Help with slow seedlings

[AutoCrazy]

I added a few other things to the soil as well that I guess I should have mentioned in my original post. A small about of chicken manure and Dolomite lime which is 20% cal and 9% mag. As well as small amounts of bone meal. Typically the mixture I use has gotten me to week 3-4 when I’ve used it in my greenhouse.

But perhaps I will try to use 1/4 - 1/8 strength mixture of nutes and see if that helps.

As for the lights they are 32” away.

Thanks for the info

 

[AutoCrazy]

Update. The cream manderine xl auto was pulled as it just wasn’t growing. 3 more beans have been germinated and have sprouted (2 x cream manderine xl auto and 1 x northern lights auto)

The white widow auto by canuk is coming along now.

Day 13

 

[Beerhunter CDN]

View attachment 1003890 View attachment 1003891 Update. The cream manderine xl auto was pulled as it just wasn’t growing. 3 more beans have been germinated and have sprouted (2 x cream manderine xl auto and 1 x northern lights auto)

The white widow auto by canuk is coming along now.

Day 13

They look good!! As for planting seeds, you could try the Solo cup method. Pack some precharged coco in a Solo cup with holes drilled in the bottom for drainage. Drop your germinated seed in there. I used one clear cup the first time so I could watch for root development. Fill your pot with precharged coco and stick an empty solo cup in the middle. When it comes time to transplant the seedling pull the empty cup out of the pot, throw some nutes in the hole and plop the coco/seedling in the hole from the Solo cup. There are variations of this method also but that is what I did and I’ll do it that way again. If you have mycorrhizae powder you can dust the inside of the hole with it also. Learned it from @lunarman

 

[lunarman]

In soil, water to some run off, then let it dry well before next watering. Get used to feeling the weight of pot with a thumb and index finger lift. Soon enough you will know when they want to be fed.

I always start in solo cups then transplant day 10. The reason I do this is because its easier to manage moisture in a small container. I find this is way more accurate than lifting pots and the knuckle test. At least for me it is. One day I'll have enough experience when i probably don't need to be so anal about it.

• Weighing: One thing I do in the first 10 days is weigh the cups. I know what a properly watered 16 oz solo cup weighs with moist coco. So when its about 30 grams light I water to the point the weight is back up. I'm usually watering using a shot glass so about 1.5 ounces.
• Moisture probe. Those cheap moisture probes work great in solo cups. Takes a lot of guessing out of is it too wet or is it too dry. I don't like them in big pots very much, but solo cups work good with the meter.
• Bottom dunking for tap root growth: After breaking ground I switch to watering from the bottom. I dunk the cup in feed water from the bottom where the drain holes are. That first of all means the water has far less chance of drowning a seedling and damping. Also it encourages the tap root to head south.

 

[lunarman]

I am going to a friendly disagreement with others. I think your plants are too small. And I'd almost maybe cull them all and start over. But that might be too drastic. But I have been coached to expect autos to rock right out of the gate. you don't want to just accept slow starting seedlings. If they are slow starting and its because your setup isn't ideal, don't you want to fix that and get to a point where the autos start faster? I do find that if plants are slow starting they end up being runts. But I have heard others say sometimes those slow starters end up being the biggest plants. I haven't grown enough to see that myself but others certainly have.

I know you asked for pictures. I log my grows so I know dates, age etc. Here are a couple of pics of seedlings from my last grow where I got my best start to date. And I'm pretty sure I can do even better in the future. So for me this would be good, but still can be improved upon.

7 Days

11 Days

15 days

 

[AutoCrazy]

I am going to a friendly disagreement with others. I think your plants are too small. And I'd almost maybe cull them all and start over. But that might be too drastic. But I have been coached to expect autos to rock right out of the gate. you don't want to just accept slow starting seedlings. If they are slow starting and its because your setup isn't ideal, don't you want to fix that and get to a point where the autos start faster? I do find that if plants are slow starting they end up being runts. But I have heard others say sometimes those slow starters end up being the biggest plants. I haven't grown enough to see that myself but others certainly have.

I know you asked for pictures. I log my grows so I know dates, age etc. Here are a couple of pics of seedlings from my last grow where I got my best start to date. And I'm pretty sure I can do even better in the future. So for me this would be good, but still can be improved upon.

7 Days

View attachment 1004015

11 Days

View attachment 1004013 View attachment 1004012

15 days

View attachment 1004014

Thanks for all the helpful tips. The pictures were a nice visual of what to expect/aim for. Next time around I will give the solo cup method a go. As for culling the whole lot, I am down to just the white Widow now. It seems to be growing nicely now ;-)

My other three germinated seeds went right into their final container and all have popped to the surface and are off to a better start already then the last bunch. I really think my issue might have had a lot to do with the coco coir rooting plugs I had put them in to start. I hadn’t had any problems when using them in my greenhouse so thought nothing of it.

When I culled the 2 of the first lot and looked to see what was going on at the root level it wasn’t good! The tap roots looked to have had a really hard time getting through the mesh of the coco plugs and in the case of the bubba kush, the slowest of the three, the tap root had gone totally horizontal. My low humidity likely played a role as well and I think I overwatered a bit :-(. Rookie mistakes!

The picture is of the cream manderine xl auto day one. It doesn’t want to let its shell go lol.