Should i start fertilzing? Light Green Leaves

[clp]

I am around 2 weeks into veg on my Mandala #1's. They are looking great and all have second set of leaves and are quite tall and strong for the age. They have a very light green color to them though, almost pale ish.
I planted them directly into FF Light warrior soil to avoid nutrition burn but am wondering if the light green is caused by needing more nutrition (I read this from a couple other posts but maybe I'm misinterpreting). They are not ready to be potted up into the FF ocean Forrest as the roots are not touching the sides of the cups much yet.
My question is whether or not this really light green color is due to lack or nutrition
If so
Should I start lightly fertilizing them with grow big by FF? That is my veg nute.

Thanks for the constant help IC
CLP

 

[10k]

It sure would be nice to see a picture ?
Are the cotyledons starting to shrivel away yet ?
You say quite tall for their age (2 weeks) on their second set of leaves. (how tall ?)
From that I visualize a lanky little sprout reaching for the light(s)...eeesh... we need a photograph.

fwiw...very light green is usually a sign of needing food, however they're very young seedlings in FF soil,
which leads me to see a mental picture of a tall lanky & somewhat over watered baby.

Please don't take offense to what I'm saying. It's just that it's almost impossible to advise without actually seeing the sprout.

 

[clp]

Not taking offense at all, these are the kinds of replies I am looking for 10k

I will try to get a picture ASAP, still can't find my camera charger so pics are a bit inaccessible at the moment.
They do seem a bit tall and lanky but as a beginner I'm not sure if this is out of the ordinary. I'd say they are maybe 4 or 5 inches tall. Do you think over watering could be the problem? My partner actually does most of the watering as he's closer to the location of the grow. We are using a soil moisture meter for now (explained the lifting the pot method today) and I have been telling him to let the soil dry out completely before re watering but maybe we are still watering a bit too much?
Is it possible that the light green is strain specific or something like that?

thanks for any and all help 10k, you're often a big help to me so I'll throw a lil' rep your way

 

[10k]

Thanks clp
It's not harmful at all to transplant a sprout deeper into the soil as deep as nearly just below the round seed breaker (cotyledons) leaves.
The stem will form more roots along all of the buried stem.
It's very possible for intense lighting to force the sprout to need food, thus get lighter green, but a baby sprout uses those cotyledons as it's first food source, not to mention it's in soil that a seedling usually can find plenty of food in. If those cotys aren't yellowed off, then it''s not really ready for any fertilizer yet.

Now, having said that, most of the time (but not always) a little baby seedling (only two sets of true leaves) will spring up tall like that when its trying to get more light. If it's in the shade for instance it will try to reach out of the shade. Its called "sarp" (shade avoidance response phenotype)...
But then again...heh heh it just might be hungry which is why I asked about the cotyledons and a picture.

Without a picture, I would go ahead and carefully transplant it deeper and get more light on it.
I'd watch for any signs of yellow on the true leaves and/or the time when the coty's shrivel and yellow as an indicator of when to begin very light feedings.

Here's some handy growfaqs on seedlings...
https://www.icmag.com/modules/Tutorials/Seedsgermination/SeedsGerminSeedlings.htm

hth and good luck,
10k

 

[clp]

Thanks once again for the big help 10k.
I had these under a set of 2 t8 fluorescents for the first week of life and now have them under a 1000W MH so I honestly feel like them stretching for light is not the most plausible. I don't want to move them much closer to the 1000W due to burning them.

The Cotyledons have not yet shriveled off but match the color of the other leaves.

To transplant these plants should I just move them up into their 1/2 G grow bags? Just take out the entire cup of soil and bury the seedling up to the leaves? Just want to make sure I am doing this correctly. I'll probably transplant it into a mix of 1/4 light warrior 1/2 FFOF and 1/4 perlite or something similar to that. This way they can get some nutrition from the FFOF also.

Thanks again 10k

 

[clp]

Just took some pretty awful cell pics but they're as good as I can do right now.
Any more diagnosis based on these?
There are slight brown spots on one but nothing too alarming. A couple are also pretty droopy, I have some pictures of that although they are quite blury. There is also a comparison picture compared to a more mature plant to show the differences in the shades of green.

Pics are attached

 

[clp]

Put up an official Infirmary post in the section of the forum. Please post there instead
Thanks!

 

[Oregongrow]

have you been watching your PH? those are sick.. something is wrong.

 

[j242]

clear cups with no outer opaque cup?? Can you see the roots through the clear cups yet???

