Arthropods 2018

Hey all,
 
This is my first grow from seed! I've grown peppers from transplants before, and grown plenty of other vegetables, but never started anything indoors. I'm hoping to get plants started off right and big enough for the outdoors by mid May. From what I've read, I probably started too late for the Chinense but I'm an optimist, and I'm sure I have plenty of time for the Anuums. 
 
Here's my grow list:
 
Chinense:
 
Bonda Ma Jacques
MoA Scotch Bonnet
Swiss Chocolate (from White Hot Peppers, extra excited to grow this as I couldn't find any info on it until this year)
Goronong 
Scotch Brains
7 Pod Primo
Large Bubblegum
Red Devil's Tongue
Yellow Fatalii
 
Anuum:
 
Karaman
Piment de Espellette 
Shishito
Numex Espanola Improved
Sulu Adana
Jimmy Nardello
Chilhuacle Negro
Chilhuacle Rojo
 
Bacatum:
 
Aji Colorado
 
Pubescens:
 
Orange Manzano
 
 
I started most of these seeds 3/22 using wet paper towels inside of mostly sealed plastic bags on a heat mat set to 85 degrees. I got relatively high germination on all except for the Manzano (I'm not keeping track exactly because I'm growing such a small number, % doesn't matter tooo much unless it's terrible). Large BBG and 7 Pod seeds look terrible (darker, dried out even after sitting in warm wet paper towel), but I started those on 4/4 so I can't say anything about germ %.
 
I'm also growing purple and green tomatillos, and those germinated mostly in two days!
 
Once seeds germinated I moved them into either straight perlite (miniature hydroponic setup) or a seedling mix with lots of vermiculite, some garden soil, and perlite. 
 
This picture was taken 4/1 and shows cells as well as a mini hydroponic pot. The cup containing perlite has three long holes made by cutting the bottom corners off.
 

 
This pic was taken 4/5 and shows roots poking out of bottom of pot. 
 

 
Another pic from 4/5, showing growing progress. Tomatillos are outgrowing everything because of their germination headstart, I assume (germinated in TWO DAYS!)
 

 
So I think growth is pretty good. I am seeing some odd things, though. Purple stems on most, which doesn't have me worried. Purple petioles on many, which is a little more odd I think. And two MoAs are showing purple or brownish (maybe just darker green) around the outside edges of cotyledons (true leaves are just popping out). 
 

 

 
I'm not too worried about this, but figured I should keep an eye on it.
 
I'm using roughly an 18:6 light dark cycle, keeping temps around 85-95 under the lights using a fan.
Lights are T5 HO, 4 foot x 8 bulbs with only the 4 center bulbs directly over the plants turned on. 
I'm bottom watering using a light (hopefully) fertilizer mix, same mix for soil and hydroponic.
pH adjusted using 5% acetic acid vinegar, because the tap water around here is roughly 9.0 (although the alkalinity and hardness are not crazy high). I use about 1 tsp 5% acetic, and that gets pH down around 6 ish.
 
I'll throw these numbers in for kicks.
 

 
AND the fertilizer I'm using at 1/4 - 1/2 tsp per gallon is an odd concoction. Shooting for a 3-1-2 ratio (plus added calcium) I added 1 part Calcium Nitrate to 2 parts Jack's Classic Citrus, making it roughly 18.5-6.5-13, which is close enough to a 3-1-2 multiplied by 6 for me! Calcium nitrate and monoammonium phosphate can create a precipitate if blended at high concentration, but I mixed two solids together and then dissolve at very low conc so I believe this is fine. If someone with more chemistry knowledge knows better I'd love to hear it. 
 
View attachment JACKS_CLASSIC_CITRUS_FeED.pdf
 
View attachment Calcium Nitrate_Hi-Yield_Ferti_Loam.pdf
 
That's it for now! If anyone foresees any problems or has any tips I would be grateful!
 
Tom
 

 

[Arthropods]

I've been reading TrentL's glog about his farm operation and I saw some of the old pictures of seedlings he posted with some purple around the outside of the cotys, and I thought they looked similar to my MoAs. He said his had nutrient toxicity because of the excess nutrients supplied by his organic mix, and so I wondered if maybe I had overdosed my little seedlings. Maybe they were too young even for the 1/2 teaspoon per gallon of nutrient that I gave them, since the MoAs got this before they even had true leaves. I know that a lot of people here, where I've done lots of my reading, don't give seedlings ferts until they're a few true leaves in. So I did some searching for seedling fert requirements. This first link I found (https://ag.umass.edu/greenhouse-floriculture/fact-sheets/fertilizing-bedding-plant-seedlings) talks about "bedding plant seedlings" and gives nitrogen recommendations for seedlings with only cotys at around 25 ppm N. I had accidentally been giving the seedlings around 10 TIMES that amount of nitrogen, plus I'm sure far more P and K than they need (even though I was giving them only 1/2 tsp per gallon of nutrient). So I searched around for symptoms of nutrient toxicity beyond "nute burn" and mostly found stuff on weed growing sites. I'm sure those plants shows symptoms differently than peppers do, but some of the symptoms from this site (http://www.growweedeasy.com/nitrogen-toxicity-cannabis) seemed to match up decently to the darkening and slight yellowing at the tips of the MoAs. They seem to be the most affected.
 
This is my mini-hydroponic MoA, showing the worst symptoms of all the plants. 
 

 
So I flushed with some pHed water and I'll be watering with no added nutrients for a couple of weeks probably.
 
Does anyone have any experience with nutrient toxicity of such small plants? Or maybe you've noticed that your MoAs react differently to strong fertilization than other plants? 
 
Tom