Seedlings are sprouting in coco - what now? First grow!

Edited 5/28, the night before harvest.

Thanks gaiusmarius for all your help and patience.

End of edit


Hey folks, I put these seeds in the towels just over 72 hours ago and the tap roots showed 24hrs later. Now they're through the top of the coco and I was wondering what to do now. Anything but wait?

I pH'd my distilled water and moistened the towels. I put 5 White Widow, 5 Aurora Indica, and 5 bag seed between three separate sets of towels and 24 hours later 3 of the White Widow had tap roots about 3/8 of an inch long and 2 of the Aurora Indica had roots about 1/4 inch long. Still waiting on the others from those two groups. The bag seed isn't doing much but who knows?

I had my rock wool cubes out and ready to use and got to thinking why I should use rock wool when I had Canna coco that is equally as good a medium for sprouting. So I dropped the seeds into holes I'd made in the center of the Solo cups I'd chopped down, covered the holes with a couple of pinches of coco, lightly pressed it down and misted it with more pH'd water. Must have worked OK cause they're looking kinda happy now. I know I am.

I don't think I should add anything should I? I have misted them about 4 or 5 times since they started breaking through and I placed the dome lid back on the propagation tray to keep the humidity level up. I lowered my 200W CFL down to within about 6" of the top of the dome. I had a heat mat under the prop tray with a temp control hooked up to it and had it set on 75 degrees while I was trying to pop the beans but turned it off after I put the containers with the seeds in them into the tray. Didn't want to turn the roots on the new seedlings to mush with too much heat. The light seems to be providing all the heat I need right now. I still have the unsprouted seeds in a plate covered with foil in the prop tray to continue the sprouting process for the other seeds. What else should I do if anything roght now?

I know some on here have had trouble with putting their new seedlings under a dome, but I don't see the harm as long as I don't get it so close as to raise the temp under the dome too high. Am I right. If I remember correctly, I shouldn't give nutes right now, should I?

I'm including pics to show the setup.


The plate with the seeds is in the background, the three White Widow just underneath that, and the 2 Aurora Indica are closest to the camera. The Aurora Indica haven't broken through yet but their roots were shorter so I expect them any time.


























This is the third White Widow and it is barely poking through.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help out.

Ya got it going on mojo...good job.

DO keep misting them and keep the coco moist, but not too moist so the roots develop. After they get above ground, I give mine a light watering every other day, and may cut that back to every 3rd day, as long as the coco stays moist you should be good. DON'T let the coco dry out. When ya transplant them, try to get a 50/50 mix of coco and perlite.

Remember, coco is a soiless medium, so ya have to add nutes sooner than you would if you were in dirt. Ya don't need any yet, but I started mine off on MILD nutes as soon as the first true leaves developed. When ya see the cotyledons(sp?) leaves starting to yellow, the seedling has used up it's stored food and is looking for some more. Like I said, start them off on VERY mild nutes. I used 1/4 strength the first time, and even that was a little strong for some of them

While I'm thinking about it, if you're starting the seeds in that dome, then covering the plate with foil inside the dome may be unnecessary. Beware dampening off.

Hope somebody with more experience coco wise comes along and helps out, I'm just getting into the coco craze myself, so take my advice with a grain of salt please.

yeah seedlings in coco, need pretty much what they need in earth, nothing lol. at this point you have done great. but like was said don't over do the misting. also the dome is no longer needed, in fact you want the seedlings to get accustomed to the normal air conditions. with a seedling, you want to water ever few days, even if it is coco, lol. you want it to make those roots spread out looking for food. i normally use plain phed water till the first serrated leaves show, then i add rhizotonic to the phed water and use that for one or two waterings depending how fast they develops. once the real 3 pointed leaves show up, you add 1 ml per lt. coco a+b and from there work your way up slowly as the plants needs it. only start daily waterings, once the plants have established a healthy root system. you will notice the plants stem get thick and the leaves get big and wide with lots of fingers, with a rich green color on the older fan leaves and a lighter some times almost yellow color in the center of the top growing tip.

