Check out my seedlings, how am I doing?

Setting up my tent right now to hopefully bring up my humidity and temp. Just wondering if there's anything else I can tweak to help these suckers go. This a little over a week in, my heat was out for 3 days so understandably my progress has been slowed to a crawl. Everything survived though thankfully. 1 of them sprouted straight up and out the surface of the soil and dried itself up. So I replanted it sideways basically, hope that was the right move.

I have them in 4" pots with low nute baby soil a friend gave me. I seen tiny little yellow/orange critters running around in it but that's it so far. I attached a couple pictures of them in case anyone can tell what they are with my camera phone lol. Right click the picture and choose "open in new tab" so you can zoom in. I'm in a closet that's 3 ft x 5 ft, the tent is 2.5 ft x 4.5 ft.

My soil has seemingly been very dry due to low humidity, so I've been misting them at least once a day. I have just a 4000k LED board right now running at 60w about 3.5 ft away. I can add another board and bump it up to 100w if I need to. The end plan is to have all 3 under 4 boards at 200/300w, depending on if I can get enough air flow for all 300w. I've been using plastic cups with holes cut at the top to help trap some humidity, it helped them grow tremendously at first but now not as much. Soil temp averages around 67 without the cups and 71 with them.

If anyone was interested the strain is Dirty Snow (Chem D x Humboldt Snow) by CSI Humboldt. I'll be posting more on their progress in the future. A humidifier is the next purchase for my room. Let me know what you think! Thanks!

Wonder if those are root aphids

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=159960

i would decrease the distance between your light and your plant now that it's actually photosynthesizing. you're gonna get a stretchy seedling if you keep it far away, which is no bueno. just a tip

they look fine so far though! but this is fragile times! Good Luck!

ShLUbY said:

i would decrease the distance between your light and your plant now that it's actually photosynthesizing. you're gonna get a stretchy seedling if you keep it far away, which is no bueno. just a tip

they look fine so far though! but this is fragile times! Good Luck!

Click to expand...

That's exactly what I was thinking, thank you. How high would you say?

firstnamelast said:

That's exactly what I was thinking, thank you. How high would you say?

Click to expand...

i'm not experienced with placement of LEDs but 60w sounds pretty light, so i would say 12-16" away. but i may be completely wrong with placement of LED. just do like you are with the cups, keep the humidity high for them. give them some more light. they will do fine

ShLUbY said:

i'm not experienced with placement of LEDs but 60w sounds pretty light, so i would say 12-16" away. but i may be completely wrong with placement of LED. just do like you are with the cups, keep the humidity high for them. give them some more light. they will do fine

Click to expand...

Thanks I'll do some looking. Should I keep the cups the same, cut the holes bigger, ditch the holes, any ideas?

firstnamelast said:

Thanks I'll do some looking. Should I keep the cups the same, cut the holes bigger, ditch the holes, any ideas?

Click to expand...

a couple holes for gas exchange is fine. still gotta try and keep humidity high since its so dry. i'm going through the same thing... like 25-30% RH here in northern midwest.

edit: i would actually have the holes in the sides rather than the top. that way it traps heat more effectively, and air will also pass through the cup more effectively as well. maybe two holes opposite of each other.

ShLUbY said:

a couple holes for gas exchange is fine. still gotta try and keep humidity high since its so dry. i'm going through the same thing... like 25-30% RH here in northern midwest.

edit: i would actually have the holes in the sides rather than the top. that way it traps heat more effectively, and air will also pass through the cup more effectively as well. maybe two holes opposite of each other.

Click to expand...

I thought the top to get more light in, if it made a difference. I'm in Chicago so I feel your pain

nah, you'll get more light by moving the light closer. you lose A LOT and i mean A LOT of your light that far away. inverse square law!

ShLUbY said:

nah, you'll get more light by moving the light closer. you lose A LOT and i mean A LOT of your light that far away. inverse square law!

Click to expand...

