Seedlings Peat Moss & FF Ocean Forest

[SlyTown420]

Is it wise to use peat moss as a medium during the "baby seedling" stages to provide the root system an easy way to make its way around the pot? From what I have read it should be mixed at a minimum of 50/50 with a good soil like Fox Farms Ocean Forest. Is it ever acceptable or smart to use just peat moss by itself? I had these in very small Dixie cups to start and had to transplant into 16 oz. Solo "drinking" cups. My Fox Farms soil is in the mail so I was forced to use peat moss for 80-90% of the mixture. I know its acidic and I am worried that this was not smart. Most likely I'll move these into 100% Fox Farms Ocean Forest mid week. Any advice?

 

[Johnny5thesim]

I use peat. Promix HP. It has perlite for drainage. I used it from seedling in a solo cup, all the way through. It also has buffers to counter the inherit acidic nature of peat. So I’m not sure what your using.

It’s an inert medium. Also called soilless. This means you will have to provide all the nutrients the plant needs. Usually this is started once the 3rd or 4th set of leaves appears. Although this can vary based on people’s opinions. I started mine in day 14 from seed.

As for mixing it, I’m not sure about that. Perhaps it’s doable, but seems like an odd mix to me.

 

[Johnny5thesim]

And it will grow just fine in peat, i had tap roots shooting out the bottom of the solo on day 4. But waited until day 20 or so to transplant.

If your using just plain peat. You can look into top dressing with dolomite lime. Which will help bring it into proper levels. I’ve not had to mess with this, as promix has it!

 

[Johnny5thesim]

I might also suggest making sure they are getting some decent light. They are looking pretty stretchy already.

I personally did not use any plastic covering on them. And I had about 35% humidity throughout that time. I also had a tower fan on low oscillating back and forth gently wiggling them.

This is one at day 4 in peat.

 

[SlyTown420]

We are on day 4 here also but these babies must need some real light. Even after I transplanted them into bigger cups, they started reaching for the sky again. Is there anything I can do to curtail this behavior before getting some new lights?

 

[Johnny5thesim]

We are on day 4 here also but these babies must need some real light. Even after I transplanted them into bigger cups, they started reaching for the sky again. Is there anything I can do to curtail this behavior before getting some new lights?

What kind of light are you using now? The only thing I know of to stop it, is to increase light intensity under the right spectrums. Otherwise it will want to naturally reach for light. And can get quite weak structurally, in its search!

 

[Johnny5thesim]

You may also want to be diligent with watering practices. Looks like your peat has no drainage. So I would be weary about watering too frequently.

Until my transplant. I only did light watering with a spray bottle. And not to runoff at that point!

 

[SlyTown420]

You may also want to be diligent with watering practices. Looks like your peat has no drainage. So I would be weary about watering too frequently.

Until my transplant. I only did light watering with a spray bottle. And not to runoff at that point!

I am using a 14W desk lamp with a house LED bulb rated at the 60W equivalent. Later this week I am getting a MARS II 80. For today, I plan to take these babies outside--it's 70 Fahrenheit here today.

As an aside, I read that even in seedling stage, that gently bending the stalk with clean fingers will also help strengthen them--sounds suicidal but so did super cropping and fiming when I first heard about them. Has anyone tried this?

 

[Johnny5thesim]

I am using a 14W desk lamp with a house LED bulb rated at the 60W equivalent. Later this week I am getting a MARS II 80. For today, I plan to take these babies outside--it's 70 Fahrenheit here today.

As an aside, I read that even in seedling stage, that gently bending the stalk with clean fingers will also help strengthen them--sounds suicidal but so did super cropping and fiming when I first heard about them. Has anyone tried this?

You can bend and such to strengthen. I would not do this so early though. A gentle wiggle from a fan will also help with strengthening them. Light is number one at this point I think though. That will heavily influence node spacing, and control stretching!

 

[SlyTown420]

@Johnny5thesim - Thanks for the heads up on drainage--I totally skipped that part when transplanting from the Dixie cups to the "drinking" cups. Just a moment ago I put 14 nail holes in each cup. I placed 8 holes around the bottom of the cups and 6 holes underneath, on the very bottom.

If I were to pour water into the "drinking" cups instead of spraying, what amount do you think is best? I've been watering very sparsely and I am unsure if I am giving too much or too little.

 

[Johnny5thesim]

@Johnny5thesim - Thanks for the heads up on drainage--I totally skipped that part when transplanting from the Dixie cups to the "drinking" cups. Just a moment ago I put 14 nail holes in each cup. I placed 8 holes around the bottom of the cups and 6 holes underneath, on the very bottom.

If I were to pour water into the "drinking" cups instead of spraying, what amount do you think is best? I've been watering very sparsely and I am unsure if I am giving too much or too little.

You should be ok, just make sure your not watering too heavily or frequently. And just take your time allowing the small amount you give to properly absorb.

At that time I wasn’t measuring by volume. I was measuring by weight. My seedlings would drink around 40g of water daily. My solo cup with dry peat weighs 102g. So I would water until it was 240g, and that would give me 3 days until it dried. Dry, is light as a pillow. A feeling that it weighs almost nothing. You want your pear to dry out between 3-5 days after water. Any longer and you start to run the risk of things like root rot etc.

Without proper drainage, you’ll want to be very careful of overwatering. As it’s easy to do. Usually overwatering is from too frequent of watering. Not too much at one time.

That being said, you’ll need a solid plan for when you transplant to ensure drainage is proper. This is a major consideration!

 

[Johnny5thesim]

Originally I had a notepad thing I did to keep track. I highly suggest something similar for reference. And if you make a mistake, it’s really nice to go back and see what you did wrong.

I’ve attached the first version I did. I’ve since moved to excel spreadsheets so I can track multiple variables with more ease.

 

[SlyTown420]

Originally I had a notepad thing I did to keep track. I highly suggest something similar for reference. And if you make a mistake, it’s really nice to go back and see what you did wrong.

I’ve attached the first version I did. I’ve since moved to excel spreadsheets so I can track multiple variables with more ease.

Thanks for the notebook example. I'm definitely jumping on that now.

 

[Johnny5thesim]

Thanks for the notebook example. I'm definitely jumping on that now.

No problem! You should find it very helpful. Ultimately I went to this kind of setup. And it’s still a work in progress!

 

[Johnny5thesim]

Keep in mind, this later schedule is what I was doing once I had transplanted into 5g using promix HP! So I had switched from water by weight to volume!