Thanks for the help guys.

oldpeculiar, I'm going straight Canna nutes. I have on hand Coco A+B, Rhizotonic, PK 13/14, and Cannzyme. I intend to feed light when I start. I saw others giving 2-2.5mL per liter of the A+B but I thought I would go lighter than that - the whole easier to add more than to fix a problem thing I guess. Rather err on the side of conservatism - always good, even in politics, lol. Ooops, that's another issue, lol.

Also oldpeculiar, unless advised against it, I don't plan to mix My coco coir with anything. I intend to go with my straight Canna brand Coco Coir. I've got the Canna nutes so I wanted to try to grow it without anything added. The coco drains so well and provides so much room for O2 that I don't think I want to mess with it. I've got an open mind though and there are surely more people hear with a lot more experience at this than I (doesn't take much, hehe) so I'm willing to change. I know the perlite would probably help me by holding onto the water longer and that's worth considering with the price of these nutes. Speaking of nutes, I would also like to know if the 1 liter sizes of the Canna nutes is going to be enough to see me through this grow or if I should get some more coming.

gaiusmarius, glad you showed up, was hoping you would. I saw in another thread "seedling feeding regime" (think he meant to use regimen unless of course he's starting a new system of govt centered around pot, which would be kickass!) . In that thread, bongoman said he was going to do the following:

[[[[These new sprouts are getting:

1mL/L of A & B
4mL/L of Rhizotonic
0 Cannazym

Once I get a couple of sets of leaves, I move to this mix:

2.5mL/L A & B
2mL/L of Rhizo
2.5mL/L of Cannazym

Does this sound a reasonable plan for seedlings in Coco? Is it too much of a jump from 1ml to 2.5ml do you think?]]]]

gm, in that thread, you OK'd his recipe. Does this still hold true? I know, in order not to hurt someone's feelings, I will sometimes approve of somone's plans they've made as long as they not going to hurt themselves in the process. Sort of used the same philosophy raising my two daughters, lol. But since I'm starting with a clean slate and very few preconceived ideas, you're free to steer me as much as you're willing. I don't mind admitting ignorance, it's easier to do than admit stupidity. Ignorance is fixable with education and constructive criticism but stupidity is forever, lol.

I finally went to bed 5 hours ago and left the dome cover off thinking my mistings needed to be evaporated a little. Woke up, came back to the thread and according to what you had written, I guessed right. One of the Aurora Indica's is now trying to poke through and the other should be not far behind.



I'll check my seeds in the plate in a few minutes to see if any of the other seeds have decided to heed the call of their sisters (positive thinking, lol) to join the party. Just checked and not much more yet. One more of the White Widow seeds has split and I can sort of see a little root in the seam. The same for one of the Aurora Indicas. The bag seed looks like it has some white ooze coming out of it about the color of the chemicals that leak out of an old flashlight battery.

Temp in the room is 68.2




And the temp in the tray under the 200W CFL is about 76.




As you can see, the humidity is at about 50% and I think I need more. According to what I've read, I need to try for high humidity levels at the beginning of veg and step it down as I go into flowering and through harvest. This afternoon I plan to go get a humidifier.

One more thing, when I transplant, what is the harm in transplanting directly into my 5gal pots instead of going 3gal and then 5 gal. I know it takes less water to water a 3gal but it seems the root growth would be less hindered in the 5gal and doing this would also eliminate the stress to the plants that transplanting heaps on them. Just wondering.

Pics from post at 5AM









Pics from 10:30 AM






They're growing like weeds, lol. Old joke, I'm sure.

Thanks again

mojo

Feel stupid asking this but I know smoking cigarettes is bad for my health - is it bad for their health? I know when I'm growing tomatoes the plants can get a tobacco virus from the smoke. How about these plants?

mojo

well nicotine and tar tend to stick to almost anything...so no it's not good for your plants either

You don't have to worry about hurting my feeling! LOL.

If the truth hurts, then give it to me straight!

I've realised that I've been watering my sprouts too often - I need to pull way back and wait before starting daily watering.

Good luck with this grow - I hope you keep posting as it progresses. Would be good to follow this one.

bongoman, dude, I wasn't trying to hurt your feelings, lol. I don't know shit about what I'm doing here. I just keep stabbing in the dark and so far I haven't drawn any blood, hehe. Seems like some common sense mixed with a lot luck and a big helping of other people's knowledge just might get me through this.

