I think there's something wrong with my seedlings, a little background first, this is the 5th year I'm growing from seeds, the setup is the same, heating wire buried in sand and the tray sits on top of it, temperature around 28C until they sprout, then 25C, 4*60w cheap chinesium grow lamps, 160mm computer case fan to provide breeze
These were planted on 18.02.2025 and they don't seem to be doing so well after 4 weeks.
Is it too much light? Too much heat?
The only change from previous years was that the light is at 40cm as opposed to 60cm previous years, moved it higher today, but 40cm for cheap chinesium lights isn't that much, imho.
P.S. Jessie (the cat) is also baffled by this, but she doesn't have the experience of the previous years.
by r3d0c3ht
5 Comments
it appears they are protesting the bad handwriting. if it’s not that, then you said it best. Its either too much light or they don’t like that light for other reasons.
Can you look up the specs on the light? Different light will have different color spectrums as well as color temperature. Color temperature is the most important, seedlings do best around 5000-6000K.
https://www.mars-hydro.com/info/post/the-ultimate-guide-to-spectrum-science-in-led-grow-lights
Honestly my pepper seedlings were all doing this too at first and I was super worried but their first set of true leaves are in and they seem to have self corrected?
It could be the light, but sometimes they take their sweet time. I started a few days after you and mine looked like that up and until yesterday.
I was worried mine had too little light so I added more and they did this. I took away the extra light and boom they began to recover. You can wait a couple days to see if they recover on their own and open up because they might be just starting to open or you can move the light a bit away in a couple days. I would warn it takes time to see the change. Mine did correct and open up.