I thought they had enough light because they werent leggy but I see videos of other peoples progress and their tomatoes are like a foot high with 4 sets of true leaves while mine are like 6in high with just barely 2 sets of true leaves.
Light is 100W led 14inches away at 60%, ppfd reader says 450, its on 16hrs a day. I’ve been using 1/4 strength liquid fertilizer once a week for two weeks. Is the light really too weak?
by ChameleonF30
7 Comments
They’re fine. To the degree you’re worried about stunting their growth, what temperature have they been at? Cooler temperatures will generally lead to slower growth.
There are tons of variables involved, so comparing your plants to others based on size alone isn’t overly productive, and days from seed really aren’t as important as days to transplant. Variety also has a lot to do with it.
But light intensity probably isn’t as important as temperature and light duration in terms of initial growth rate. If you can get these to about 85 degrees daytime/75 degrees nighttime temps with 14 to 16 hours of light duration, you will likely see a big uptick in growth all things being equal.
But I personally try to keep my plants on the small side until I am about 4 weeks from transplant so they don’t take up a lot of space and don’t need to be potted up too frequently.
this has happened to me before, the seedlings basically “freeze” and don’t grow anymore. once they’re like this, i’m not sure you can pull them out of it or if it’s even worth it to attempt to.
what kind of soil are you using? switching to a premium quality seedling potting mix, being very sparing with the watering, and putting the lights literally an inch or two away from the seeds made a drastic difference for me. also, your light source might be way too weak. i went nuts after my “frozen seedlings” experience and went with these fuckers: [https://www.mars-hydro.com/vg80-80w-vegetable-led-grow-light](https://www.mars-hydro.com/vg80-80w-vegetable-led-grow-light) . Definitely didn’t have any growth issues after I improved the soil quality, slowed down the watering, and cranked up the brightness.
If you want them to grow faster, you have to have good heat
I don’t have anything productive to add, they look healthy and I would say they are fine personally.
One thing that is bugging me though, is the tomato plant 4th from the left in the bottom row of round pots missing it’s growing stem? It looks like it’s gotten the top of it taken off by something lol. The one above it the growing stem looks weird to but more there than the bottom one. It could just be the angle of the picture or something though.
I just saw something about turning the temperature down in the room when you want to slow the growth. Is it cold for them? Maybe they are growing slow due to that? I used to use my basement and it could get down to 65f now i am in a grow tent and I can basically pick the temperature and I get much quicker results.
Looks like you need to add epsom salt