Later
mojo

as the old saying goes, there is more then one way to skin a cat, same applies to growing pot.

weather you start with just rhizotonic for one or two waterings before you go to A+B, or start them together will not be the deciding factor if they live or not. some people like to use the nutes at full strength when flowering, so they start with half strength (2ml per lt) while i never uses the canna coco at full strength. hence i star with 1ml per lt which gives me ec 0.8 and slowly move up as the plants needs increase. in fact if you have a ec meter just start the plants at ec 1.0 when the first real cannabis leaf appears. before that rhizotonic is enough.

which ever you chose to do, you just have to be consistent, always working the same way and the plants will adapt to make the best of the situation. as long as the differences are small things like ec levels with in reason that plant can always adapt.

one more thing, at this early stage, you can reuse the nutrient solution that runs off no problem. this will save you on rhizotonic too, which isn't cheap.

Would someone mind telling me what sort of light cycle I need to be using during the seedling stage. I've been going 24/0. Are they going to blow up?

mojo said:

...unless advised against it, I don't plan to mix My coco coir with anything. I intend to go with my straight Canna brand Coco Coir.... I know the perlite would probably help me by holding onto the water longer and that's worth considering with the price of these nutes....

Click to expand...

I use 2/3 coco and 1/3 perlite. The coco holds the water whereas the Perlite is useful for aerating the mix. It does not hold on to more water. That's what Vermiculite is good for. Keeping the roots moist but with lots of air around them key to keeping your plants happy.

Temp in the room is 68.2... And the temp in the tray under the 200W CFL is about 76.

Click to expand...

Perfect!

As you can see, the humidity is at about 50% and I think I need more. According to what I've read, I need to try for high humidity levels at the beginning of veg and step it down as I go into flowering and through harvest. This afternoon I plan to go get a humidifier.

Click to expand...

That 50% is just fine. Clones need lots more than that (~80%), but your seedlings will be totally fine at that mark. You'll never need to worry about mold or damping off and transpiration will be reasonable.

One more thing, when I transplant, what is the harm in transplanting directly into my 5gal pots instead of going 3gal and then 5 gal. I know it takes less water to water a 3gal but it seems the root growth would be less hindered in the 5gal and doing this would also eliminate the stress to the plants that transplanting heaps on them.

Click to expand...

I repot several times in a grow without stressing the plants a bit. So long as you're not ripping up the roots or repotting in a dissimilar medium, the plant really shouldn't notice anything besides the extra space. My advice is to use progressively larger containers so that the roots don't simply head straight down to the bottom of a big container. This way you get a beefy root system.

Give the outgrown pot a squeeze all around, support the top with your hand, and then flip upside down. The whole mass should pop right out with zero damage to the root ball. Plop that on top of the same mix in a bigger pot and, then let the roots expand into their new home.

mojo said:

Would someone mind telling me what sort of light cycle I need to be using during the seedling stage. I've been going 24/0. Are they going to blow up?

Click to expand...

Well... in my experience, 24/0 makes the plant grow a bit faster. However, it also stresses them. They just don't seem as vigorous as when you do a 18/6 hour schedule. (There's quite a bit of rebuilding/repair action going on during the dark hours.) Also, as soon as I switched to 18/6, I got a 40% reduction in the number of male plants. I've found that keeping the humidity at around 50 -60%, feeding more nitrogen, and maintaining a pH at the upper ideal limit helps with producing females, too.

Just posted this in the other thread you answered. Didn't seem like anyone was looking at this one. Thanks for all the info pray4pistils.

stikky budz said:

Well, i'm one of the "plants need a dark cycle" brigade, so Yes, give them some.
18/6,,,20/4,,, something like that.

Click to expand...

Thanks stikkybudz, I just put my timer on the light and I'm going to go with 20/4 seeing as how that's what I'm going with when I veg them. Thanks for the responses.