Good thinking. I'm gonna put them at about 18" to start

My plants look to be standing still and not growing anymore. Ended up with the light at 2 ft to start, not sure yet how close LEDs can get honestly. But I'll move it to around 12 inches in a couple days or so if this doesn't help much.

The tent came in used from HTG Supply. Everything was open and clearly worn down and rusty where the pieces attach. So another hold up. I didn't think HTG was that bad but I have heard things like this about the "in-house" brands at some of these shops. I'm still on the fence about the tent.

firstnamelast said:

tiny little yellow/orange critters

Click to expand...

Those are soil mites and great to have! There are many many different species and hella difficult to identify precisely, but you're getting the benefits microarthropods generally bring to your soil: they predate on larvae (usually undesirables, so there's your integrated pest management right there), shred organic material (and thus help accelerate nutrient cycling by increasing the surface area for bacteria and fungi), and chances are that soil has at least some fungal colonization, since they love chomping on fungal hyphae

firstnamelast said:

A humidifier is the next purchase for my room.

Click to expand...

Great call! It's the only thing that will get you through early veg in a dry environment (I'm in one myself), else the plants are forced to waste too much energy on keeping the air around the leaves at the humidity levels needed for photosynthesis.
You're a good observer: yes it would be high time to get rid of those domes too. It's iffey though with the low RH elsewise... maybe you can improvise larger domes until your humidifier arrives?

Cheers!

firstnamelast said:

Ended up with the light at 2 ft to start, not sure yet how close LEDs can get honestly. But I'll move it to around 12 inches in a couple days or so if this doesn't help much.

Click to expand...

I've begun leaving my COBs at about 2ft from the soil and letting the plants grow up towards them for a few weeks until they're like 1ft away. I keep them more or less at that distance, if possible

calliandra said:

Those are soil mites and great to have! There are many many different species and hella difficult to identify precisely, but you're getting the benefits microarthropods generally bring to your soil: they predate on larvae (usually undesirables, so there's your integrated pest management right there), shred organic material (and thus help accelerate nutrient cycling by increasing the surface area for bacteria and fungi), and chances are that soil has at least some fungal colonization, since they love chomping on fungal hyphae


Great call! It's the only thing that will get you through early veg in a dry environment (I'm in one myself), else the plants are forced to waste too much energy on keeping the air around the leaves at the humidity levels needed for photosynthesis.
You're a good observer: yes it would be high time to get rid of those domes too. It's iffey though with the low RH elsewise... maybe you can improvise larger domes until your humidifier arrives?

Cheers!

Click to expand...

Good ideas, thank you very much for the info! I'm thinking now what I can use to substitute in the meantime. I may just go out and buy a standard humidifier today if I don't need anything special, I've been looking for recommendations but haven't found much.

calliandra said:

I've begun leaving my COBs at about 2ft from the soil and letting the plants grow up towards them for a few weeks until they're like 1ft away. I keep them more or less at that distance, if possible

Click to expand...

Cool I should be right on track then with my little ones

The smallest one isn't doing good, looks like it's damping off but I don't see how with the soil so dry. I started pouring water in the sides today instead of misting. And I tried watering the straggler the same today as the other 2, just to see if it might help.

Should I try tying it to a stick and straightening it? Lol maybe it's never gotten proper lighting yet because its leaves have always been facing downward away from the light. I had just watered it when I took the picture

firstnamelast said:

The smallest one isn't doing good, looks like it's damping off but I don't see how with the soil so dry. I started pouring water in the sides today instead of misting. And I tried watering the straggler the same today as the other 2, just to see if it might help.

