What does seedling growth say about resistance to the elements?

[africaseeds]

Perhaps this is a very obvious thing that I'm asking, but I'm very curious to know what does seedling growth say about how resistant a strain is to the various elements outdoors. I've found outdoors, but even in not so ideal indoor conditions some strains are very weak as tiny seedlings and let's say they werent eaten by some kind of animal or insect they could still die very easily from overwatering, excessive wind, excessive heat etc. Let's say when I talk about seedling growth I'm talking about from day 1 after germinating to about day 20. I've found that many growers tend to start everything inside even when they are going to grow outside and then take them outside when they are strong enough to make it outside.

Perhaps to state my question more plainly, if you are doing a selection on a bunch of plants, would it be good to start them outside and actually monitor how they do from the start or can I just assume that all plants are pretty weak at that stage and that I can't tell much about them from looking at how they do at that very young stage?

 

[CosmicCharlie]

Yeah, I’d agree with your first point.

In my experience Outdoor seedlings are really fragile and/or subject to getting eaten for at least the first few weeks.

If you can, I’d advise starting them indoors and then transplanting them outside.

As far as your second point/question: Some really experienced growers do selections very early, especially when working with large numbers of seedlings or if you know the expression of the particular trait that you want.