Are these seedlings ready to be potted?

[Tubby]

I dont know if this should be under this thread but 4 of thoses seedlings are to go into a homemade DWC/amazon system my friend made b4 going on a long holiday



So iv just got my clay pebbles which i must clean and ph nuterlise i think is the term, tbh this is my first every hydro grow so iv just been researching a load, i have canna hydro vega a+b and flora and i wanted to know how my feeding would work on this i.e would i be continuously have the sprinklers on, do i change the res water everyweek or keep topping up to meet desired ec, not only that but also if i should be using canna hydro or canna aqua i went for hydro because i was tild its more suitable for hardwater,and advice and help would be much aprreciated

[Tubby]

have a look at my diary bro, if you need a hand am here bro

Hey grimer nice to c u here i came onto this site because of ur 25l air pot grow all i cld say is wow but i only got to read a few pages before i lost it and i didnt remember how to het back to it cld u send a link to it please, thanks bro

[Tubby]

So its been about 2 days now, i have also been leaving the hood of the prop of for longer know but they dry up much quicker and i started misting them bwt 6 -7 time a day if not more i need to get the RH a bit higher in my tent for veg.

Iv current got these under a cool tube light got the 600w reduced down to 250w dual spec bulb they started to streach abit so brought the light closer aswell.

So my question once again are they ready to be planted jnto my mediums got a 23l rhizopot n gt 4 net pots with clay pebbles, but iv only had my clay pebbles in phd water for about 2 days.

I'd like to know how long i cld keep em in the prop for b4 i have to plant them into somthing?

As always any advice and sugguestion welcome and thanks

P.s jus tried to upload pics but wasn't able to, any help in that aswll

[SpongeBongWeedPants]

Hi,

Regarding uploading pictures:
If you click the insert image button in the editor an upload window appears. If you look at the bottom right of that window it says Basic Uploader. Try using that.
I have problems with the default image uploader myself for some reason so I have to use the basic on and add one image at a time. It's a PITA but it works.


I'm really glad you mentioned some of these are for hydro lol....

Ok, so the hardening off process will work for the hydro seeds but is better suited to soil growing as the technique for hydro is a little different and slightly more demanding as you'll be keeping them in the cubes for longer which means caring for them gets ever more demanding.

Basically, the soil seedlings can manage without the prop the minute they're upright. Just be sure to keep their soil moist and the lights quite far above the plants for a start and then gradually lower the lights down over several days so they get used to going from one strength light to another. Start by lightly watering around the seedlings. You wont need to water the whole pot for a start, just lightly around the seedling and increasing in amount and frequency as the plant demands. Obviously no food will be required as the soil should contain enough food for a fair few weeks. You can give them 1/4 strenght Rhizotonic or other rooting stimulant every other watering and or a very light seaweed feed in a few weeks time. You want them to dry out between waterings as this exchanges oxygend around the roots and encourages root growth but you DON'T want to ever let them dry out completely to the point the plants are wilting and drying up - obviously lol.

The hydro seedlings I would leave in the prop and NOT harden off in the way I previously suggested. I didn't realise at that time you were also doing hydro.
With the hydro seedlings, you want them well established which means the cube should be bursting with roots. Not just one or two roots poking out but many. You don't want them so established you can't cope with them in the prop but enough so there's lots of roots. Obviously for them to grow to this stage means keeping them in the prop and moist so they don't dry out as they will drink plenty as they get bigger. I tend to leave my prop lid on all the while for hydro girls but keep the vent ever so slightly open so they harden off to some degree but they don't dry out too quickly. If I'm making sense? The trick is to keep them for as long as possible without them dry out. The longer you keep them like that, the more established they get, the better their chances of a good start in DWC but they are harder work to keep in those conditions the bigger they get. What you're looking for is somewhere in between. Where they're not too big to cope with but not too small that they'll struggle to get started in DWC.

What I've found in the past and made the same mistake again recently is that if you put them in to hydro, especially DWC type hydro too soon, these cubes end up staying soggy before there are enough roots to cope.
Then what happens is the roots don't want to grow. They get over saturated, the water in the cubes ends up stagnating and the poor little roots (which have no encouragement or need to grow to find water) get lazy, don't grow, turn brown and die.
I've made this mistake SOOOO many times and I still forget and make it again. I've just done it with an Incredibly Bulk seedling in a new aquafarm.

So to recap, for hydro, you want the seedlings well grown but not to the point they're drying out every few hours. You just want them so that there's lots of roots and they wont drown in the cubes.
For the soil, the moment they're upright and you see a few roots, get them in soil. They'll be quite okay but it's difficult to harden off soil plants in the same prop as hydro plants.

If any of that has confused you, just ask me to clarify anything I've not made clear. The best thing to do is PM me because I'm absolutely useless at keeping track of posts I've replied to lol.
Just PM me and let me know you've replied and I'll come check it out.

[SpongeBongWeedPants]

Excuse double post but I ran out of edit time.

I just feel I should explain a little more about the hydro seedlings process.

What you're trying to do is keep the hydro seedlings in a humid environment to delay the ROOTS drying out while the seedling grows as much as possible and puts out as much root mass as is possible in that environment without risking the seedling.
What you don't want to do is keep it so ideal in that prop that they get lazy and don't bother rooting so by keeping the vent slightly open during this process, it allows the humidity to drop gradually and the cubes to dry out but at a more controlled slower rate so they survive longer. Think of it as a much more lenghty and controlled hardening off for hydro plants.

You're just looking to get them bigger than soil seedling before transplanting so they can cope.