Thanks pray4pistils, and I am, lol. Dude, I've got a 200W CFL in a Hydrofarm reflector. I had the reflector about 8-10 inches above the plants to keep the heat off but they looked like they were stretching to me so I moved the light down to about 4" off the plants and turned my fan on to blow between the plants and the light. Both light and plant are hooked up to the same timer and are set to go power off from midnight to 4AM. Hope I'm OK temp wise with the light that close. I put my remote temp and humidity sensor on top of one of the cups and placed it next to the plants under the hood and the temp is reading about 75 now.

This is my first grow so I don't really know if what I'm seeing is too much stretch, if it is stretch at all, or if this is pretty much normal growth rate. Maybe someone that knows could tell me.

Day before yesterday








Last night



Tonight



Thanks again for the help

Do you think 20/4 is OK? I've got a copy of some test results I got on another forum where a group of commercial growers got together and really put the testing to different light cycles. If anyone would like to see it, I'll post it. Posted it a couple of weeks ago in another thread where they were talking about light cycles. Didn't even get a Hot Damn! on it over there.

What do you think about my question concerning stretch? Are my plants stretching or is that normal growth rate under my type light?

Thanks again

mojo said:

Do you think 20/4 is OK?

Click to expand...

It's definitely better than 24/0. I've only done 24/0 and 18/6 and am convinced that a dark period is optimal. A question I have is at what point does the seedling take on a specific sex? My intuition says that it must be fairly early after germination. So, you might want to do 18/6 and *then* go with your 20/4 after a week or two. It's only supposition on my part, though.

I've got a copy of some test results I got on another forum where a group of commercial growers got together and really put the testing to different light cycles. If anyone would like to see it, I'll post it. Posted it a couple of weeks ago in another thread where they were talking about light cycles. Didn't even get a Hot Damn! on it over there.

Click to expand...

Hot Damn! Let's see that info!

Are my plants stretching or is that normal growth rate under my type light?

Click to expand...

Those seedlings look totally normal to me, man. The stretching that you always hear about is between the nodes. You've only got your first node at this point, so don't fret! I've found that the distance between the potting mixture and the first node is typically about the same between the 3 - 4 different strains that I've experimented with since I started. Again, what you've got looks fine to me.

Thanks for the encouragement p4p. Here is the lighting schedule I ran across and intend to use. BTW, I also ran across and can't seem to find it again an advertisement for a hormone that can change the sex of the female to a male. Supposedly when that happens, with the hormone I mean, the pollen taken from the resulting male doesn't have any male genes. So when the collected pollen is used to fertilize one or two buds on another female, the seeds you get from that female are all female (feminized) seeds. I tried to get someone to confirm that at another forum, before I found ICM, and nobody responded. The advertisement stated that that is the way the seed companies get theirs. Sounds nice to me if it actually does what it says it does.

Anyway, here's the lighting info, man.

All this is in the grower's words.

We did a lot of experiments with light times a few years back using known sativa and sativa dominant clone lines.

With Vegging under HID lights.

20/4 produced the sturdiest growth and the most bulk. Best final yield, taken as 100%
22/2 Less of both growth and bulk. Yield 88%
18/6 Sturdier than 22/2 but slightly less bulk. Yield 87%
24/0 Much lighter in all aspects than 18/6. Yield 79%
16/8 The weediest plants. Yield 67%

Plants vegged to final pots under fluorescents at 20w per sq ft on 18/6 yield 49%

Have not tried 36 hrs dark but did try 48 hrs from 18/6 veg. The final yield was down between 15% and 20% by varying the pure sativas with the biggest loss in final weight and caused the odd herm, [sativas] it did reduce the flowering time by 5 to 8 days.

For the mum lines we have 20/4 to 12/12 gives the best crop weight and bud quality, really that’s all I’m interested in.

High,
i have got some Outback x Diesiel beans sprouted in the small strik pots in coco sitting outdoors under the great ball in the sky,just keeping them moist wiht straight tap water and ther loveing it!
Kind Regards,FT

mojo> ya ask 5 different growers what lighting schedule to use, you'll probablu get 5 different answers. Personally I've done em all, from 12/12 seed to bud, to 24/0. They all work. I found a better liklihood of plants autoflowering if there was any genetic pre-disposition for it in 16/8. As far as noticing any difference in wieght or quality....really never saw any. Like your medium mix, use your gut instinct and use what ya think will best suit your needs.

