Backfill vs support stake, seedlings

[Gelite]

I have been looking at a lot of videos and pics lately and I've noticed that a lot of people support seedlings with small stakes. Now me personally I've always started seedlings in foam cups with about 3 inches of soil when I start seedlings for a soil grow and as the seedling grows I slowly put more soil in the cup and by the time it reaches the top it's strong enough to support itself. I always have beautiful white roots when I transplant after a week or two and they start at the bottom and go all the way to the top. For me this seems to give me a good strong deep root system. Ive never done it any different mostly cause I've never had any problems with this method. When I started growing there was no Internet or anyone to ask so unless High Times was running an article that month on what u need to know it's gonna be of little help in the short run so I just started backfilling my seedling out of necessity. It kept them from falling over and keep the rain from destroying them. When I do a hydroponic grow I kinda do the same thing with hydronton. I keep the little pebbles just for supporting young seedlings. I am interested in how other growers start there seedlings and keep them from falling over. So tell me what works for u. I started germinated seed in small pots mid day Friday and today most of them reached the top of the pots and little or no more soil can be added. By mid day today they all/most have finished uncurling and are for the first time pointing straight up. So about 2 days to the day there finally upright. What kind of results can be expected with other methods?

 

[grannyT]

Thanks for sharing your method..it makes sense. Gonna try next time.

 

[Spimp]

I have been looking at a lot of videos and pics lately and I've noticed that a lot of people support seedlings with small stakes. Now me personally I've always started seedlings in foam cups with about 3 inches of soil when I start seedlings for a soil grow and as the seedling grows I slowly put more soil in the cup and by the time it reaches the top it's strong enough to support itself. I always have beautiful white roots when I transplant after a week or two and they start at the bottom and go all the way to the top. For me this seems to give me a good strong deep root system. Ive never done it any different mostly cause I've never had any problems with this method. When I started growing there was no Internet or anyone to ask so unless High Times was running an article that month on what u need to know it's gonna be of little help in the short run so I just started backfilling my seedling out of necessity. It kept them from falling over and keep the rain from destroying them. When I do a hydroponic grow I kinda do the same thing with hydronton. I keep the little pebbles just for supporting young seedlings. I am interested in how other growers start there seedlings and keep them from falling over. So tell me what works for u. I started germinated seed in small pots mid day Friday and today most of them reached the top of the pots and little or no more soil can be added. By mid day today they all/most have finished uncurling and are for the first time pointing straight up. So about 2 days to the day there finally upright. What kind of results can be expected with other methods?

This method is very similar to transplanting and adding additional soil up the stem. Very good post and information. I use CFL's and they keep my girls short with very little internodal distacne until they start stretching. Im always interested in different techniques so that if i ever go beyond Micro, i can have plans to deal with diferent circumstances. thanks for the info.

 

[RootSpaGuru]

Interesting, what causes damage other than support.