Seedlings too tall ??

[RAINHAZE]

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Hey All, my first time here.

On 8/27 I germinated & planted 5 Haze seeds and 4 came up right away. After about a week they were growing strong untill one of them kinda fell over. The leaves were pointed to my grow light, so I kinda propped it up on a stick.

I am trying not to over water, and waiting till the soil drys up b4 watering. Do I need to water more often?...maybe?

They are now about 7 inches tall with 2 leaves so far. This morning (2 weeks old) I checked on 'em and the other 3 were bent over too!!
The leaves are pointing to the grow light so I propped them up, and then watered them.

I dont see root rot, and the leaves are spotless and have great color.

I have a grow box and the RH is about 45, with temp at 73 - 78f. The light is timered at 6 hours off, 18 hours on, and I'm using a single 65w gro light. I have the light about 2 ft from the plants.

I have been looking around and I notice everyone elses seedlings are half the highth as mine with twice the amount of leaves. Its been about 25 years since I planted MJ and I remember they were sort of tall and spindly too at first, but they produced just fine.

I have just planted 5 more seedlings and I hope to resolve this problem so that I dont run into this with them also.
Thanx for your help and suggestions.

[Herbalist TL]

Your seedlings sound like mine did at first. The easiest way to fix them is to either transplant them, or you can just add more soil around the base of the stem. If you do transplant them, make a hole deeper so that they are only a few inches up, then they won't be leaning over.

If you can take some pictures then its easier to diagnose any problem that you might encounter.

Good luck with that.

[RAINHAZE]

Thanx for the quick reply!

I was going to just leave the 4 plants in one large pot, but I will take your advise and replant them (deeper) into individual containers.

Obviously 3/16ths inch is not deep enough for seedlings...(read this somewhere else.)
From now on I'll try about an inch or so.

[Herbalist TL]

No problem.

I originally had my plants in small pots, and there was 5 in each one. Once they get past the initial seedling stage, its a bad choice to leave them all in 1 container. When you say they have 2 leaves, do you mean they have 2 leaves that aren't the first circular ones, making 4 total?

Do they look kinda like this plant from another thread?

[slunt]

Your light is too far away at 18 inches of such low wattage.Your babies are super stretching trying to get energy from a far away light source. Kind of like reading by starlight.
4-6 inches would be better depending on heat emitted from the bulb. No sense burning the babies. Most gro lights are fairly cool temp and 6 inches is no problem. With flourescent tubes the plants can be an inch away or touch the lights with no harm. Your root size will determine your plants size so give each seedling it's own pot. You can repot again into larger pots in a few weeks. The less competition the roots have for nutrients the better, therefore 1 plant per pot and in the long run bigger is better as far as size goes..

[RAINHAZE]

Ok, I replanted them into separate pots, and planted deeper. I also bought a new 24" 2 light w/flourescent grow tubes. I now have the light about 3" above the tops. cool.


@HerbalistTL, Yeah just like that... only the distance between the first (rounded) and second leaves is about 2" on the stem.

@slunt, Thanx, I think you nailed it, makes good sence (no pun) lol.

I also noticed my new babies just popping their heads above the dirt. Hopefully now they wont have to endure the same kind of stretching.
Ill take some pics in a week or so to show whats happening and maybe other ppl can learn by example.

Thanx very much guy's