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temp vs light

peter pepper

peter pepper

Which is more important to my little seedlings. Temp or light?

At work I have some of my plants placed on a south facing window ledge. This gives them a great amount of sunlight, but I measured the temp. of the cups this morning and they were right around 50F - 60F. I could bring in my heat pad from my greenhouse and put it under a cardboard box and put my cups in the cardboard box, but I really don't want to. Would this even be safe to do?

At home my plants are on a couple of TV trays in my living room where it's about 68F to 70F. However, the sunlight they get is probably about 4-5 hours less than the ones at my work.

Is the lower temp at work just going to slow down my growth? or am I better off at the lower temp with more sunlight? or should I just bring in my heat pad and plug it in during the day when I'm here at work and unplug at night? (I would not leave it plugged in overnight at work.) or is there something else you can think of me doing?


-PP
 
You say 50-60 F in the morning but does it warm up in the sun. My greenhouse plants get down to 50 F some nights but never for a long continuous period, and 60 F is just below what my plant are getting in my house and they are doing well.
 
Low temperature is going to slow your growth and make the plants more susceptible to soil borne fungal disease. If it's getting below 50, it might permanently stunt their growth.

Low light is going to get you spindly plants that snap easily and don't produce well.
 
POTAWIE said:
You say 50-60 F in the morning but does it warm up in the sun. My greenhouse plants get down to 50 F some nights but never for a long continuous period, and 60 F is just below what my plant are getting in my house and they are doing well.
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Good point, what are the temps in the day?

You might try putting some water bottles between the plants to soak up the heat in the day, then they'll release the heat at night.
 
Pam said:
Good point, what are the temps in the day?

You might try putting some water bottles between the plants to soak up the heat in the day, then they'll release the heat at night.
Click to expand...

I'll measure them again today around 1 or so and see how warm they are. I'll post when I know.
 
Ok so I measured my temps and I think I'm ok here's what I got:

The 3 different measurements are the top of the soil, the middle of the soil, and the outside of the cup:


9am : top = 70F / side = 70F / soil = 64F
10am: top = 78F / side = 76F / soil = 74F
11am: top = 83F / side = 78F / soil = 82F
Noon: top = 90F / side = 82F / soil = 86F
1pm : top = 90F / side = 80F / soil = 88F


think i'll be ok just leaving them in the window with the most sunlight.
 
in my experience seedlisgs are healthy looking so far with just a few hours of weak sunlight(its still cloudy and snowing), a little leggy but developing new leaves. so at least in first stage is enough. but im using a heat mat to keep soil temp at least 75-80F for about 12 hours. im not using any cover.
 
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