Viewing post #1111404 by petruske

CaliFlowers said:

Sue P. - is the seed-starter layer underneath the cells also coir-based?

No, the layer under the cells is either Jiffy mix seed-starter or Espoma Organic seed starter. I bought both but didn't keep track of which flats got which seed-starter.

CaliFlowers said:
Regarding trimming, it seems to me that you're at the point where maximum growth is no longer a priority. With leaves reaching past your light fixtures, and the rest crowding the lamps and shading the other leaves, a light, uniform trim might be beneficial, as it would allow more light to reach the other leaves. As the plants develop, their spacing should increase, but that's not really practical, and there's a limit to how high most of the lights can be raised. The trimmed plants will respond with more leaves, and there's a possibility that fewer of the outer leaves will brown if the total leaf area of each plant is reduced a bit. Ideally, an indoor seedling operation would be designed so that half of the lighted bench area could be held in reserve so that as the seedlings grow they could be spread apart for better growth. Usually that's not practical, so we make concessions.

I think I'll do a test and trim just a bit off of one flat and see how things progress. I love testing techniques.

CaliFlowers said:
I still have a few flats of seedlings under lamps, in 3.5" pots, with up to 10 plants per pot. I've been taking them outside during the day to get sunlight, but I bring them in at dusk so that they can get a few more hours of indoor light in the evenings, along with a little more warmth than they get outside. The lights also come on before dawn in the morning. They really respond to the rain. My favorite crosses have been bumped up to 6" square pots and are growing outside. I usually move the contents of one 3.5" pot to a 6" square pot or a 1-gallon nursery container, loosening the roots a little to space the seedlings a little further apart. They seem to not notice the disturbance, and are good until they go into the ground.

The following doesn't apply to your situation because the roots of your plants are growing together in the under-flat of seed-starter medium, and will need to be teased apart—which is a good thing.

When transplanting any single cell-grown plant to a garden bed, it's true that they will not suffer transplant shock, but I don't recommend transplanting this way. If a container-grown root ball is just plunked into the ground, initial watering must be directed specifically so that it wets that root ball. If the bed is uniformly overhead-watered, the root ball can dry out fairly fast while the native soil surrounding it remains wet. The plant probably won't die, but it'll struggle until roots grow out into the surrounding soil. In the case of daylilies, their foliage helps direct rain and overhead watering to the base of the fans..

I have some flats that were planted ONE seed per cup (they are small cups). They didn't seem to do as well as other flats that were growing in "company" situations. About two weeks ago I lifted them out of their cup, cut the bottom off of the cup and replaced them into the same cup, then they were put back into the flat with a bottom layer of seed-starter like the other flats. The roots were already circling around the bottom of the cup so I think it was a great improvement for them.

ALL ! ! I know I'll be back to ask more questions when it gets closer to planting them in the ground. I love ATP and its members.