Slow growing seedlings. Need to add N??

Hi again. To recap my grow info, I have 17 seedlings about 3 weeks old roughly. They are growing very slowly and look like what some ppl manage to grow in a fraction of that time. The seedlings were started in Jiffy Pellets and then placed into beer cups with soil from an outdoor planter in my yard. I know the soil is decent because I have 8 very healthy pumpkin plants going that are a month or so older than these seedlings. Anyway, I couldn't figure out why my seedlings were growing so slow, so I decided to swap the soil out of the beer cups and replace it with Pro-mix BX which is what my outdoor plots are prepped with now. THere doesn't really appear to be any transplant shock to my eyes, but I have noticed that the first set of true leaves on some of the plants is discoloured and the stems of the seedlings are reddening. Not sure if this was apparent before the transplant. Am I correct to think this is a N defficientcy?

THe plants were started in a window sill inside and have been spending the day in the sun outside and coming in under a couple of CFL's at night. The plants are used to the sun so full sunlight doens't seem to harm them.


I went out today to try and find sea kelp and bat guano for my grow site and couldn't find any at the stores I checked, but I picked up a bottle of Organic "Muskie" 5-1-1 fish emulsion thinking that it could possibly help the seedlings gow faster. THe package says to apply 5ml (one teaspoon) per 1 litre of water. Since I gave them a good drink after the transplant yesterday, I was thinking Id let them dry out a bit and perhaps use 1/2 t.s. / litre of water the next time I watered them to see if the extra N helps them grow quicker? Bad idea???

On the one hand Im thinking maybe I should just wait it out because perhaps the roots havn't adjusted to the Promix BX yet, but on the other hand, I don't want to have a more serious issue pop up from waiting too long.

Im also wondering if the netting on the Jiffy pellets is restricting root growth. THere were roots popping through on all the seedlings when I transplanted them, but not tons. The stems were starting to root where they had been buried earlier, so that's a good sign. Any ideas on how to speed up my growth??? Thanks a lot.











Oh, and so you know, the plants are stretched because I was using the wrong spectrum of light at night. I have since switched to daylight CFL's but I only have 2 26w bulbs so they aren't really enough for growth, but just enough to keep the plants from the dark period. The plants are on a pretty consistent 18/6 regime.

the red stem is from UV light from the sun, Pro Mix is prefertilized so you won't need to feed for a couple of weeks. I think you'll be fine now that they're getting pure sunlight.

Thanks for the response frmrboi. Good to know the red stems is just from the sunlight. That had me worried. I guess most ppl don't bother feeding anything to the plants til after the cotyledon leaves fall off. I'm still thinking that I MIGHT add a tad of the fish emulsion next time I water just to see if it does anything. I would just add 1/4 strength or so of what it instructs on the bottle. For what it's worth, it says "non-burning fertilizer on the bottle.. so I hope just a tad won't hurt anything and may even help pick up the pace a bit.

im guessin ur plants r in 24 light right it so u can try switchin 18 hours of light and 6 hours of dark i know alot of people say its best to stay on 24/0 and im on my frist grow so im a noob but i think they grow faster on 18/6 im on my very frist grow and i notice 18/6 grows faster then 24 hours of light. but im a noob and this is my 2 cents good luck r u planing on grow outdoor or indoors addin more light might help as well

they dnt seem stressed. they actually look ok 4 3 weeks. they shud b movin into veg stage soon n then u shud see a lot more growth. if not, then there is sum problem.

Those are right where you want them to be for 3 weeks

Thanks for the confidence boost guys. I thought that there should be way more growth for their age at this point, but if you guys say they look alright then that's great.

You only have two 26 watts on all those?!?!

Please read the first post for info. I stated that I am using a 18/6 lighting regime and that the plants are out in the sun for the day and I use 2 26w daylight CFl's to get the rest of the 18 hrs of light. It's all I have. Doesn't do much for growth, but keeps the plants from getting more than 6 hrs of dark a day.