Seedling stunted, anything wrong?

[Azimuth]

I still want to know if I can somehow introduce the compost I have in my garden. It's 20+ years old compost, just stacking up every year, with very dark soil appearing the lower you go. Is there any use for this stuff in this peat-based substrate I have?

YES!!! NOW we're talkin'.

I just changed my mix to incorporate compost and the plants absolutely love it. And mine isn't even finished yet.

You can add it into your mix as a percentage of the mix and/or top dress with it. Add some worm castings to the mix and now you're cookin'.

 

[Acid]

Okay so before I do anything, I need someones good knowledge, because this is my BIGGEST problem - Watering.

This is my seedling right now, soil seems dry on top (normal potting mix soil in this case, not soilless). Still pretty slow in growth, but I noticed that it's getting slightly bigger. Day 8 or 9 after sprouting I think. I'm just telling myselt that it's not an auto, so it's fine.

I know the "inch or two" rule about dry soil / substrate, but this pot is just around 3 inches in height, which is why I'm asking specifically in this case. I wanted to be extra careful about root development and watering, so I chose the tiniest pot I had.

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This is the soil around 1cm / .4 inches beneath the dry soil. It's still dark, feels slightly colder than the top, and slightly moist. Not wet, there's no water marks on my finger when I touch it, but typical dark soil moist as in "there seems to be moisture". Last time I watered was on the 1st of September.

I know I'm over complicating this, but watering is MY ISSUE. The stuff that killed all my other plants apparently. I need a quick little opinion on if I should water this plant now, or wait another day?

 

[Azimuth]

If you're doing the wet/dry thing, the pot should be surprisingly light when you pick it up. Otherwise what you feel is water weight and its better to wait.

 

[bluter]

YES!!! NOW we're talkin'.

I just changed my mix to incorporate compost and the plants absolutely love it. And mine isn't even finished yet.

You can add it into your mix as a percentage of the mix and/or top dress with it. Add some worm castings to the mix and now you're cookin'.

maybe have him get through a normal grow first on basic nutes in a good media before you start throwing a mix of hybrid growing at him @Azimuth. i know you're excited but we have to help him learn the plant first.

it's best to get through a simple grow first and get some jars filled before experimenting with different methods and grow styles. it's a good idea to learn the plant and get a base knowledge of how to read what they need first.

Azi's preferred grow method smooths the watering / feeding cycle out. have a look at that for future
grows

in the meantime read up on @Emilya Green s watering techniques for potted plants and seedlings.

 

[Acid]

No worries, I won't include it in the current grow, already have enough problems with the basics. The compost already existed for years and years, it'll exist for many more years. Just wanted to know if that stuff is useful in an indoor grow!

I'll read up that guide again now, I'm just really scared of suffocating the roots again

 

[bluter]

The compost already existed for years and years, it'll exist for many more years. Just wanted to know if that stuff is useful in an indoor grow!

you could do a flat out organic or a hybrid grow with organics. it's a whole different approach though. first it's best to learn what the plant needs and when, without it pulling from multiple different sources which may interfere with each other.

edit : the only drawback to using compost in the future is introducing pests to the indoor grow that you will have to manage. compost piles always bring a bunch of them.

 

[SmokingWings]

I'm slowly losing the fun in doing this, I just feel dumb and dumber in each attempt, because I tried everything. At first I really did overwater, I got enough criticism and completely changed it up.

I noticed this comment earlier and after sitting back I get the feeling that maybe it has become a case of overthinking what has to be done. Considering all the information, methods, theories and opinions it has become a massive data dump.

Having said that I realize that I have something to add to "data dump". Stop worrying about how fast or slow the seedling is growing at the moment. Don't worry about whether the soil mix is wet or damp. And one thing I started doing awhile back was I stopped paying attention to any of the few seeds I planted or to the many cuttings I took from a plant. It was as if the less attention I paid the better the plant's chance of growing more leaves or the cutting being able to grow more roots sooner.

Kinda like the watched pot that never boils, we could say that the watched plant never grows. Once I stopped checking the seedling or the cutting and just left them alone I noticed that my success rate went up. Instead of picking the small seedling and pot up twice a day to feel the weight I would firmly believe that I had proper moisture in the soil to begin with and then ignored it. Several days later I would reach over and pick the small pot up and the plant would still be OK. Maybe it needed water so I put a little bit on and back into the corner. Then one day I realized it was time to transplant.

