seeds Seedlings not doing too well

[M.W]

Nee, yep I'm in your exact situation! I did way too much research too, complicating things too much, but perhaps not enough research on indoor lighting. Great to hear about your new batch doing well! It gives me hope haha. By the way, thanks for sharing the amount of water you give your seedlings, I'm still having so much trouble with that.

I might have underwatered them after overwatering. I haven't watered them for over a week. A few more of them have leaves all shriveled up and are not recovering even after watering, but that might also be fertilizer burn catching up to them. It's mostly happening to the seedlings that have been very slow growing since transplantation.

The one that had that 1 leaf fall off seems to be growing still. No new leaf growth, but there seems to be some stem growth and doing better than the ones above. It's funny that the box I don't pay much attention to is doing so much better. I'll be adding some higher kelvin lights to that one once my bulbs arrive.

I guess next time I'll add way less worm castings. I went a bit crazy with them this time after reading about how great they are haha.

 

[M.W]

Ah, bad news... The plant that had 1 leaf fall off has lost most of its other leaves too. Strangely, these leaves all appear quite healthy (i.e no wilting), except for a lot of purple/brown spots. Is this still fertilizer burn or am I looking at another problem? These leaves fell off when I touched them very gently while moving the pots.

I'm also wondering if I should just repot all of the seedlings in the bad box and use just promix & vermiculite? The current soil with all that worm castings doesn't seem to be doing them any good.

Thanks!

 

[Pepper-Guru]

leafspot lil sulphur will fix that. The spores everywhere and with overwatering its a common result.

 

[mrz1988]

What species is that? I've had leaf spots like that from certain C. frutescens varieties with fertilizer issues. Not sure if that's what's happening here though. Each species seems to tell you what it wants differently.

 

[Pepper-Guru]

Oh and good eye, Rabid. If youll notice the leaf spot as well..

 

[M.W]

I've since repotted them into Pro-mix with ~1 handful of that previous over fertilized soil and 1 handful of vermiculite. Sadly that last batch was a total mess. All the ones that looked alright when I first started the topic are now all struggling to survive. I've learned a lot though.

I've also dusted some garden sulphur onto the seedlings in hopes of taking care of the spores, time will tell how many will make it.

My bulbs arrived They're not that much higher in watts, but they're 5500K instead of the 2700K that I've been using.

These are fatalii and Bhut Jolokia plants btw.

 

[Joseph Stalin]

I've since repotted them into Pro-mix with ~1 handful of that previous over fertilized soil and 1 handful of vermiculite. Sadly that last batch was a total mess. All the ones that looked alright when I first started the topic are now all struggling to survive. I've learned a lot though.

I've also dusted some garden sulphur onto the seedlings in hopes of taking care of the spores, time will tell how many will make it.

My bulbs arrived They're not that much higher in watts, but they're 5500K instead of the 2700K that I've been using.

These are fatalii and Bhut Jolokia plants btw.

Why no 6500k? Anyways I personally wouldn't fertilize that early on. I got cold feet while planting my two inch plant into foxfarms. I just applied fertilizer today actually. Still, way to early in my opinion, and just as a precautionary warning, don't put youngsters into the sun. I got some pretty bad sunburn. oh well, live and learn, and happy growing!

 

[Cayennemist]

Looks like Over watering is the culprit, but I think its a combination of a few things
1. Over-Watering
2. Too many Ferts
3. Poor lighting

My bulbs arrived They're not that much higher in watts, but they're 5500K instead of the 2700K that I've been using.
These are fatalii and Bhut Jolokia plants btw.

OK I'm going to save you a little time on lighting research...

Light bulbs come in different colors, plants in general like two main colors Red and Blue. Think nature, Red is long summer days, blue winter and spring.

In gardening we give these cycles names Veg for vegetative growth (spring) and Flower for the flowering stage (summer/fall).

Peppers are special, in that they don't care. Peppers like Blue ALWAYS! its ok to add red if you want, but it's still unclear if it will help or not.

Why is this important? because the lights you are using, (CFL) or compact florescent lights, come a few different colors. So when you go to buy lights for your grow, you will want CFLs that are Blue or 6500k

6500k represents blue on the color spectrum, and is by far the best for growing peppers and most other plants. These can be found almost
everywhere for less than 10$ for 2 CFLs

(well at least in the US) They are a good start for what you are trying to do.

Now for part 2 of the lesson.

Notice it says 26 watt but then 100 at the top.
That's because 26w is the equivalent of 100w of regular incandescent bulbs. When you buy CFLs this is important because you dont really want the actual wattage to be lower than 26w AKA100w Equivalent. If you can find some real 100w CFLs then you will have a decent grow light, mind you those are pricy and harder to find.



To sum it up, you want a minimum of 26 Actual watts and to be 6500k on the color scale
If you knew all this already I'm sorry for taking up your time.

Also your probably thinking 5500k isnt that far from 6500k, I can tell you from personal experience, that it is.
I thought the same thing when I brought home my 5500k's. I was told the same thing I'm telling you so I tested the 6500ks and saw a noticeable difference.
Or at least add a 6500k, some people think mixing up the spectrum is better, and it may be. One thing is for sure, plants prefer 6500k as far as CFL's go.

Good luck man

Andrew

 

[patrick]

Your 5500K bulbs will help with overall growth of the plants. Don't worry about adding the cooler temp bulbs unless you plan on keeping the plants indoors. Cooler temp bulbs are better for flowering and pod production.

Probably isn't a good idea to add any of the old used mix to the new stuff when repotting. You don't want to bring any of the possible little nasties in it to the new stuff.

Good luck.

 

[Cayennemist]

Cooler temp bulbs are better for flowering and pod production.

Not to challenge your intelligence or to be rude, but that is the Opposite of every thing I have ever read.
Cooler for veg, Warmer for flower is what I have heard and have experience with. In fact everything I have seen states that:
1. peppers dont need warmer color to flower but it may help
2. peppers (like most plants) prefer Blue, or (cooler plectrums of light) for vegetative growth. Which is what you would want for starting a plant inside.

EDIT:
Upon further research, it has come to my attention that different species prefer different spectrum's...
lol makes sense, different plants are native to different climates and thus, different light spectrum's.

I got most of my Lighting Info off Cannabis growing websites. The fact that Cannabis is very commonly grown indoors (for obvious reasons) makes it common to find lighting info directed toward that. Every thing That I mentioned above is in reference to that.

It is a general rule of thumb that Cooler is better for Vegetative growth, however there are some exceptions.

for more info on the matter please see this thread:

http://thehotpepper....cfl#entry570201
or
http://thehotpepper....cfl#entry585913
or
http://thehotpepper....s/page__hl__cfl
or
http://thehotpepper....s/page__hl__cfl