients. Then I flushed about a 1/4th gallon through each of the plants while I was resetting the irrigation drips. I now have ≈1300ppm going in and ≈1800ppm in the runoff.
The 1300 is ok going in, 1800 coming out is typical of salts and minerals built up in the root zone. Basically she’s not eating if more comes out than going in, root lock out . Running PH’d water through them was a good idea. Does your irrigation system provide enough water for run off? That’s a culprit of those salts building up in the root zone. Coco should be watered or fed daily to run off, that’ll flush those excess nutes at the same time
I’ve been running about 2 gallons through the 4 plants and collecting about 1.5 gallons. The watering has been spread out over 4 times a day. Last night I shortened it to two times a day for twice as long and running two pots on one schedule and two on the other.
It’s interesting how finicky the photo is compared to the three autos. They are all receiving the same water and the autos are all perky.
I’m going to 86 the irrigation drippers this weekend and DIY soaker hoses. This dinky pump just doesn’t supply enough head to run 8 drippers on a circuit. I’ll also buy the shopvac so I don’t have to pull the plants to drain runoff.
The increase in salt today was much lower. I mixed new nutrients again and set up the irrigation with less fuss than yesterday. So I flushed everything with tap water and I’ll skip tonight’s watering.
One other thing I decided is the GL was probably in the coldest part of the tent, next to the air intake. So I moved the temp probe to its pot.
Nice. Man that brings back some memories from when online usernames for games became a huge thing with Xbox live. I think my first one was like redthunder420 or something like that. Lol
I’m my opinion and experience seedlings that size should not be watered to runoff and should not need to be flushed. They only need a little bit of water to do well. As for raising the light I probably would have lowered it or kept it the same so the plants don’t stretch to much. Good to keep them in the upper to mid 70’s if possible.
Just read through the thread and didn’t see any mention of a circulation fan in the tent. If you don’t have 1 you should get 1. A gentle breeze (just barely making them dance)will help the stems get stronger then as they get bigger and stronger you can increase fan speed
I have two fans. One runs all the time. The other runs only with the heater. They aren’t in the pictures because they are pole mounted.
I flushed because I’m in a 70-30 coco-perlite mix and my nutrients were going from 1300 to 1800ppm in one bin and 1300 to 2200ppm in the other bin. I don’t know if my nutrients had been accumulating or if I should have flushed the coco mix before transplanting. The bag didn’t indicate it had any amendments. Either way, I’m 1300ppm in and out now.
When I posted, I only posted the 1800ppm one because only the Golden Leaf was showing distress. Then I discovered the White Widow bin was twice as bad.
I raised the light because the plants had grown from when I moved them into the tent. My light is 24” above the leaves.
As for runoff, it takes less than half a quart of water to get runoff in the coco-mix. My pump is now set to run a little past that amount and the bins collect what the plant doesn’t take.
Getting the pump & drippers dialed in has been a huge PITA, but I think I finally got it.
The heater is set at 76F +/- 1F. The room the tent is in is always colder than 76F (except for the summer). The temperature will run 72F - 78F depending on how cold it is outside & how hard the wind is blowing. I moved the probe so the plant furthest from the heater & closest to the air intake stays 72F. Before I had the probe in the plant closest to the heater & furthest from the air intake.
They are all growing their second leaves now.
