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Do these need some fert?

Toleman

Toleman

See the leaves look a bit patchy and I'm thinking they have a slight deficiency. I also added a couple of cfl's but have since removed for the moment due to them not looking too happy with the extra light. Maybe that has caused the leaves to look like this? As you can see the lower leaves are curling slightly and im not sure whats caused this - they haven't gone soft at all, just curled. So now they have just the shop light and I will put the cfl's back in when they get bigger. I have mixed some chilli focus up at under half strength (
 
Mine look like that with too much water. Maybe let them dry out a little before adding any more.
 
Cheers big T. I have been trying my best to let them dry out before watering but its often difficult to tell how wet they already are.

Anyone else have anything to add?

Chris
 
Chris,

My seedlings often start to wilt - that tells me they need water. Do you bottom water? If not, I recommend it!

Mike
 
wordwiz said:
Chris,

My seedlings often start to wilt - that tells me they need water. Do you bottom water? If not, I recommend it!

Mike
Click to expand...


+1

Bottom watering for baby plants is the only way to go.
 
Its hard to bottom water due to the size of the drainage holes. They currently have about 20 compass made holes each as they are thin plastic cups. Shall I make them bigger with something? So hold fire on the ferts or give them?

Chris
 
Chris,

I would definitely try to make the holes larger. Everyone does things differently, but I am not a huge fan of much fert for seedlings. I add a tablespoon of Tomato-tone to a gallon of water and use that one week; the next week I use plain water.

Mike
 
Cheers Mike. I have just made them bigger with a scalpel blade and have bottom watered too as they were dry. Now they are stood on some paper to drain before going back in. I will hold off the ferts to see if its watering problems first.

Chris

Edit: So bottom watering leaves the top half of soil dry letting the roots breath and also encourage the roots to seek water downwards?
 
Toleman said:
Edit: So bottom watering leaves the top half of soil dry letting the roots breath and also encourage the roots to seek water downwards?
Click to expand...

Chris,

Pretty much. I usually have the water level in the tub so the containers are half submerged. Dad always taught me that letting the soil dry out a bit was good - it forced the roots to grow. I had extremely good luck last year. Too good, actually. By early April, the plants were large enough to transplant which would have been good. Except... that frost free day here is the middle of May! I tried to take cuttings and restart them but maybe 10 percent survived.

One thing I need to clear up though - I transplant seedlings to 3" nursery flats once they get to be about 2.5-3" tall. The roots, albeit very small, are already at the bottom of the container. But toms will sprout roots from the stem and these grow toward the water.

Mike
 
Chris,

A follow-up:

I had forgot about one seedling that had germinated but wasn't large enough to transplant. I saw it yesterday evening and it was laying on its side, looking almost dead. But I stuck it in a small tub of water, let it wick up enough until the top of the potting mix was moist and stuck it back under the light. This morning, it was standing straight up and looking great.

Mike
 
its rain water (5.5ish) and no, haven't checked the compost. They appear to look a bit better now though. Less curled and the colour looks like its coming back. Hopefully a few more days they will back to normal

Chris
 
You're lucky to have rainwater, we haven't had a good shower in a long time. Glad they're looking better, I think they'll turn out to be great plants. They'll be huge in no time.
 
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