Extended season starting trees indoors

cmeg1

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Japanese Maple

Some good seed for sure! 6 weeks cold stratification and these were sprouting in the fridge.USA small seed from Schumacher seeds.
Planted about 200 all with roots poking out nicely.
Will try to expose to as strong as light as possible,although these will probably handle a good bit of light really.
Seedling cuttings or something.
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cmeg1

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Zelkova growng fast
Only a couple weeks in with these and they look alright.
It is interesting to see Zelkova growing in 18 hours of fairly intense light.I actually want to stall top growth a bit and keep everything manageable and just let the small plants get full of energy till I decide what to do.Make cuttings or seedling air-layers.
With stored energy I bet they would layer very fast in about a week.Hopefully still be small enough to proceed in a propogator.
It would be nice to have interesting multi trunk seedling air-layers. Removing bark directly below branching.
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cmeg1

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Things are really starting to green up
Since yesterday even....
The co2 gives everything the deepest green color.I read that tripling ambient levels of co2 up to around 1100 ppm will increase photosynthesis by 50%!
Very little nitrogen being fed to these trees.I’m not even using a base fertilizer.Just bio supplements and additives essentially to supply a low balance of npk with all the extra goodies.

I have a Zelkova jungle of seedlings and they are branching everywhere at barely 5” tall! Probably the Kelp extract.The leaves look ridiculously active too.

Tons of Japanese Maple sprouting.This should be cool!

The pre-cutting Pines look great.I also have 33 seedling cuttings.
The seedling cuttings seem to mature at a faster rate with co2.They seem to use up and shed the juvenile leaves rather quickly and start pushing mature needles.You can see mature needles in the photos already.Thats when they get vigorous!
 

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Chuah

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Great series of posts on growing from seeds!
 

cmeg1

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created more space in the grow room

Although these boards are 320 watts each,two of them are equivalent to a double ended 1000 watt hid light! With savings and much less heat.
The boards last incredibly long time also.
Can have a 5x5 grow space if need be.....now it is 5x3.Overlapping the light spread compensates for the diminishing intensity at edges.There is good solid veg light now between 400-600 PPFD 20” above canopy..Mostly closer to 600 though:)
Outside of 5’ I can have young seedlings and harden off cuttings.
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cmeg1

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lot’s of growth for one week!

This Pine really kicked into high gear after the first photo only a week earlier.
Ready for the seedling cuttings to wake up.

Photos are only a week apart🙃
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cmeg1

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Re-did the grow room yet again( just two days later).

I am much happier now.No watering trees on my knees.Built a cheap light stand for $30. Out of wood.
A 5x4 grow space!
Going to try RO water also.With large amounts of seedlings I will not have enough rain water.Just over the Winter.RO seems wasteful really.

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TyroTinker

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Japanese Maple

I moved these to veg light @ 400-600 PPFD a couple days ago and they seem fine so far.Will be interesting to see green Japanese Maple in 18 hrs of light and also how co2 affects growth:p
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First off love the thread been watching for awhile now.
Do you have the light one the whole 18hrs or do you turn the light on for a few hours off for a few then repeat? I’ve read on one of the forums here that some ‘professional’ growers will do something like that to get a little extra out of the plants. (I don’t remember the science as to why)
 

cmeg1

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First off love the thread been watching for awhile now.
Do you have the light one the whole 18hrs or do you turn the light on for a few hours off for a few then repeat? I’ve read on one of the forums here that some ‘professional’ growers will do something like that to get a little extra out of the plants. (I don’t remember the science as to why)
Thanks!
I leave lights on for 18 hrs because I have read of no other way really.
An important note would be plants change cycles in leaf stomata during differing cycles of lights on/lights out.They respirate oxygen at night.During lights on they take in the co2.This is a sealed grow room to conserve co2.
Back and forth too suddenly would also create an erratic relative humidity in my grow room and also temperature too.I want it to be a steady environment which I can vent and turn off co2 at night to bring in fresh air and cooler temps for lights out cycle.
A steady environment with all the right conditions of RH,temp,nutrient,light is the only way to really reap the benefits of co2 fertilization.If one is out of wack you are potentially wasting co2.
To hot,too cold,too windy ,too still,too humid,too dry can all close leaf stomata and cause nutrient deficiencies ,overheating leaves,and lack of co2 intake and lack of respiration.

