seeds Cutting off the weaker seedlings / Removing from Humidity Dome too soon

Hey guys,
 
Newbie from San Diego, California here.  Started my first successful germination with some great seeds from The Hippie Seed Co. (Love this guy!)
 
Anyhow, i've got a successful operation going here with about 15 pods, (Carolina, Yellow Scotch, White Ghost, Aji Lemon, Sunrise Trinidad, etc.).
 
I have the seeds started in Rapid Rooters inside a Germination Station, 85 degrees thermostat heat mat below- also rigged an "upstairs" which is just a plastic shelf surrounding the germination station allowing me to place the newly popped peppers that have outside of the humidity once they have germinated / graduated Kindergarten with a single 21" T5 / 6500k SunBlaze lowered to about 2" above the top of the highest seedling.
 
Since i've planted 3 seeds per pod, it's my understanding that I need to clip the weakest seedlings at their base once the seedling reaches it's first true set of leaves?   However, i've also seen that it's important to remove the seedling as soon as possible from the humidity dome to prevent damping off.  
 
 
My question is - should I be waiting for the sprouts to "battle it out" first to find out who is the stronger one to keep before removing from the humidity dome?  

I fear that removing too soon from the germination station / heat mat doesn't give the other seeds that haven't not sprouted yet within the same pod a chance - and there could be a tough guy lurking below just slow to wake up, and would die from being removed from the heated area. 


Thanks guys!
-Joe




Trinidad Sunrise and Yellow Scotch - first to graduate!
 

Yellow Scotch Bonnet, doing great so far.

usually people just plant like 3 per plug and keep the first / strongest one up. can just clip the others with scissors. Doesn't really matter if you wait or not.

juanitos said:

usually people just plant like 3 per plug and keep the first / strongest one up. can just clip the others with scissors. Doesn't really matter if you wait or not.

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Ok, is the consensus that the first one up within the pod the strongest?

zumajoe said:

 
Ok, is the consensus that the first one up within the pod the strongest?

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you might wait for the first true leaves to come out, just to make sure there's nothing weird going on. But yeah usually the first one up is first one to true leaves, ahead of the others.

i usually move it out of the humidity dome and under lights after the first one pops up.  Sometimes afterwards i will still get a few to pop just under lights.  I will let them go and see which one seems to be stronger and then clip the other(s).  I am by no means an expert, this is just what i have done.

Hi Joe and 
 
I also use rapid rooters and I usually keep the dome on, or somewhat on (open the vents), until I transplant the seedlings into soil. This because the rapid rooters gets dry very quickly. I've never had any problems with damping off, however you could get some algae on the rapid rooters.

My method; two seeds per plug (I use netted coir). If both sprout, I let both grow. I transplant the plugs into three inch pots, and let them go until I am ready to plant out. By this time they are completely rootbound (this, I believe, is the key factor), I pop the rootball out of the pot, and using a very sharp wide-bladed knife (chef's knife) I carefully separate the two plants, giving each approximately one-half the rootball.
 
Last year I only lost one out of about sixty 'doubles', because I was careless and cut the stem of one of the plants.
 
The separated pairs all grew to be healthy plants.

zumajoe said:

 
Ok, is the consensus that the first one up within the pod the strongest?

Click to expand...

 
Depends what you consider to be the strongest. Some of my slowest, runtiest plants have turned out to be the hottest. I would not have my hottest plant if i had culled the slow plants

Many variables to this IMHO.  What works in FL sure won't work here.  I typically keep the dome on and 100% humidity until all seeds are up or the ones touching the top of the dome are starting to look bad.  Then I only lift the cover with a small spacer until they again start to look bad.  Only then do I remove the cover and water heavy until I change into pots.  Reason for this method is our severe lack of humidity.  Just checking the gauge and currently 7% in the house where seedlings are and only 15% outside.  If I simply remove the dome once I see a true leaf they all die within a few hours.
 
BTW You are at 75% humidity right now, big differences.

Wow. That care and determination, I feel like the odd man out. I just germinate the seeds, put them in some soil leave it by the brightest window if it's too cold, or if it's warm, just let them sprout outside. And bam, leaves come out everything's all fine.

I keep mine in a dome open vents and on the heat mat until they get so big seems to work well for me. I have pics in my Glog.