Soil Temp For Early Seedling Root Growth?

Durkee13

Active Member
So Ive been trying to use a heat pad with the thermostat probe stuck inside the soil after I have planted a germinated seed to attempt to facilitate strong a rapid root growth and somewhere I read in my hours and hours of research on the subject it said to maintain a soil temp 10-15 degrees above the ambient temp.
So what ive done is laid the heating matt on a table top, placed the seedling pot on the matt and then put a clear tote upside down over that, and a bowl of water and temp/rh reader. The inside temp is normally what you see in the pics, 10-15 degrees higher puts the soil temp (based again on what ive read) at around 90 degrees. the sucker leaves color dont look right, this is my second seedling that basically seemingly "stopped growing", and Im not sure which part of this setup isnt cuttin it.
Is any of this crap even necessary?? Cause im not getting any luck gettin passed this seedling shit! First try at growing I over watered...this time I saturate the soil before I drop the seed in, put a baggie with a few poked holes in it over the pot...once it pops through the soil Im not sure if I should keep the baggie over it or take it off and try and control temp and RH the way Ive done in these attached pics.

Im tired of burning through otherwise good seeds!!
20200322_105159[1].jpg20200322_105406[1].jpg20200322_105315[1].jpg20200322_105328[1].jpg20200322_105355[1].jpg
 

Durkee13

Active Member
Thanks for the input, I wondered if I was over complicated things!
My light I'm using is a 9 watt blue spectrum-leaning LED light. I used a 600 watt led blurple light, but assumed that's what stunted the growth on my last attempt with the heat mat and dome.
 

Durkee13

Active Member
yea so that seedling died in a matter of an hour...withered and died right in front of me

So where should my next seedling be kept???? How should it be kept???
 

OneHitDone

Well-Known Member
yea so that seedling died in a matter of an hour...withered and died right in front of me

So where should my next seedling be kept???? How should it be kept???
If your heat mat is set to 89 that is way too hot. Probably steaming the poor little guy with moist soil and high temp.
I'd set it to 76-78 and try agin. If your room is already that warm obviously the heat mat won't com on.
Soak seeds overnight in water then place in your container pointed end up and cover no more than 1/4" with soil.
If you don't see something poking up after probably 2 days get in there carefully and inspect :peace:
 

Durkee13

Active Member
If your heat mat is set to 89 that is way too hot. Probably steaming the poor little guy with moist soil and high temp.
I'd set it to 76-78 and try agin. If your room is already that warm obviously the heat mat won't com on.
Soak seeds overnight in water then place in your container pointed end up and cover no more than 1/4" with soil.
If you don't see something poking up after probably 2 days get in there carefully and inspect :peace:

Yea i figured as such...once the "dome" goes over everything. the inside temp shoots up, and i was just goin by a reading that said soil temp should be 10-15 degrees above ambient temp...so im like is that ambient around the pot INSIDE the dome or AROUND the outside of the dome itself.
Another guy told me to set it at 75...but as i was doing all that that is when the damn thing died!
I got another seed germinating in a glass of water which is setting inside that dome on the heat mat and set to 75. The temp probe is laying about an inch and a half above the mat. I checked it when I came home from work, the water was luke warm. Im gonna see if this does anything. Hell I have plenty of bag seeds to fart around with!
 

Durkee13

Active Member
Update: New set up...got 2 seedlings goin, the first, leggy one seems to be doin good, the second one just popped out of the soil, looked real nice at first, then it started looking weird, and it is not growing nearly as fast as the first did...the first grew as long as it is and developed its 2 first main leaves all within a time span of 4-6 hours. This all happened BEFORE i put them into the tent ive included pics of. Im hoping the controlled environment will help them get good and strong this time. I would absolutely LOVE some advice and input on seedling care and nutes that might help these little ladies, I have yet to make it through the seedling stage! Over watered the first 6 plants i tried...then as this thread stated above, i been burning up roots before they can form with the heat matt as was pointed out by OneHitDone, (thank you for that, as that was indeed the problem!)
 

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