Seedlings to buckets?

[onthaherb]

Hey IC!

Say I had 10 seeds and germinated them... Now lets say I plan on 4 females and I prepared 2x 28gal totes for DWC with 2 netpots each because I want trees.

What is the best thing to do with the 10 seedlings until 3-4 wks when I can determine sex? May I could make a aeroponics cloner and have it double as my vegger for the first few weeks? Start with soil then move them over to the bubbler?

Just trying to get some ideas here, thanks!

 

[jammie]

hey there 'herbie. welcome to the forums. i use to "plan on 4 females" till i ran into the Law. the law of averages that is. last grow, of 8 that germed, i had 1 female. fortunately she cloned easily. anyhow- the lesson i learned is to go all female. that way in 2-3 weeks you can pick the fastest or bushiest 4 plants and plug them into your system. i do individual 5 gal bucket dwc

 

[onthaherb]

Regardless of how many females I end up with... One would be enough but I'll prepare for 4.

Could I start the seeds right into rooter plugs in a humidity dome with distilled water with no light until they sprout their first set of leaves then putting some CFL's over them and misting with a seedling formula. ----- At what point should I remove them from the dome?

 

[FreezerBoy]

At what point should I remove them from the dome?

The very second they break the surface. A dome will keep soil moist but does the plant no good at all. Seedlings, from the instant they sprout, are looking for and expecting an un-domed environment under the full blazing strength of the sun.

Consider separate smaller tubs for plants waiting to be sexed. You can keep roots untangled in a shared tub but, it takes some work as DWC causes explosive root growth. One method that helped me was a "root condom" made of an aquarium filter bag.



Oh, yeah, home made netcups? Bad idea. Forget you saw that.

 

[onthaherb]

Thanks a ton! Love the root condom idea, I'll probably use panty hose or something.

Few other questions:

1. Is there any use in the garden for a commercial grade conductivity meter? Specs say... "single range DS meter" that measures in "micromhos /microsiemens"?

2. I've heard blue light produces more females and is good for vegging in general, do blue party bulb CFLs work for this? And the same for working in the garden with the lights off, will a green party bulb CFL prevent root damage?

3. What does everyone think about the K.I.S.S. formula? It seems to be the best/easiest/cheapest.

 

[FreezerBoy]

1. Is there any use in the garden for a commercial grade conductivity meter? Specs say... "single range DS meter" that measures in "micromhos /microsiemens"?

Whether EC, PPM or TDS, a meter/pen to measure nute strength is heavily advised. Note that all 3 types measure EC and EC only. The EC meter will actually display EC while the PPM and TDS types display EC times one of a dozen or so conversion numbers. Hanna alone uses 4 different conversions. If you've yet to make a purchase, stick to EC.

While mS/cm (millisiemens per centimeter) is more common, µS/cm (microsiemens per centimeter) is also available. 1 mS=1000µS so a µS reading of say 1278 would translate to 1.3 ms.