Day 36 update.
Growth slowed down on many of my plants this week. I attribute this to one or more of the following things:
1. Under-watering (I have now given them a good soak)
2. Under-feeding (I hadn't fed any of my plants until yesterday)
3. Too close to the LED fixture (I have now increased the distance from 9" to to 13")
4. Temperatures too cool (I had turned the hat mat down to 70f, it's now back up to 80f).
The only plants which have grown well are the two in the self watering container:
Compare to the previous picture from eight days ago (note that the pots are reversed in this pic):
The lower pair of leaves on one of them started showing slight signs of oedema after about 4 days. Since then I have been putting a fan on them for a couple of hours each day and the new growth is not showing any further signs of oedema. I really thought these would be suffering by now, but they seem to be thriving. I should also mention that there are 2" long roots poking out of the holes in the bottom of the cups already!
Inspired by this, I have started what I call the "popcorn" experiment.
These are some more self watering containers made from plastic popcorn cups with 4" pots inside. This time, the pots are filled with 1:1 coco:perlite (I like to experiment). I will let the medium dry out a little over the next couple of days and then I will fill the reservoirs with the same mix I used for the original self-watering container.
You may notice that one of the plants above is yellowing quite a bit (white bhut). This plant was the first to pop, so I suspect it's just hungry. It was watered with a weak nute solution yesterday and repotted today, hopefully it will like the fresh soil.
I potted up some more of the cups today too (from 10oz cups to 4.5" pots). I probably should have done a few more but I was pressed for time:
Here is an updated pic. of the jigsaw crosses, no problems to report with these:
This weekend I also wrapped my grow shelves in black&white poly, which you can see in the background of my pics. Since doing this, I noticed that air temperature has risen considerably; conversely the humidity has dropped considerably. I'll need to keep a close eye on both of these over the next few days.