I SUCK at growing from seed. Could use some help please!

Hey all! I have four seeds I just popped. Supposedly, the genetics are top notch coming from Humboldt Seed Company in Cali. They all seem a little stunted though after a month. Still growing and mostly green but smaller than other peoples I’ve seen photos of. Can you guys offer me some tips for being a better grower from seed? My veg room is 80 degrees and 60% RH. I have a fan circulating air. I have my girls under a 4 bulb T5 light in soil that’s meant for seedlings.

The first week I fed them 15ML plain tap water at 6.3PH. Second and 3rd week I gave them 30ML 4th week I gave them 60ML. I make sure to wait until soil is dry on top to feed so I dont over water.

  1. Does anyone have a better super early feeding schedule or “feeding rules” that they use that’s almost foolproof? Or am I doing okay with how much I feed them?

  2. This light distance thing is driving me nuts. I’ve had people tell me that with a 4 bulb T-5, even for seedlings, 2 inches away from plant tops is perfect. I tried it and even with the T5 it got to warm at 86 degrees. Then someone told me 2 inches is WAY to close, move it to 8 inches from plant tops. I tried 8 inches and the poor thing stretched. So I’ve been doing 4 inches and with that, the nodes are way tighter. Should I just keep it at 4 inches?

  3. When should I start feeding my seedlings with nutes?? I’ve been told by many that I should always start feeding nutes at the 2 week mark. I’ve also been told never to feed nutes until I see three nodes. Others tell me not to ever feed seedlings nutes until I transplant. Who’s right? What’s the true rule of thumb here? Start feeding nutes at two weeks? Start feeding nutes at 3 nodes? Start feeding nutes at transplant? Other?

Any other seedling tips would be super helpful as well. Thanks!!!

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Get the photone application for your phone. It will get you in the ballpark of where your lights should be.

Also if your plants are 4 weeks old theyre no longer seedlings. Seedling stage only last for a week or 2. Then they go into early veg.

What type of soil are you using?

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Thanks Ebb! I’m in two different soils. 2 are vegging in Oregon’s only #4 soil. Its a little hotter than regular soil with some nutes in it. it has Sphagnum peat moss, coir fiber, pumice, mycorrhizal fungi, yucca, kelp meal, bone meal, diatomaceous earth, clay, basalt, oyster shell, humus, mycorrhizal fungi (rhizophagus intraradices) and limestone. Other 2 that are only 10 days old are vegging in light warrior seed starter. The one on the far left is 5 weeks old. I’ve seen other photos of a 5 week old “seedling” / vegging plant and they look way bigger than this. I’d love to know what I did wrong to stunt her. Does she look absolutely horrible? She’s slowly growing and looks more yellow in the images than she really is. Started feeding her nutes last week. Is that to late? The one on the far right is two weeks old. The other guys are about a week old. Thanks for any help!
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#4 soil only feeds for 1 week then they need supplemented.

The other soil only feeds for a week as well.

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Nice thx. I saw that too. But since they were talking about clones I ignored it because seedlings are even more sensitive than clones. So I should treat my seedlings like clones? Once they pop their little heads out of the soil give them plain PH’d water for a week and then start feeding them nutes? That means I should start feeding my little tiny 10 day old seedlings some nectar nutes?

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Yup, theyre ready for some big girl food :wink:

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Was using so many different soils on purpose or were you cleaning up leftovers. I find using the same medium works best for me.

Sooooooo. Since this was my first time growing from seed (been growing from clones for a decade received from a commercial grower friend that has since moved to the east coast from CO.) No more clones for me that I can trust and I want to be self sustained so it’s time to learn to grow from seed. But I digress.

The first two seeds that popped that you see in the photo were grown in Nectar for the Gods / Oregon’s only #4 soil (ingredients in first post) That particular soil is lightly nuted. Since I was having what seemed like stunting issues with the first one, and possibly the second one, I thought it might be the soil having to much nutes in it. So I switched to the soil that was meant for seedlings in order to attempt to see if the stunting was from the soil, OR because I somehow over watered, or underwatered, or under or over fed, or if I waited to long to give the plant nutes when i should have, or I gave them to early, or if the soil PH is way off. So now im 10 days into using the “seedling soil” but have to wait and see if they seem stunted in a week or two. I want SO badly to get this dialed in.

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Seedling starter is just that, a medium for starting seeds. It has little to no nutritional value so once seeds come up they need to be transplanted to final grow medium.

When I was using light warrior I would use soil on bottom of starter pot, and light warrior on top. That way, once the seed germinated it would have soil for its roots to grow into. Now I just plant the germinated seed directly into soil and stopped using seed starter.

You need to transplant from the starter pots to final homes. The plants will all respond within a week.

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Okay cool! Thx! Even the 2nd biggest one? Or just the biggest one? And how can you tell? Size? Color? I just transplanted the bigger one into a 7 gallon pot an hour ago.

Sounds good but still a little confused, sorry 'bout that. Sometimes I can be a complete idiot. I think I got lost somewhere. When you said “once seeds come up they need to be transplanted to final grow medium.” Are you talking about once the come up initially? Like the day or two after they pop their little heads out of the soil? If so I thought that was way to early to transplant them…Or are you talking about when they get to be a little bigger like in the photo above and we transplant them into much bigger pots? If the latter then…

Hypothetical… I transplant that bigger one (in the photo above) into 7 gallon pot using ONLY light warrior seed starter, or Nectar #4 for that matter seeing as they both only feed for 1 week then they need to be supplemented according the the post above.

Why does it matter if that soil has no nutritional value when I’ll be feeding it yummy tasty nutes and microbial teas once shes transplanted into the nutritionless soil?

Sorry for not getting it. I eventually will. lolz.

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As soon as the first set of round leaves starts dying off the plant is out of nutrients, about 7-10 days from emerging. At that point it needs nutrients either from the soil, or a mild seedling nutrient.

If you transplant into a pot friendly soil or coco right away your plants will start growing. Coco requires feeding from day one, soil can provide nutrients to your plant a month or more…

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Just the 2 bigger plants atm. As soon as you see the cotyledons starting to fade or die back some the smaller ones will be ready. Id start off around 350 to 450 ppm 6.5pH on your first feeding with the bigger plants and feed until runoff.

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Yeah you can do that. Just have to start feeding now. Although i would let them fill out in there current pots for about another week or so and allow your root base to fill a bit. You also dont want to transfer pots when the plants are stressed out. So start feeding them and see how they respond and when you see solid fresh new growth and shes recovered then go for it.

You can grow in seed starter, peat is the primary ingredient. It would be similar to growing in Promix which other forum members use. You just need to be aware that it is a medium devoid of nutrients so you need to feed from day one when using it.

There are quirks with each growing medium that you need to understand to get best results. I suggest you search out some journals where promix is used. I personally have no experience growing in Promix peat based products.