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Four-Pepper False Start Glog

While I'm (successfully) growing plenty of herbs at the moment, the important stuff is obviously the peppers... and, since I'm pretty sure I baked the first set of seeds I attempted to germinate due to underestimating the power of my seedling heat mat after moving it into the grow tent, we're calling that a swing and a miss and moving on with Batch #2.
 
Tomorrow night they'll get the coffee-filter-in-a-baggie treatment and a hopefully-more-comfortable place in a lovely fluffy towel on the mat.
 
I'm watering about every 4 days, when they get dry enough that the first ones start to wilt; watering from the top until they're saturated.
 
Planning to go to coir, perl, and soil in thirds when they go into bags, but I'm hoping to get another month plus out of the current setup without anything dying.
 
Well I'm not seeing anything past the PONR and some look quite good.  When I see leaves cup up like that and some of the twisted grow on the one that looks a little like Ca deficiency, but I don't think is, I tend to think heat and/or water stress.  I were to take a guess based on the picture, I'd guess drought stress is part of it, which will be particularly hard on such young plants - especially if they're getting to the point of starting to wilt. Plus if the leaves aren't getting enough water, that can exacerbate nutrient deficiency.
 
Just looking at the picture, some of the plants seem small for their containers, which makes proper watering difficult.  I might try watering a little more often and not so deeply every time, especially on the smaller plants.  Using a spray bottle is often a great way to do this.  I don't grow in soil-less media, so maybe someone who does will weigh in, but I'd also aim at more regular feedings of more diluted concentrations.
 
Hope it turns around fast and your plants are charging forward again.
 
CaneDog said:
Well I'm not seeing anything past the PONR and some look quite good.  When I see leaves cup up like that and some of the twisted grow on the one that looks a little like Ca deficiency, but I don't think is, I tend to think heat and/or water stress.  I were to take a guess based on the picture, I'd guess drought stress is part of it, which will be particularly hard on such young plants - especially if they're getting to the point of starting to wilt. Plus if the leaves aren't getting enough water, that can exacerbate nutrient deficiency.
 
Just looking at the picture, some of the plants seem small for their containers, which makes proper watering difficult.  I might try watering a little more often and not so deeply every time, especially on the smaller plants.  Using a spray bottle is often a great way to do this.  I don't grow in soil-less media, so maybe someone who does will weigh in, but I'd also aim at more regular feedings of more diluted concentrations.
 
Hope it turns around fast and your plants are charging forward again.
 
Excellent, thanks for the input. I'm waiting on a temperature measurement (the light cycle starts soon, figured I'd let it do its thing), but regardless, I'll plan on going more frequent and moderate with the watering and feeding.
 
internationalfish said:
 
Thanks! The coffee filters worked really well for me. I did get a lot of them growing into the material a little bit, but I just ran a sharp box cutter alongside the roots and that did the trick.
 
Just a footnote for future germinations.....I wouldn't worry trying to cut out the roots.  I really don't think there'd be any issues or problems with leaving scraps of filter on the sprouting seeds when you plant them.  Any scraps of paper would eventually decompose.
 
The thing about that is the filters don't degrade in water the way paper towels do. So they're much easier to handle when wet, but they also require a bit more care when the roots get frisky to avoid damage.
 
+1 #42.
 
Keeping the non-soil medium moist but not wet is key, and I'd
water with 1/4 strength nutrients every watering. That's not
enough to burn the plants, but enough to keep the medium 
feeding them.  Two weeks with no food is tough on the little
guys in the coir/perlite mix. Basically, you're growing hydroponically
since there are no nutrients in the medium.
 
Thanks very much for the advice! I switched up my watering, and the nutrients immediately made a difference.

Even before that, though, the alma paprika were going strong and apparently have their minds on love already. You're still young! Keep it in your pants!

IMG_20181210_223520.jpg
 
CaneDog said:
Nothing like seeing that good green coming back on the new growth.  Yeah, that Alma Paprika has been looking great through it all and seems all about getting down to business.  Better watch out or he'll be cross-pollinating all your seeds!
 