I am still tweaking the process.My room runs slightly warm by about 4 degrees sometimes(according to my teacher).
But other people actually say up to 90f is ok if running co2.Sometimes I go up to 90f.
As weather cools next week I should be at 86f during day which is ideal with co2.
But this is all variable with genetics of course.
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TyroTinker

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Wow! That is a lot of variables that you are attempting to control and I love it. I wish I can find where the light cycling comment was at. If I find it I will link it for you. I would be surprised if whoever was doing that was controlling or even monitoring as many things as you are.
I wish you the best of luck and I can wait for the next updates 😁
 

cmeg1

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Planted Zelkova

Did about 50 of these this morning.A bunch of multi-leader and single-leader type.I can girdle the multi-leader ones just below the node for clump style seedling layers and then have single trunks too!
I will plant these on inverted saucers in ground this Spring for a nice head start.

Got standard Japanese Maple,Trident and Field Maple by Spring time for same deal. Along with European Hornbeam.I always wanted to try seedling layering other species.
 

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cmeg1

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The Plan for Spring

In Spring I am going to bring one indoors after cutting back and root pruning from the ground.It has been in the ground since August 2018.A seedling layer.I will bare-root and plant in perlite to develop new leader and side branches indoors.Hopefully fast!
I am noticing this setup makes much lateral branching at expense of top growth.Kind of cool really.Probably from the addition of Kelp and Fulvic Acid.
If I boost nitrogen the leaders will grow more.
If it works good I will do that with all 1 and 2 year old ground planted seedling layers.2 year olds should be impressive!
Hope these roots are nice come Spring.
 

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cmeg1

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Have tried yet? I've always wondered if it'll work with angiosperms like with jbp.
Neat!
I thought of trying it too.Maybe I’ll give it a go.Might be helpful if just below a bunch of branchlets.Clump or muliti trunk Pine!
 

cmeg1

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A bunch of JBP
Did about 270 seedling cuttings.They were pretty good size actually!
One more tray in a week to do.
Will have tons left I can experiment with cutting later.
 

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cmeg1

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Pfd Sensor

I always tried to avoid getting one of these devices and instead used the supplied info that came from light manufactures.
I am excited to see if the intensity I have at various stages of growth is what I think it is.
This meter/sensor is specifically made for indoor LED gardens and has extended range sensor for led lights! Has a spectral range of 340-1040 nm
Should be here early next week.
 

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River's Edge

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Re-did the grow room yet again( just two days later).

I am much happier now.No watering trees on my knees.Built a cheap light stand for $30. Out of wood.
A 5x4 grow space!
Going to try RO water also.With large amounts of seedlings I will not have enough rain water.Just over the Winter.RO seems wasteful really.

View attachment 268340
Be careful with RO water unless you are reconstituting to desired mineral content levels after it is produced! You are correct in that it produces significant waste!
One approach would be to mix RO with your source water to get the desired results.
 

cmeg1

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Be careful with RO water unless you are reconstituting to desired mineral content levels after it is produced! You are correct in that it produces significant waste!
One approach would be to mix RO with your source water to get the desired results.
Thank you,Frank!
Yes,I have a whole enourage of minerals that I reintroduce.Notably the Cal-Mag is highly recommended with RO and Rainwater I use(has Iron also).
I am happy that I can use some RO year around when my nursery grows in size outdoors.
In very hot dry weather I can really go through some rain water and I only have 210 or less gallons at any given time.
 

River's Edge

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Thank you,Frank!
Yes,I have a whole enourage of minerals that I reintroduce.Notably the Cal-Mag is highly recommended with RO and Rainwater I use(has Iron also).
I am happy that I can use some RO year around when my nursery grows in size outdoors.
In very hot dry weather I can really go through some rain water and I only have 210 or less gallons at any given time.
Not sure how i would cope with that amount of water! I am fortunate to have a well with high quality water! Also the municipal tap water in this area is well within useable range. I would estimate that my nursery uses about 350 gallons each time that i water. I water very frequently compared to most, because i choose to use inorganic free draining media! If water were an issue for me i would have to start adding pine bark to increase moisture retention. My nursery is beginning to shrink as i sell more developed material and have slowed propogation to a snails pace. Expect my water demand to decrease over the next five years!
 
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