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I started Echinacea angustifolia and Rudbeckia hirta seedlings recently.

I do watering by spraying if I can see or touch almost dry soil in cells. In the begining, I sprayed the trays with water every 2-3 days. However, the need for water increased as seedlings developed! Today and yesterday I needed to spray them twice a day.

Is this expected? Do you guys have similar experiences?

The pictures of my seedling trays:

Echinacea:

enter image description here

Rudbeckia:

enter image description here

VividD
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  • Whatever the method used for watering, I'd suggest you pay extra attention to the corners, as they usually dry out earlier than the rest because they are often a few mm above the collecting tray (I mean the 4 cells in the corners). This happened with all the seed-trays I have worked with. – Alina Mar 23 '18 at 20:54
  • @Alina Or perhaps they are exposed to environment from two sides, being the corner cells. Very nice hint! I will do that. Thanks a bunch! – VividD Mar 23 '18 at 20:59
  • @Alina I just put a little bit of extra water in all 8 corner cells, ha! – VividD Mar 23 '18 at 21:22
  • are they covered? – black thumb Mar 24 '18 at 03:31
  • @blackthumb No. – VividD Mar 24 '18 at 06:49
  • Monitor the temperature under the 'dome' that black thumb is asking about. Plastic domes over your seedlings reduce watering. When you have pulled out competitors so you have one plant in each cell, you have to drastically reduce the watering, less plants, roots to uptake water. From what I am seeing you should add a bit of balanced fertilizer sooner than later. The soil looks too wet. Do not water until that soil is dry...er. I would think about transplanting some of those starts you have to pull out into new soil that is not so wet. Just one per cell. To have extras if they survive? – stormy Mar 24 '18 at 07:00
  • @stormy There is no dome, and I dom plan to install any. – VividD Mar 24 '18 at 12:05
  • Funny, Vivid. I use domes or saranwrap after transplanting germinated seeds into tiny cells with fluffy potting soil. I spray to moisten the surface of the soil and lots of trays for starts come with their own dome. Sure helps if you've got a bit unstable heat and mice! Mice will eat he seed, the sprout very easily. Black Thumb was asking if your starts had a cover, a dome, saran wrap...we've got a dome as well as 1/4" wire mesh framed to allow the dome to come off to reduce heat buildup yet protect from little tiny mice eating the delicious sprouts... – stormy Mar 25 '18 at 01:45
  • Consider using 'domes' very very inexpensive and contribute to more success growing from seed. Have you whittled your babies down to just one maybe two per cell? The longer you wait the more entangled those roots will be and sort of impossible to thin properly with at least one plant left healthy. Because of the need of chemistry by more starts, too wet of soil, you need to add a bit of fertilizer to that soil to help that plant succeed after you've done your...plantocide, grins. I always only plant ONE seed per cell. I hate killing baby plants!!!. – stormy Mar 25 '18 at 01:52

1 Answers1

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Assuming you haven't increased the room temperature, the explanation is that the seedlings are growing. As they develop, they put out roots and the root takes up water from the soil to supply the topgrowth. The bigger they get, the more roots they will make, and the more water they will use.

One more thing - many of the Rudbeckia seedlings are pretty crowded in their cells - if you want to use every single one of them, they should be pricked out into individual cells while their root material is still fairly minimal. If you don't want to use them all, remove some to allow the remaining seedlings to develop properly.

Bamboo
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  • Perfect, Bamboo. Glad you added removing all but one seedling per section. Wait too much longer that won't be able to happen successfully. Vivid, only water when the soil is dry. The evaporation from the soil because of the heat/lights is huge, Those plants are sucking up water to use with CO2 to make their own food with which to grow larger and be able to maintain that mass of plant material. Pull out all but one maybe two baby plants per pot. Now. Are these to be planted out of doors, I hope? – stormy Mar 23 '18 at 01:06
  • Rereading more carefully, stop spraying to water. Good at first but now you do have to pour water to soak the soil with water dripping out the bottom. Lift the bottom of those starter trays off the surface. When the roots begin to show through the bottom drain hole that is the time that plant needs up potting...a 3 or 4" pot with potting soil. – stormy Mar 23 '18 at 01:09
  • @stormy It looks it's just impractical for me to continue spraying - the soil needs more water, so I will have to switch to pouring water from a glass... Thanks for the hints!! – VividD Mar 23 '18 at 17:42
  • Spraying water works well from seed to cotyledon. Start soaking but allow that soil to dry out a bit before watering again. – stormy Mar 24 '18 at 05:38