It might help to make a note on a piece of blue masking tape with the date that you stick the small pot into the corner. That helps to avoid the times when you think that it has been 4 or 5 days and as you reach over to grab the small pot you notice that your note says "09-02-23" and you realize that you just put the thing in the corner yesterday morning.

 

[Acid]

Yeah I need to keep my hands away from those plants. I feel like I may actually consider this to be slow growth because I open the tent every 2 hours, just to look at it. Not because I'm worried, but because it's fun to look at. But the drawback is that it also feels slow. Good and bad at the same time I guess.

But as we all know, I still find stuff to worry about, which is why I'll post this picture now:

This happened today. I'm not worried about anything, I'd just like to know if this is normal growth just being yellow at first, or if this is a typical symptom of overwatering? I'm used to lighter shades of green with new growth, but this is the kind of yellow that reminds me of my autos that died. Just making sure so I understand better.

 

[bluter]

it takes a few days for them to green in.

 

[Roy Growin]

I stand seedlings in a little water for 10 mins - the medium will absorb just enough water without waterlogging by capillary action
If the water hasn't been soaked up in 10 mins, tip it away and let the medium thoroughly drain
Couldn't be more simple

 

[Acid]

So another little update because I love talking about stuff - As this slow girl is currently trying to find her way out of being suffocated by the God of Water (that's me), I felt like getting a second one ready. This stuff is addicting and I hate that it's so expensive, especially considering that I pop $10 with each seed as this strain was REALLY hard to get here.

This time I wanna change it up a bit. I currently germinate a second Gazzurple seed with the shot glass method for 24 hours, and then probably plant it into its first pot as soon as the seed pops. If it doesn't pop after 18-24 hours, I'll throw it into a wet cotton pad, as I don't trust this for longer than 24 hours. I'm not a big fan of letting a big root grow first. Germination always works wonderfully for me. If you want your seeds to always germinate, let me know. But do you also want your plants to die soon after? Let me know once again. If you guys want your male plants removed but still love them, just give them to me, I'll treat them nicely and they'll die anyways.

The difference this time is the substrate - I did 60% BioBizz Light Mix (Peat moss based substrate) and 40% perlite. Yes, 40%. I feel like this may almost count as coco because it's SO AIRY, I couldn't believe how light the pot was, but my gut tells me this is the way for me. It told me this from the first seed I planted in June this year, but I still went the other way for some reason. I still have the other Gazz plant though, and an auto I'll grow by the side, in case this goes severely wrong. Little side note: For whatever reason the auto seedling is stretching heavily at 350ppfd (by light manufacturers height recommendation, phone even says 430ppfd) which is kinda confusing, but whatever.

I chose a funky looking pot this time, it's for some plant whose name I forgot. It has a bottom that's pointing inwards into the pot, with tons of ventilation stripes and holes. Should be around 300ml. I did a 100% dry weight check on the scale, and it's at 166 grams bonebone-dry. This is the most important step for me, the god damn dry-weight. I then pre-moistened it as BioBizz recommends doing this at least 36 hours before using, and now it's at around 215 grams with slightly wet soil.

My plan now: Wait for seed to pop, 1/2 inch hole into the pre-moistened soil, throw seed root-down in, cover the hole, throw a tiny amount of water on top, and.. chill. Just chill this time. I'll also put another translucent cup on top, with some holes in it, as a humidity dome. Am I onto something this time, or is it absolutely silly with this amount of perlite? It's just the starter pot for now, so I feel like that's worth a try. Does anyone have experience with such high amounts of perlite?

 

[Azimuth]

We often do 40% perlite in SIPs so you should be fine. And don't leave the dome on after they break ground or you'll discover another way to kill seedlings.