Haha, I'm fine with that! Actually still have plenty of seeds for all of these anyway... I've been thinking about crossing the alma when there are more flowers to go around, just not sure with what. Maybe something thinner-walled for a meaty medium-heat pepper (Ghost Paprika?). The way the others have been stunted by my poor parenting, though, I suspect I'll be waiting a while yet, despite their generally increased level of happiness in the last few days.
 
My only white devil's tongue sprout is... not looking great. Doing what I can to help him out, but that might be the only variety I end up without, provided everything else keeps going the way it has been.
 
CaneDog said:
Shoot, I suspect they'll bound back pretty quick.  So, the purple UFO is looking like it's going to survive?
 
I think so, yeah. The UFO, the bhut, and the 7JPN have spread their little cotys and are soaking in the blurple sun; it's just the white devil that seems to be loitering in purgatory. Haven't completely given up there yet, but I'm not really expecting him to make it.
 
Well, I thought my larger alma paprika had one flower starting. I was wrong.
 
IMG_20181211_185601.jpg

 
It had three, and the little guy also had one (not pictured).
 
The big guy has a freaking lot of new growth coming in, too:
 
IMG_20181211_185638.jpg

 
I topped them both. Biggie didn't lose much, just the flower buds and a few small leaves. The little one lost a pretty substantial proportion of his greenery, so hopefully that kicks his ass into gear.
 
I figured now that they look OK I'd get a couple glamor shots...
 
IMG_20181211_185833.jpg

 
My best-foot-forward CGN 21500. The other two are still a bit sad, but here you can see how small most of my plants still are, despite being almost a month and a half from seed.
 
IMG_20181211_185915.jpg

 
And a chocolate hab. A lot of them are still exhibiting some upward curl, but I'm being patient and slowly working on mitigating whatever might be wrong other than the lack of nutrients. So hopefully things keep looking up.
 
So the current ambient temperature in the room that contains my tent, which is also the warmest room in the house... is 14C. So about 57F. Not... ideal.

Managed to get the inside of the tent up into the mid 70's F, but that meant sealing it up entirely, in addition to adding a heat mat. So hopefully the lack of air interchange won't be a big deal.

And now it's time to cocoon myself for the nightly hibernation. Sweet dreams, pepperheads.
 
Glad to hear that some of your plants
are bouncing back.
 
The CGN 21500 is a sweet little start.
 
The grow tent temps should be okay,
especially if the night temperatures
stay in the 50's.  A small opening at
the bottom of the tent should provide
enough air exchange.
 
Good luck going forward, 'Fish...
 
PaulG said:
Glad to hear that some of your plants
are bouncing back.
 
The CGN 21500 is a sweet little start.
 
The grow tent temps should be okay,
especially if the night temperatures
stay in the 50's.  A small opening at
the bottom of the tent should provide
enough air exchange.
 
Good luck going forward, 'Fish...
 
Thanks!
 
The tent got up to around 80F overnight and the room stayed at 57. I opened a small vent this morning; the tent lost better than 10 degrees just from me having it open briefly, but bounced back to pretty much where it was within an hour, despite the opening.
 
And the kids are continuing to look better, so I think this particular crisis should be behind us. Tune in next time to watch a fish do his best to kill innocent plants on Survivor: Tent!
 
CaneDog said:
Your CGN 21500 is looking great. Both mine have completely lost the dark color on the leaves, but still good looking plants.  Hope to see flower shots of that A Paprika soon.
 
Thanks! Glad your 21500's are doing well. Not sure if I've seen those in your glog though; I assume they blend in with the others once they've outgrown their Prince phase.
 
Not planning on letting that paprika flower until he puts on some more foliage and gets moved into a bag, which will probably be pretty soon. But at the rate he's growing, yeah, it likely won't be long.
 
Oh shoot, that's right!  You topped it.  Both my 21500's looked similar to yours at a similar age. Really good looking plants.  One is now the base of a graft, so it's not particularly recognizable anymore.  It was starting to stretch and without branching, so i topped it then decided to graft onto it.  The other has been interesting.  It started out similarly to the other (not quite as much node spacing as the first though) and then when it looked like it wouldn't ever branch it started suddenly bushing out massively.  I'll see about posting up a pic or two in my grow log. 
 
Will be interesting to see how yours behaves.
 
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