Also, I want ya to know i saw that post about light schedule and almost posted a couple times, but I wanted to see if you was the type to do a little diggin around and find some answers yourself. Back in the day on OG ya'd of got flamed for asking such a noob question and ordered to go read the grow FAQ's and not waste folks time with a question like that LOL...I don't miss that site one damn bit

Father Time, man I don't think I've ever seen a more beautiful sight. Nice shot, nice plants, and nice way to put it. Looking good. Thanks for stopping in to show us and to let me know that sometimes it's OK just to let em drink plain H2O. I'm so happy with my choice to go with coco. Soil has its problems and sometimes they're hard to pinpoint due to all the variables and the plain impurities of the medium. With coco, if we've got a problem, we just sit back and take inventory of what we've added to it, or haven't added to it that has caused the situation because the coco didn't cause the problem, we did.

I'm looking forward to learning all I can about growing and I sure appreciate the generosity of the other growers here and their willingness to share what they've learned with me.

Later

oldpeculiar, sorry I didn't refer to your post while I was talkin to Father Time but I'm so used to stopping at the bottom of the page on my threads cause only a couple of times have they gone to two pages that I'm not used to looking for a page two, lol. Thanks for posting and what you've said just reinforces what I'm finding out about growing in coco. It's a pretty forgiving medium and nothing happens so quickly that it can't be corrected. Of course, it makes me feel a lot better knowing that the people on this forum, like yourself, are willing to jump in if they see a problem developing and a noob about to hurt a plant, hehe.

Thanks again, man

mojo said:

Thanks for the encouragement p4p.

Click to expand...

You got it, boss. That lighting info is pretty interesting. Why would 18/6 produce a sturdier stem than 22/2, I wonder. Also, what was this researcher's sampling size? The small % differences that he shares are very close and might not be statistically insignificant. Regardless, it's fairly obvious that 24/0 isn't the way to go.

Have not tried 36 hrs dark but did try 48 hrs from 18/6 veg.

Click to expand...

Huh? Are we talking about leaving the plants in the dark for the first day of flowering or something?

For the mum lines we have 20/4 to 12/12 gives the best crop weight and bud quality, really that’s all I’m interested in.

Click to expand...

Hold a sec... is this guy growing flowers or flowering bud? Mums???

pray4pistils said:

You got it, boss. That lighting info is pretty interesting. Why would 18/6 produce a sturdier stem than 22/2, I wonder. Also, what was this researcher's sampling size? The small % differences that he shares are very close and might not be statistically insignificant. Regardless, it's fairly obvious that 24/0 isn't the way to go.

Click to expand...

Not sure but it appears that the less time the plant spends in dark cycle from 20/4 the less sturdy the stem is. Seems like there's a correlation between dark cycle and stem structure. And apparently 20/4 is just the premo ratio between light and dark times for this plant when grown indoors.

Don't know what the sampling size was. I was told he was a member of a group of commercial growers and I can only assume, due to the financial importance of finding the cycle that produced the most product for them, that they would have been thorough. No guarantee my info was correct though.

The differences in the percentages of variation don't seem that small to me. The least variation between samplings that varied from 20/4 was 12% (20/4 - 22/2) and the greatest was 33% (20/4 - 16/8). But if you're talking about the small difference of 1% between 22/2 - 18/6, I agree that's pretty damned close. I'd call that one a photo finish but one horse just looked better after the race, hehe.

His reference to "mum lines" was confusing to me too and I don't know what he was referring to. But the mention of "known sativa and sativa dominant clone lines" early in the report told me this was definitely talking about cannabis.

I'm going to give it all the benefit of any doubt I might have and go with 20/4 seeing as how I've not seen any reports of specific yields that are any better or any more reliable. I'd love to see someone we know and trust do some testing and report it. There are so many variables involved i.e. growing medium, nute line, humidity, temps, etc. that it would take a lot of time and patience.

Thanks for your input and take the info from the tests as you will. I'm so new to this it just seemed as good a place to start as any with my lighting cycle.