Should I try tying it to a stick and straightening it? Lol maybe it's never gotten proper lighting yet because its leaves have always been facing downward away from the light. I had just watered it when I took the picture

Click to expand...

sometimes they just don't make it man. it's just the way it goes! Seeds are not a 100% thing, and there's not much you can do for one that's struggling at that stage of germination. remember these plants require 0 help from us. they can do fine on their own. all we do is give them a home (with good soil and light and air). After that, they do the rest. so either, it will pull through, or it will not. just give it the light, don't over water it, and try not to do too much for it!

that brings up why i dislike feeding from bottles. it makes the plants dependent on the grower, and quite frankly, they don't need us lol. the plant knows everything it needs to do and when it needs to do it. so we have become soil farmers, and thus the plants grow themselves while we watch and learn

ShLUbY said:

sometimes they just don't make it man. it's just the way it goes! Seeds are not a 100% thing, and there's not much you can do for one that's struggling at that stage of germination. remember these plants require 0 help from us. they can do fine on their own. all we do is give them a home (with good soil and light and air). After that, they do the rest. so either, it will pull through, or it will not. just give it the light, don't over water it, and try not to do too much for it!

that's brings up why i dislike feeding from bottles. it makes the plants dependent on the grower, and quite frankly, they don't need us lol. the plant knows everything it needs to do and when it needs to do it. so we have become soil farmers, and thus the plants grow themselves while we watch and learn

Click to expand...

Yea I know, I'm just trying not to give up on this little one lol. Limited space, plus 100% success on my first attempt would have been great ha

firstnamelast said:

The smallest one isn't doing good, looks like it's damping off but I don't see how with the soil so dry. I started pouring water in the sides today instead of misting. And I tried watering the straggler the same today as the other 2, just to see if it might help.

Should I try tying it to a stick and straightening it? Lol maybe it's never gotten proper lighting yet because its leaves have always been facing downward away from the light. I had just watered it when I took the picture

Click to expand...

Yeah what Shluby said.

One thing though, maybe as a heads up for next time: you wrote "with the soil so dry".
Hm the soil shouldn't be dry.
In fact, you want to have it nicely moist (not waterlogged though!!) at all times to maintain the microbial herd in the soil. Wet-dry cycles are for people using bottles, in that system it has a use and may even be decisive for preventing pathogenic microbes from flourishing...

But when you're going for living soil, you want constancy.
Because you have a beneficial microbial herd you want to keep happy.
If you let the soil dry out too much, they'll go dormant, and they take their time waking up again. Soil microbiologist Elaine Ingham illustratively describes it as the microbes becoming suspicious of the environment and not trusting changes for the better, since going dormant and waking up again costs lots of energy.

So with organic soil, it's a really good idea to get the whole pot nicely moistened up before planting the seed, mulching it up and leaving it alone - easily a week or so - before starting to add small amounts of water outside the plant's dripline.
Cheers!

calliandra said:

Yeah what Shluby said.

One thing though, maybe as a heads up for next time: you wrote "with the soil so dry".
Hm the soil shouldn't be dry.
In fact, you want to have it nicely moist (not waterlogged though!!) at all times to maintain the microbial herd in the soil. Wet-dry cycles are for people using bottles, in that system it has a use and may even be decisive for preventing pathogenic microbes from flourishing...

But when you're going for living soil, you want constancy.
Because you have a beneficial microbial herd you want to keep happy.
If you let the soil dry out too much, they'll go dormant, and they take their time waking up again. Soil microbiologist Elaine Ingham illustratively describes it as the microbes becoming suspicious of the environment and not trusting changes for the better, since going dormant and waking up again costs lots of energy.

So with organic soil, it's a really good idea to get the whole pot nicely moistened up before planting the seed, mulching it up and leaving it alone - easily a week or so - before starting to add small amounts of water outside the plant's dripline.
Cheers!

Click to expand...

this is 100% accurate (as usual from @calliandra )

i've been helping a couple people out with a "test run" of living soil, 1 plant, and this is the thing they struggle with the most. almost every time i go over to check in on things the soil is not moist enough and i tell them... WATER WATER WATER lol.

so yeah, consistent, adequate, but not too much moisture

cause once you let peat moss go hydrophobic in a container.... Good luck getting it rehydrated again