 

[cody2white]

They look sad. Maybe the soils to hot

 

[10k]

Thanks once again for the big help 10k.
I had these under a set of 2 t8 fluorescents for the first week of life and now have them under a 1000W MH so I honestly feel like them stretching for light is not the most plausible. I don't want to move them much closer to the 1000W due to burning them.

The Cotyledons have not yet shriveled off but match the color of the other leaves.

To transplant these plants should I just move them up into their 1/2 G grow bags? Just take out the entire cup of soil and bury the seedling up to the leaves? Just want to make sure I am doing this correctly. I'll probably transplant it into a mix of 1/4 light warrior 1/2 FFOF and 1/4 perlite or something similar to that. This way they can get some nutrition from the FFOF also.

Thanks again 10k

holy crap thanks for the pictures, those are yellowed badly.
I'd get em out from under the big light and back under the fluorescent light.
Transplanting them deeper and btw, don't let em go bone dry either.

Tell us what the run off pH too.

btw, why does it look like they have a twist tie tight around the stem ?

 

[clp]

Okay will transplant them deeper today and get them back under the fleuro's.
Also just learned about clear cups = bad idea. No roots are showing out the sides yet although some are swirling at the bottom. No light can get to the bottom to burn the roots though.

We also have them staked with toothpicks for a little bit for support, the twist tie is little plant nursery ties. They aren't tied tightly at all.

Also in reference to "bone dry" we have been letting them dry out thoroughly between each watering. Should we let them stay somewhat damp? My thoughts from research were that letting them dry out more is beneficial for the roots because they will be spreading out searching for more moisture.

Thanks for the help guys, hope this works its way out.

 

[clp]

They look sad. Maybe the soils to hot

Soil is FF light warrior which is MEANT for seedlings because it is not very hot at all. I hope that this is not the problem..

 

[clp]

Update:
The runoff ph for the cups before we transplanted was 7.1.
The runoff ph for the half gal grow bags (filled with FFOF, FFLW, and Perlite -- 50/25/25) was 7.0.

I know this is a little bit high considering, but I have a hard time believing this would be the major problem I am running into. We put them back under the fluorescent light to see how that affects them.

Startlingly enough, we just put our Skunkman sprouts under yesterday, and woke up this morning to see that they might have yellowed a bit since their previous lighting. Could all this discoloration have something to do with our 1000W MH light? Possibly something I am overlooking?

 

[j242]

Hi! Did you see my earlier question about the cups they are in?????

Cheers!

 

[clp]

clear cups with no outer opaque cup?? Can you see the roots through the clear cups yet???

Sorry forgot to answer it

I realize this was a bad idea now, planned on starting in growbags then last minute switched to the clear cups. Luckily not many roots had grown up the sides so they were not affected by the light, most of the roots were on the dark bottom side of the cup. We have now transplanted into white 1/2 gal grow bags

 

[j242]

Nice! So ya everything I have read says the roots dont like the light. Someone on here used 2 cups with the clear one on the inside, red one on the outside so you can still look to see where the roots are.

Cheers!

 

[clp]

Thats a good idea, I like being able to see where the roots are. Now that I'm in these bigger bags its not an issue though.
Anyone else have any advice for the issue at hand? These poor yellow seedlings...

They have gotten a little bit browner but we now have them transplanted and under the fleuro so we will see

 

[Sirus]

Hiya clp.. cant comment on the yellowing.. but I don't think it was the FFLW. I planted my seedlings in a 4:2 ratio of FFOF/FFLW and had no issues until I decided to nute burn them I used the recipe from the Organics for Beginners thread, page 1.

Good luck bro!

 

[10k]

glp.
looking at your other threads i see you were putting these young babies about 19 inches below a 1000 watt mh light.
No wonder they're pale

Now they should start looking much better back under the fluorescent lighting.
Please wait until they've vegged longer before reintroducing them to the mh,
and when you do it should be about three feet the first few days before bringing them a foot closer.
I would veg them under the flo's until they're put on at least six or seven nodes of foliage.
You've now transplanted them and they'll be getting back to growing a decent root system and recovering from the light bleaching,
so the longer they're under the fluorescent light the better, before throwing them under the big mh light.

If you have any vitamin b1 or superthrive on hand, using it now in the next couple waterings to help with the stress they've undergone would be "a good thing".

hth,
10k

ps...please update us in a few days with some recovery photos if you can.