Problems with stunted stems and stunted growth

Hello everyone, I'm StarKen69 and I'm new here.

I have a problem, 15 days ago I germinated 9 seeds of which I had 100% success but the stems began to grow too much upwards and the leaves do not grow practically nothing, I had them in glasses of 300ml approx and transplant them to pots of 11 liters burying much of its stem to become roots, in the process I broke a stem and had no solution, the thing is that apparently the plants managed to transplant well because they continued growing but very slowly and they continue stretching too much upwards and they grow practically nothing, for the age that they have and the type of variety according to me they should be bigger and with more leaves but they hardly grow, if somebody has idea of what it is or that can be happening and that I can do please let me know it, thank you very much!

Pd: I thought it was lack of nutrients in the soil and I made the mistake of watering with fertilizers (organic) and they started to get intoxicated, some of them wrinkled completely and others burned their leaves....

Illumination : I have 2 bulbs (off) of halide and sodium of 600w which I still do not use because they recommended me to use a led of 20w as long as they were seedlings...

Variety: Rucu cucu OG AUTO of seedstockers

For the soil I used a mixture of :
Worm humus (60%)
Coconut fiber (30%)
Perlite (10%)

Mycorrhizae of the Top Crop brand.

Superguano and Micro Vita

One of the problems, imo, is they need more light. Either higher wattage, or move the light closer. Also, you shoulda left them in cups until they got bigger. They need very little water, until they get a good amount of roots.

What is worm humus?

Hollatchaboy said:

One of the problems, imo, is they need more light. Either higher wattage, or move the light closer. Also, you shoulda left them in cups until they got bigger. They need very little water, until they get a good amount of roots.

What is worm humus?

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Thanks for your answer, I was looking at some threads and the vast majority of solution to the problem of stretched stems and do not grow much is because of the low light and so I put a 250w halide bulb 1 meter away (the good thing is that increased temperature and has 23°C).

Now I do not know very well how to deal with the problem that I water them with fertilizers at a very early age so that they do not die completely....

Worm humus is soil made from earthworms in a worm composting bin.

StarKen69 said:

Thanks for your answer, I was looking at some threads and the vast majority of solution to the problem of stretched stems and do not grow much is because of the low light and so I put a 250w halide bulb 1 meter away (the good thing is that increased temperature and has 23°C).

Now I do not know very well how to deal with the problem that I water them with fertilizers at a very early age so that they do not die completely....

Worm humus is soil made from earthworms in a worm composting bin.

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Ahhh... earthworm castings. They should contain enough nutrition for those seedlings. If you're going to use coco though, you should just use hydro nutes like gh flora trio. Much easier imo.

Possibly in my next planting I will use what you recommended, because I already bought the completel

StarKen69 said:

Possibly in my next planting I will use what you recommended, because I already bought the completel

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Good luck. If I was you I'd get dry amendments, like bas craft blend, or gaia green.

Thank you very much!

Because it died I decided to dig it up to investigate it, I don't know much yet about the state of the plants but it definitely seems to be dead and getting worse, it was turning purple and wilting more and more, this is the complete plant, root, stem, leaves, etc, I dug it up carefully....

Any opinion on what could have caused this?

StarKen69 said:

Because it died I decided to dig it up to investigate it, I don't know much yet about the state of the plants but it definitely seems to be dead and getting worse, it was turning purple and wilting more and more, this is the complete plant, root, stem, leaves, etc, I dug it up carefully....

Any opinion on what could have caused this?

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Digging it up? Ouch, I hate losing neonates , sorry.

curious2garden said:

Digging it up? Ouch, I hate losing neonates , sorry.

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Yes, I guess it was from watering with fertilizers at such a young age....

StarKen69 said:

Yes, I guess it was from watering with fertilizers at such a young age....

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Germinated 4/17 and on nutrients since 4/20. I grow hydro so they are in a 70/30 mix of coco pith and perlite. I start mine in Jiffy Pellets (no nutrients) and transfer as soon as I see roots to those pint pots. I'm saying nutrients are fine but if you're in soil it can easily be too hot if you don't know your mix etc... Always go for an almost inert seed starting mix and it never hurts to have a few hydro salts until they can tolerate soil. In hydro I dial nutrient solution to 200. So starting in a substrate that has no nutrients can allow you to feed them early. Anyway soil is fine but you have to be careful what you germinate seeds in. Best of luck, you'll get this.

curious2garden said:

Germinated 4/17 and on nutrients since 4/20. I grow hydro so they are in a 70/30 mix of coco pith and perlite. I start mine in Jiffy Pellets (no nutrients) and transfer as soon as I see roots to those pint pots. I'm saying nutrients are fine but if you're in soil it can easily be too hot if you don't know your mix etc... Always go for an almost inert seed starting mix and it never hurts to have a few hydro salts until they can tolerate soil. In hydro I dial nutrient solution to 200. So starting in a substrate that has no nutrients can allow you to feed them early. Anyway soil is fine but you have to be careful what you germinate seeds in. Best of luck, you'll get this.