 

[Acid]

I already made a list for the SIP project, but my budget won't really allow it right now. Soon though, this sounds so interesting. Problem isn't exactly the hardware itself, but the fact that my BioBizz nutrients only stay fresh for a few hours to a day if added to water, and I have the whole line. I currently can't afford a second line of nutrients just for this. Considering that the plant is wicking "stagnant" water through a reservoir, the nutrients will go bad and root rot may sooner or later happen if I'm not wrong, or? I feel like this is probably something that works for "chemical" nutrients, where even adding hydrogen peroxide will cause no harm if done correctly, even help the plant in some way, and keep the reservoir free of any bacterial activities. I'd love to hear an answer about that, as otherwise I may actually build this in a few days & throw my newest addition into it as a project.

And yes, but I have to mention that the substrate itself already has 30% perlite in it, but I still added 40% more in comparison to volume. Maybe too much perlite? We will see, I'm excited.

Small edit because I thought it was worth a mention: My newest seed already popped open. It's been not even 6 hours. That's amazing. I did shot glass with water + 1% hydrogen peroxide this time. Can't believe this worked so fast, it usually takes 24+ hours in wet paper for the seed to slightly pop open.

 

[Fenderbender]

It does work with other nutes as well but you might get a bit of a stinky reservoir.
I SIP as well and well first I went for the ease of the reservoir as you can fill it and leave your plants be for weeks.
But now I've also started just filling the reservoir a tiny bit, if there needs to be water in the soil she'll pull most of it from the reservoir after one night and saturate the soil with it.. so if you work in small quantities you won't really have a res full of standing water for a week.

Good thing going for the perlite you do want your medium the plant is in to be light and aerated.

 

[Azimuth]

Organic nutes do work in SIPs, but most using them use topdressed, solid nutes like Geoflora and feed from the top. Not sure how liquid organics would work fed that way. I do liquid plant extracts in my grow fed from the top which work fine but I only feed them that way every couple of weeks.

It would probably work fine if you treated it like a regular grow and only give enough so you got a little runoff in the reservoir each time you water, rather than going directly through the fill tube.

That way there would be a little bit in the reservoir for the plant to use up in a day or so, but nothing standing too long down there.

 

[Acid]

Update time: The second seedling I was germinating in my high-perlite substrate? It fell apart. It literally fell apart, the cotyledons fell off when I removed the humidity dome. I laughed, but I was sad. But trust me, I laughed a lot more than I was sad. The comedic timing was just amazing, they just plopped off without any force involved, right when I took the dome off. It didn't recover at all, and died over the span of 24 hours. I took it out the tent as soon as this happened, as I don't want anything to spread in case it was something bad, and moved it to a window.

The current problematic girl is actually.. alright now. I wouldn't say that the growth is good in any way, no, the growth is extremely slow. Luckily it's a photo plant, so it doesn't exactly matter. It's still boring though. It's been 13 days since germination, and this is what she looks like right now:

As you can see, the second set of leaves is actually coming out in a lush green. But sadly, this is taking.. ages. Or to be exact, it took almost 1 week for the second set of leaves to _almost_ appear as leaves, they're still tiny. BUT they're actually coming now. You guys missed a few days, the yellowing got worse and worse each day, but - Maybe it'll actually start growing perfectly fine now? The first set of leaves took a hit too, they're rather pale now.

I still don't know why it's so slow, but I'm also glad she's actually showing signs of life again. I followed most of your guys recommendations, now I drip feed only (She got 15ml today with a syringe, fed around the outer edges of the leaves), I let it dry out completely, but I did repot it into lighter more airy peat substrate with perlite, which may count for a day or two of stunted growth too, but also saved that plants life I think. I also lowered the PPFD to almost 200, with a DLI of 13-14.

Yes it all sounds more complicated than it should be, but as long as she's alive now, I can go back to the simple stuff. I don't have a lot of money, I can only grow one or two plants at once, and every seed counts, so I try my best to keep them alive. I can't just plant 10 high quality seeds and throw a few out if they don't survive. Every plant counts for me.

I'm actually kinda happy about this tiny new growth. It's not a harvest-ready plant, but I'm happy.

 

[Acid]

Last post for now: I think we're back on track with normal growth speed, or? If we compare it to the image of yesterday. I'm so happy, you wouldn't believe it. Look at those wonderful green colors coming out the new growth. Oh god it's so beautiful.

Thanks everyone, I'll get back if I do dumb sh*t again, until then: THANK YOU EVERYONE!!!