Testing fertilizer strength on tobacco seedlings

[billy]

a combination of that and it is openly not recommended in a different environment meaning float trays. so its easy to understand why people just say its overall not good. i would just encourage people to try different things themself. people normally have dozens if not hundreds of extra sprouts anyway so theres not really anything to lose by trying things on the extras. even if you try something more or whatever and they just die its still better to know than think they might.

as to the cooking thing, im balancing in my head how not fun it is to spend hours chasing sterile just to get plants that grow worse with how likely it is it will be the first time i see urea tolerance be meaningfully lower and im thinking i might need an extra spurt of ambition for that one

 

[BrotherJ]

More of this kind of thing!

Seriously, that's a well done experiment.

Perhaps this re-justifies my penchant for direct sowing?

 

[Old Gasman]

Although I'm far from an expert gardener I've always thought that it's wrong to use any type of fertilizer on seedlings because there are sufficient nutrients and whatnots in the seed compost. Are tobacco seedings a different case than any other type of plant?

 

[deluxestogie]

there are sufficient nutrients...in the seed compost

Ten years ago, I ran out of my usual Miracle-Gro peat moss, which comprises 2/3 of my seedling starting mix (along with Perlite and vermiculite). The local stores were also out. I substituted coconut coir [eco-friendly, free-range, organic, fair-trade, etc.]. As a result, and purely the result of my failure to purchase sufficient Miracle-Gro peat in advance, I conducted a side-by-side 1020 tray comparison of the two starting mix recipes.

Coir on the left, Miracle-Gro on the right.

The coconut coir has no added fertilizer. The Miracle-Gro peat is manufactured with slow-release fertilizer.

Bob

 

[Old Gasman]

I stand corrected. I get what you're saying about the new compost. All I can buy now is environmentally friendly no peat compost. And as always, once you put Eco Friendly on anything you end up paying twice as much for a product that's half as good.

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

Inspired by this thread, I started fertilizing my floundering seedlings 4 days ago and they're noticeably improved in colour and size. It's a noname organic liquid 5/5/5 from the hydroponics / indoor gardening store that has no list of ingredients.

 

[deluxestogie]

I have nothing against the coconut coir. You just have to plan for adding fertilizer. It's worth remembering that tobacco seed in particular, has practically no growth reserve, compared to a larger seed, like a pea or bean.

Bob

 

[billy]

was mostly my point in this to show the space of what is sufficient or what you can do is rather large. or big enough that people can choose different things for different reasons.

say for example some guy starts a large variety of plants for his market garden in a greenhouse. for him mixing different strengths of fertilizer and keeping track of what was when and all that would cost him time and money. and his lighting is free and theres lots of room in his greenhouse. so for him he might decide to just use a soil medium that has good enough nutrients built in, that way he can just walk over whatever looks dry with a watering can.

more opposite of that would be me. every time i reach 6 square feet i have to turn a light on, and after a bit i run out of room. and at that scale my time and fertilizer cost is moot to me. so im more focused on optimizing growth rate and getting them to transplant size faster, so im in a situation where turning another light on cost more than having the plants need less time under the light with fertilizer

i always use half normal peat potting mix with no nutrients, and half greenwaste and manure compost. but i just view the compost as something to add biology and micronutrients. and i think thats better for organic fertilizer if you go organic on organic like that. but that might be something else i should test. although organic probably has alot more variation than something more universal like urea so that may be too hard to draw conclusions from

 

[billy]

but its probably a decent general rule that if your spending electricity to grow the plants, you should also focus fertilizer to make sure there growing quickly. if i compare the cost of each, for me running a light making 6 square feet lit very well is 6 dollars a month. against even my expensive organic jug i use roughly 30 cents of it on 6 sq feet in a month when plants are in small packs. so to me every 1.5 days of slower growth needing the light on has the same cost as a whole month of fertilizer.

others use the sun and most have a longer growing season than me so its less important. i do have a greenhouse but right now like when i have things starting my forecast has a high of 80 and low in 20s within 2 days of eachother so i dont trust nature to help me

 

[billy]

update since i got the first sign of bad health beside growth rate being awful at very high dosages
in the 3x urea in sterile the bigger ones are getting yellow on the bigger new growth leaves. smaller ones have basically given up trying to grow in those conditions



moisture levels were good and the yellow leaves were green but switched few days after the 3rd feeding.
so that was after 3 fertilizing's with miracle grow tomato food boosted to 3x urea in sterile peat and perlite.

for the overall were at 19 days since transplant and the testing started at which point they were 8 days old. fertilizings were on the april 12 at transplant and 19th and 26th. 4th fertilizing would be in 2 days.
previous pic from 12 days after transplant and position reference. and then now at 19 days after transplant



and for another reference point heres 3 extras same as the organic ones with 50% good compost, except ive only given them water the whole time, compared to the 1x dose organic above

 

[deluxestogie]

Even with relatively small numbers, the results are fairly dramatic.

Bob