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Thank you very much, may I ask how do you keep them in hydroponics? did you buy a kit or something?

I could try since I still have coco fiber and perlite.

StarKen69 said:

Thank you very much, may I ask how do you keep them in hydroponics? did you buy a kit or something?

I could try since I still have coco fiber and perlite.

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Same way you grow them in soil except coco/perlite is a relatively inert medium. For me it's easier than soil. I know that sounds crazy since soil should be simple but not for me. I over water overfeed etc......

I use GH Flora Trio with CaliMagic and that's it. I followed their old Drain to Waste feed chart. I use Dyna Gro Foliage Pro in veg since it's a simple one part but for seedlings and flower I use Flora Trio. I get great looking plants but you can use anything.

I'm an intermediate grower and it doesn't come naturally to me. I've spent the last decade murdering tomatoes. So I have to go for simple. We have some fabulous growers on the site look around and check out grow journals. @Budzbuddha peeing on his plants is a hoot but actually urea is a decent source of N if you do not overwhelm them with sodium etc.....

Take a look at grow journals etc..... there's no one right way to grow. Whatever gets you to harvest works and even if they look battered and bruised you learn and take that to the next grow. Check out the grow journals. See what looks like would work with your style and welcome to RIU

I mean, I make a mixture of coir/perlite and put them in a pot just like in soil and only water it (I know that the coir keeps the water and does not contain nutrients), that would be all? because I have seen some videos of hydroponics in which they need to maintain a constant flow of water, roots in direct contact with the water, etc...

I don't understand very well the subject and yes, this is my first planting so I don't have a lot of experience.

StarKen69 said:

I mean, I make a mixture of coir/perlite and put them in a pot just like in soil and only water it (I know that the coir keeps the water and does not contain nutrients), that would be all? because I have seen some videos of hydroponics in which they need to maintain a constant flow of water, roots in direct contact with the water, etc...

I don't understand very well the subject and yes, this is my first planting so I don't have a lot of experience.

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I don't use coir for seedlings. The coir I've used a seed would drop right through so I use pith:

I'm sure there are many others that would work but I wanted something reputable that was pre-rinsed and ec stabilized. Growing in hydro you need a pH Pen (I use Bluelab) and an EC Pen (I use a cheap one I got in 2011 off ebay). So you can dial in TDS and pH. Really for seedlings and then moving to soil you don't need anything but water and some coco pith. Seedlings feed off their cotyledons for quite awhile so you can get away with water until they start to go faintly yellow then I start with 200 PPM which is about .3 ec on a 700 meter at which point you could move to a gentle soil.

curious2garden said:

I don't use coir for seedlings. The coir I've used a seed would drop right through so I use pith:
View attachment 5289261
I'm sure there are many others that would work but I wanted something reputable that was pre-rinsed and ec stabilized. Growing in hydro you need a pH Pen (I use Bluelab) and an EC Pen (I use a cheap one I got in 2011 off ebay). So you can dial in TDS and pH. Really for seedlings and then moving to soil you don't need anything but water and some coco pith. Seedlings feed off their cotyledons for quite awhile so you can get away with water until they start to go faintly yellow then I start with 200 PPM which is about .3 ec on a 700 meter at which point you could move to a gentle soil.

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I understand, thank you very much for the information!

What Curious said.
Also, tiny plants need tiny pots. It's scary, but I've found that their roots really need oxygen and the way to get that to them is to allow plenty of dry-back, almost to the point of not watering enough. So you have to have the confidence to not succumb to the temptation to water them too often and this is where the smaller pot helps. A big pot can hols so much water that a small plant can't make much impression on it, and the roots and media stay wet and therefore anaerobic.
As has been said above, there's no single right way but the oxygen and dry-back seems to be at least as important as the correct food blend.
Good luck.

Finally I germinated another 9 seeds (3 different varieties but I forgot to label them) these seem to grow better, they didn't spiked as much and started to grow bigger and stronger leaves, also roots, they have more roots.... Much more than the others...



The others on the other hand some died and others survived but not very well, they were already small and with the passing of the days they don't seem to grow much, not as much as the ones I just germinated, I will probably have to remove them....



I put a 250w halogen light and bought a premixed substrate which is the All Mix from Biobizz, these were the only changes I made to achieve a "solution".