Obviously keeping seedlings in a propagator to this level of growth is pushing it and it will require increasingly more and more work to keep them moist and growing until there's enough roots emerging that they'll cope with being submersed in water.
Finding the right balance doesn't take much practice but you must be on the ball and checking frequently so they don't dry out. You'll soon notice where that sweet spot is with practice. Also warmth for the roots is important so a heat mat or heated prop can work wonders but be warned, heated props accelerate the evaporation process so they'll dry out even quicker BUT they'll root much quicker than not having warmth round the root zone. Get those roots nice n warm n moist and watch them take off!

Some people pot their hydro seedlings up into little plastic cups filled with hydroton / clay balls and leave those in the prop and hand water for a week to get them going once they're upright. It's a bit like potting up with soil seedlings in that respect.
Just remember if you do this not to over water i.e. don't leave the cups with lots of water stagnating at the bottom of the cup because they'll drown or go rotten. Better to hand water once or twice a day with fresh water and drain off the bulk of the excess and not leave it sitting at the bottom of cups.

[Tubby]

Ok well i didnt remove the prop lod completly it was just opened a bit, but will keep the vent slightly open Attachment 317803 them currently, i think i had my lights to close yday as two of them had kinda fell like the stem gave way, but i moved the light up a bit n they perkd back up but have kindda streached.

This one is going into the 23l coco its sensi super silverAttachment 317802 might plant that by tonight and give it water(ph'd at 5.8) only and start with the Rhizotonic at 1/4 strength nxt feed.


These are the roots of my hydro babies i have 5 chronic thunders but am going to use only 4


So i guess with those four im going to wait to c more root, i need as much time in the prop for these 4 whilst my pebbles are still bathing.

Thanks a mill spongebong

[Tubby]

I tried to PM u spong but havent posted enough yet neeewbi to the site lol but yeah Somthing i forgot to ask was, in my dwc/amazon system there are misters aswell/sprinklers and i saw u mentioned the over saturation of the cube, wld that only happen at this stage because of the roots being to small or could that happen at a later stage when roots have fully grown, i ask this as my sprinklers/misters are going to be circulating 24/7.

Thanks for the help bro

[SpongeBongWeedPants]

Hi Tubby,

Yeah, don't get them HID lights too close but by the same token, don't get them too far away.
Too close and they'll dry out real quick and cook in that prop - too far away and they'll stretch and go thin and lanky. I tend to use CFL for propagating seedlings / cuttings.
You can get them in real close without too much heat. Seedlings don't need lots of light for a start. Just enough to get them going but strong enough so they don't overly stretch.

I use a weak heat mat under my prop and a 125 CFL hung about 3 inches above the prop. You just want a gentle heat underneath and a good light above but not massively intense.
Between the heat mat and the bottom of the prop I put cardboad (like a flap off a cardboard box to space the mat and prop apart) so the prop base isn't sitting directly on the mat else it gets too warm. Just a gentle heat is required.
This also helps keep the dome humid as the water evaporates out of the cube with the gentle heat. But you must remember to keep the cubes moist!

With regards to the DWC / AMAZON sprayers / misters.... Yeah, in my personal experience you want a reasonable mass of roots coming out those cubes so that the cubes don't get soggy and overwhelm the roots when they go in DWC.
As they are at the minute in your pictures, there appars to be mainly one root emerging from the cubes. The main tap root. For plants going into soil, you can put them in soil now and they'll be fine so long as you keep the lights the right distance away from the seedlings so they don't burn or stretch but the hydro seedlings will still need more root than that.

If you put them in to a DWC system now I suspect you could have problems with them trying to establish and grow in waterlogged cubes.

This is what you want the roots to be when she goes in..
http://www.growweedeasy.com/sites/gr...oter-roots.jpg

I suspect you'll have another maybe 3 - 7 days or so to get to that point. In the mean time, keep the cubes MOIST and warm and the light intensity just right and they'll grow quite happily until they look like that picture.
Check them often to ensure they're not getting too warm, too humid or drying out too much and you'll be good to go with the hydro seeds mate.

I also tend to take the lid off once a day (just for a few minutes) just to change out the air and then put it back on again.

[SpongeBongWeedPants]

Also something like Rhizotonic will help boost them roots. A very very weak dose next time you water the cubes. You can also spray Rhizo but at this age, I prefer to apply directly to the roots / cubes with the water.
And when I say weak I'm talking maybe 1/8th - 1/4 of the recommended dosage. You don't want to over do it as they're only babies. You just want to give them a nudge in the right direction.

I use Rhizo and my seedlings in soil which are nearly 2 weeks old now are like little mini bushes and have filled their starter pots with roots so much that they're drinking them dry almost daily.

What you might have to do if you only have the 250W lamp at this stage is get the soil girls in pots under the main lamp and try and squeeze the prop in somewhere at just the right distance away from the light so you can share the lamp to keep both the girls in the soil and the girls in the prop happy? I've done it in the past under my 600W but you have to be really careful not to cook the propagator. It's easy done under HID lights.

I was facing the same problem as you not too long ago mate. My soil girls were ready to go but my hydro girl wasn't. Consequently I planted my hydro girl too soon and she didn't like it. The small cube I'd used just had the one tap root like yours and just stayed soggy all the time in the aquafarm which made the seedling stop dead in it's tracks. It's just recovering now. While my soil girls are like little bushes at 13 days old, the hydro seedling is about 1/5th of the size with still only two small sets of leaves.

I've had this problem no end of times in the past while others manage to get away with it doing the same thing :S I should have learned from the last times I'd made that mistake but didn't so from now on I'm going to follow my own advice lol


Good luck mate

[GRIMER]

hi tubby, thats it here if you didnt get the mail i sent bro.

https://www.thctalk.com/cannabis-foru...-pots-scrogged