Seraphim
New Member
I just arrived home from visiting a friend of mine who is a legal MM patient and is taking at shot at growing her own. She acquired feminized seeds online and sprouted one Nirvana AK48 and one White Widow from Green House Seeds.
The babies were 6 days old when I saw them and the first thing I noticed was these babies were rather small. I mean they look like bonsai seedlings if there was such a thing! It is no bigger than the average guy's fingernail in any direction (pinky finger at that) I have seen other 6 to 10 day old babies before but these were about 1/2 the size of the average seedling its same age.
Their color looks good.. healthy green, short stalks, purplish stem and all and when you look close up they look great otherwise .. but the tiny size and slow progress have her concerned that she may have done something wrong.
A little background as I understand it....
She has a 400W HPS and she actually used that the first few days the seedlings were born (at over three feet away of course) She then purchased a 4 foot fluorescent lamp and is using that now for the time being.
The seedlings were started in 2 gal. pots with organic soil (which I thought was a little too hot but you tell me) the soil was made at home using peat moss, perlite, blood meal, earthworm castings and Mexican bat guano. According to her, perlite and peat moss make up 95% of the soil and the other 5% is the organic nutes. (I think its more like 10% nutes) She has also watered with distilled water with Super-thrive at the dosage recommended on the bottle (one teaspoon per gallon) and a tiny dash of soluble Kelp powder. (Nute freak or what!!!)
I didn't see how much of these components were added but I have a feeling from looking at the discolored perlite on the planters that the concentration of organic ferts was on the higher side. I told her this may be the reason why they are so small but she thinks its because they are feminized seeds instead. (the reasoning being that feminized seeds have other genetic defects)
Noting the likelihood that the soil is too hot regardless of anything else, the babies were carefully transplanted. They were removed (soil and all) from their 2 gal. plastic pots and placed into 5 gal. smart-pots with nothing but Fox Farm Ocean Forest soil and a little extra perlite (no added nutes of any kind) The hope is that even though their hot soil is still there with them, the seedlings will now have better soil to grow into and hopefully do better than they have been.
There are no obvious signs of nute burn which I would expect would show up as more than just a miniature in size, specially in such a young plant.
We considered leaching with Botanicare's Clear-X but decided not to since the babies were too young and the ferts were not added with the water but rather mixed in as part of the soil itself so lacking experience I did not know if using lots of water or even clearex to leach the soil would help. (<== your thoughts on this?)
I PH tested the run off from the water. She has a 5 dollar simple ph test kit where you take your sample, add 3 to 5 drops of test stuff and match the color to the chart on the little bottle.. to my best guess, the solution was in the 5 to 5.5 range.
We are hoping the more experienced here will weigh in with their thoughts.
Just think of two great looking seedlings that are maybe half an inch tall and have a leaf span of maybe also a half an inch at 6 days. Does that sound normal to you? Sorry, didn't get any pictures.
Any and all observations would be greatly appreciated.
The babies were 6 days old when I saw them and the first thing I noticed was these babies were rather small. I mean they look like bonsai seedlings if there was such a thing! It is no bigger than the average guy's fingernail in any direction (pinky finger at that) I have seen other 6 to 10 day old babies before but these were about 1/2 the size of the average seedling its same age.
Their color looks good.. healthy green, short stalks, purplish stem and all and when you look close up they look great otherwise .. but the tiny size and slow progress have her concerned that she may have done something wrong.
A little background as I understand it....
She has a 400W HPS and she actually used that the first few days the seedlings were born (at over three feet away of course) She then purchased a 4 foot fluorescent lamp and is using that now for the time being.
The seedlings were started in 2 gal. pots with organic soil (which I thought was a little too hot but you tell me) the soil was made at home using peat moss, perlite, blood meal, earthworm castings and Mexican bat guano. According to her, perlite and peat moss make up 95% of the soil and the other 5% is the organic nutes. (I think its more like 10% nutes) She has also watered with distilled water with Super-thrive at the dosage recommended on the bottle (one teaspoon per gallon) and a tiny dash of soluble Kelp powder. (Nute freak or what!!!)
I didn't see how much of these components were added but I have a feeling from looking at the discolored perlite on the planters that the concentration of organic ferts was on the higher side. I told her this may be the reason why they are so small but she thinks its because they are feminized seeds instead. (the reasoning being that feminized seeds have other genetic defects)
Noting the likelihood that the soil is too hot regardless of anything else, the babies were carefully transplanted. They were removed (soil and all) from their 2 gal. plastic pots and placed into 5 gal. smart-pots with nothing but Fox Farm Ocean Forest soil and a little extra perlite (no added nutes of any kind) The hope is that even though their hot soil is still there with them, the seedlings will now have better soil to grow into and hopefully do better than they have been.
There are no obvious signs of nute burn which I would expect would show up as more than just a miniature in size, specially in such a young plant.
We considered leaching with Botanicare's Clear-X but decided not to since the babies were too young and the ferts were not added with the water but rather mixed in as part of the soil itself so lacking experience I did not know if using lots of water or even clearex to leach the soil would help. (<== your thoughts on this?)
I PH tested the run off from the water. She has a 5 dollar simple ph test kit where you take your sample, add 3 to 5 drops of test stuff and match the color to the chart on the little bottle.. to my best guess, the solution was in the 5 to 5.5 range.
We are hoping the more experienced here will weigh in with their thoughts.
Just think of two great looking seedlings that are maybe half an inch tall and have a leaf span of maybe also a half an inch at 6 days. Does that sound normal to you? Sorry, didn't get any pictures.
Any and all observations would be greatly appreciated.
