Help with new grow

[Arizona23]

Hi guys ,
I just started a my first grow . I got them to sprout and it has been about 2.5 weeks since . My question is , do I keep the lid on my plants? And what point do I need to transplant them. Thank you everyone in advance for the help .

 

[CobGuy]

It looks like the lid can be removed at this point … you may want to lower the lights a bit to prevent "stretching" too.
Before they grow too much more you'll want to thin the cells out more as well.
Transplanting will be at around the 6 week point.

~Darin

 

[Arizona23]

Thank you. I will remove the lid , the plants are just under a window right now , no grow lights. Should I leave them under the window too? Or maybe close the blinds a little ?

 

[CobGuy]

I'd get a shop light over them to get things rolling and prevent long, thin stalks.

 

[Arizona23]

How many watts would I need?

 

[Arizona23]

I have a 40 watt light I can use.

 

[deluxestogie]

you may want to lower the lights a bit

He means move the overhead lighting closer, so as to increase the amount of light exposure.

Bob

 

[CobGuy]

40 Watts should be enough at this point and will be cool enough to place low over the seedlings.

 

[Arizona23]

Gotcha, thank you both for the help.

 

[Arizona23]

I have the lid off now and in a better and brighter light area until I can get the LED light on them.

 

[CobGuy]

Now it's time to grab the tweezers and gently pull those extras out of each cell.
I've tried doing this later on and it's much more difficult.
Have fun!

 

[Arizona23]

Should I keep them in the container they are in until I transplant them into a pot?

 

[plantdude]

Are you going grow them in pots or plant them in the ground outdoors eventually?

 

[Arizona23]

I was actually going to do both . A few in the ground and some in pots . Would you transplant them straight to there final growing place ?

 

[deluxestogie]

Would you transplant them straight to there final growing place ?

For most growing areas of the world, the answer is yes. But you should instead trust the advice of another Arizona grower.

Bob

 

[plantdude]

Personally I would leave about 3 in the current pot so you can pick your favorite and thin as they get bigger. You can move some of the ones you are thinning now to other pots if you are careful. You can probably leave your main 3 in these pots, reducing them down to a single plant until you are ready to transplant to their new home be it pot or soil.
Arizonia is hot and dry so anything you can do to get the root base bigger helps. You can trim about1/3 of the leaf area off prior to transplanting and start water stressing them slightly. placing them outside in partial shade and gradually increasing the time of full sun exposure a few weeks prior to transplanting helps a lot. If you go from indoor lighting straight to full AZ sun you are probably going to kill a lot so go gradual and time it with the weather cooling.

I currently have young plants (5 weeks old) sitting outside on the porch getting about 6 hours of full sun at 90-95 degrees - we have a lot more humidity here than you do though. Some are in pots smaller than 4 inches in diameter.
You will likely get much bigger and nicer plants if you can make a decent garden bed for them vs growing in pots or unamended soil. I grew a lot of mine in pots this summer and the ones I put in the ground generally did better (well, better where I amended the soil anyway).
If you are going to plant them outside in pots I would not go much smaller than a 5 gallon pot size and make sure it is a heavy pot or you are going to spend half your life picking up tipped over pots - want to ask me how I know that

Just my thoughts - plenty of people here have many, many more years experience growing than I do. Some people like @deluxestogie might even know enough to fill a book or three about the subject

 

[Arizona23]

Thank you . I was going to thin out my plants today and get it down to one per cell until I get my light on them then transplant them once they are a little bigger into a pot. Hopefully I can get the sunlight amount right , we are still a little hot here (90-95 degrees) but the temps will start to get lower in the next few weeks so I’m hoping I can get them into their pots when our temp is around 85-90 here.

 

[plantdude]

The size of the pot will limit plant growth quite a bit. They will slow down in growth as soon as they start getting pot bound. For little guys just going to six weeks a 4 inch pot is more than enough room. I've grown plants to maturity indoors in four inch pots before for fun - they don't get much over two feet
If your growing in pots long term a few of our Canadian members @eekay and @Radagast (if I remember correctly) have had good results using cloth grow bags and pots with excessive holes drilled in them to increase air flow to the roots. It looked like they were getting better results with those methods than standard pots. I think they were calling it air root pruning, interesting concept.
I always like to keep a few extra plants on hand while they are young and getting established for the occasional die off. Once they are established they are like weeds though.

What varieties are you trying to grow?

 

[Arizona23]

I was definitely going to take some of my plants and experiment with them by using different methods and see what works best..As of right now , I am growing Kentucky burley and Virginia Gold right now .

 

[3437]

Get a propagation light that's actually meant for seedlings,they look a bit lanky at the moment & tobacco gets massive leaves young,so if they're too tall it might cause problems in the coming weeks.
I also use a propagator and as soon as they have germinated with the 2 first leaves or the majority of the seeds have germinated,I remove the lid.If the lid is left on,it could cause mold.