I waited for the 24-hour mark to check on the seeds.

Unfortunately the two Afghan Cherries were still seeds, but the two New England Rock Candies had become tiny sprouts 🙂

It did not feel quite warm enough in the pyrex so I adjusted the sensor on the mat a little. I put them all back in the pyrex and will check on them again at the 36 hour mark.

Having a blast growing together!

Alright, we are moving now!

I had to record an interview for GrowCast today, so I was a bit late getting in to check on my seeds. I got in to check on them at 1:30pm local time, which is 40.5 hours after we started. Three of the seeds were ready to move up to Jiffy and I took the opportunity to snap some pics to show how I try to transfer sprouts without touching them 🙂

The two NERC were very ready to move up to their Jiffy 🙂

At the 24-hour mark, I checked on the Cherries and they were both seeds. This time, the first one I checked was still a seed. I had little expectation for the second, but when I pealed back the paper towel, I was happy to find a little sprout 🙂 I decided that she could move up to Jiffy too 🙂

I always like it better when the root grows straight in the Paper towels. Makes this step a lot easier... But even the one twisted around itself I think will do just fine. 

Hopefully the last Cherry seed decides to become a plant! I will be tempted to launch a replacement at the 48 hour mark if there are no signs of life.

I am happy to see everyone sprouts looking great across the forum! Feeling all the Grower Love!

At the 50 hour mark, the First NERC opened her Cotyledons!

NERC is going great for me. One of the Cherries is a little helmet head (not the one pictured, that is the other NERC). But the Second Cherry still does not want to crack open. I scuffed and dropped a new Afghan Cherries seed at the 52 hour mark.

It is now 1:30 am and I have to wait another 2.5 hours while the seed is soaking. I realized the timing wasn't good as soon as the seed splashed into the cup. Oh well. There is still a reasonable chance that the reluctant seed will pop, but there is no time to mess around 😉

Grower Love

Three of my babies are doing great. Took this pic just before adding a little water and cracking the lid. They are still keeping their feet warm on the heat mat, but time to start lowering the RH (it is like 99% when the lid is tight on the jiffy "greenhouse").

I am not yet sure about the fourth. I have two Cherries in the pyrex and paper towels now. I put the new seed in at 4am... um this morning, and I haven't checked either seed since. 

Having fun #growingtogether

Quick Update: I have (at least) four plants!

So, I was sort of busy yesterday. I dropped the seed at 1am, and then into paper towels at 4am before going to sleep. I sort of woke up a little late on Friday 😉 and then my wife and I went out for "date night" and did not get home until after 2am (it was a good date night)

This morning at 11 am, I was reasonably confident that the new seed would be sprouted and that the old seed might be too. The new seed was perfect! Half inch tail that is reasonable straight. It was going to be a really smooth transplant until it fell off the paper towel into the pyrex. I used an index card to scoop her up and get her into the Jiffy.

Then I checked the original seed. It looks to be cracking open... No real tail yet, but it seems to be about to emerge... Has been 84 hours in the imbibition stage... I decided to keep it going just to see what will become of it. However, I do not intend to keep 5 plants in the tent.

In any event, I am happy to be fully loaded with plants 🙂

Grower Love

Alright, All four plants are up in their seedling bags and happy about life!

There actually were 5 sprouts... The original Cherries seed that I basically gave up on popped and grew a tail on the fifth. I pulled the high risk move of "cracking" her on the fourth. This is a last ditch technique to get a reluctant seed to pop. You squeeze it between two fingers on the seam until it barely cracks. You could easily injury and kill the embryo, but it also is some seeds last best chance at life. In this case it worked... However, I only really did it because I had given up on the seed. With nothing to do with the sprout, I left it in the paper towels. I feel almost guilty.

The littlest one is the seed I planted a little over two days late. She is doing her best to catch up and had a good root out of her jiffy already. They are all snug in their dome under CFLs. I am able to control the temp and RH in the dome and I am slowly lowering RH. Dome stays in high 70s F and have been working down to the low 70s RH. 

The Germination stage is always a little unpredictable and miraculous. Once they are firmly established as plants I always feel Happy about it.

Grower Love

Girls have been doing reasonably well this week. I have been buried writing a new series of articles for the site, so my journaling slowed a little this week. The plants seemed to be a little stalled out in the dome under CFLs too. I had been controlling the RH in there, but I realized I would be able to keep the RH high enough in the tent. 

I decided to break out one of my old LEDs since it draws less power than the new TSL2000s. They are still pretty small and the old Vipar can shine more than enough light at them. It is pulling the same amount of watts as the CFLs I was using and putting out a lot more light. I made a little time lapse of their first 36 hours under the LED.

I am still hard at work on the new articles, but I will get a few more journal updates in this week as Transplanting is coming soon!

Grower Love

OK, Much regret and many apologies for being so delinquent with my journal. It would be hard to explain how busy I have been without sounding like I am complaining – and I really don’t want to complain – I am having fun, things are going well – I have just been really busy.

It has been an odd grow. We had a hot dry spell here at the end of January and it was pretty tough to keep climate conditions acceptable for the girls. I was struggling with keeping it below 85f and RH dipped down into the 20s in the tent. A pretty hostile 2.0+ VPD for young plants. I tried to manage it by running low EC, but I really wasn’t consistent enough with the fertigations and I think they suffered as a result.

I upgraded my exhaust system to the AC infinity with Intelligent controller. It is an amazing upgrade in terms of management and noise. However, as soon as it arrived the weather changed and now it is cooler and wetter and much easier to manage. The girls also got into their final containers, and that always helps keep the RH a little higher. I have not fully had to put the new AC infinity fan through the stress test. I am hoping that the 4” that I got is enough, but wondering if I should have gone with a 6” just for the added power. We’ll have to see how it does when I have both lights going and it gets hot out again.

One of My NERC has been pretty good from the start. The tough climate probably slowed her down a day or two, but she has been a tough plant from the start and growing well. She got her third topping on Feb 4 and is just growing into her 8 mains.

The Other NERC did not do so well. She struggled almost from the start and I kept her behind the others to nurse her along. She struggled. Just seemed to hate being in the tent, so I took her out and gave her to my wife to grow with the house plants. I must say that she is doing better now – Ha! I am not sure what went on with her, but she was clearly different than her sister. Very fickle and sensitive. I assume the roots were stunted at some point early, but I really can’t account for why. Then she just was not equipped for the challenge of a hostile climate.

The two Afghan Cherries suffered pretty good too. But they have continued to plow along. One is notably better than the other. I could tell that was going to be the case early on, but I had no idea that the slower one would be quite this slow. I topped the bigger one several days ago. The tinier one is still just now finding her feet.

I am not really sure what to think of the genetics at this point. I did put them through a pretty hostile climate for a couple weeks and could have been more attentive than I was, but I have found these plants pretty challenging – well three of them anyway. I am certainly willing to see how they continue to do. I keep expecting the Cherries to hit their stride and start to take off – we’ll see.

Grower Love