There are several stages to growing medicinal plants with your indoor grow tent kit. Preparation starts from deciding what seed to buy and ends at harvesting. Here are the stages of growing a medicinal plant.
And we are going to be honing in on one very important stage today: the seedling stage.
Your indoor plants will never be as vulnerable as they are in their seedling stage. Seedlings are prone to damage and disease than they are at any other stage in the plant’s life cycle. That’s why taking special care at this point in the growing process is a must.
While these warnings may sound dire, the truth is that while caring for indoor plants seedlings is extremely important, it isn’t terribly difficult to do if you know what to look out for. This article is meant to serve as a beginner’s guide to caring for seedling indoor plants.
These three basic steps should be enough to get you started:
Choose the right pot for the pot
1. THE RIGHT POTS FOR SEEDS
When growing autoflowers, we recommend planting them directly in their final pots. Because of their short life cycle, it’s best to avoid putting autoflowering strains through any kind of unnecessary stress, including transplanting. While the exact pot size you use will vary depending on the strain you’re growing and the size of your grow space/indoor grow tent, most auto growers use pots between 5–15l.
2. THE RIGHT POTS FOR FEMINIZED SEEDS
If you’re growing feminized seeds, transplanting isn’t as much of an issue since these plants have time to recover from the stress. Using germination fabric grow pots, you can support robust health right from the beginning. You’ll want to transplant your seedlings just before they start outgrowing their starter pots. We typically recommend transplanting once they’ve grown sets of true leaves that spread out to cover the full circumference of their current container.
From here, most indoor growers move their plants directly into 12l pots, but you can go above or below that to suit your particular strain and grow setup. Keep in mind that you can (and should) up-pot feminized photoperiod plants a few times to max-out development, meaning you don’t need to transplant your seedlings into a giant pot right away.
How to master the seedling stage-Environmental Conditions
Seedlings are more vulnerable to the external environment than the fussiest vegging weed plant. These four factors can make or break your medicinal plants seed batch.
- Lighting
Popped pot seeds do best under fluorescent grow lights. These lamps produce minimal heat, flooding the crop with light without burning it.
Your medicinal plants seedling light schedule should be generous. Think vegging requirements plus 2 and never go under 16 hours per day.
If you’re germinating outdoors, get creative to ensure your seedlings are getting sufficient light. Move the pots to direct sunlight on bright days and supplement by bringing them indoors in the early evenings. You can’t do much to avoid using equipment during this stage.
It’s much easier to provide too little than too much daylight in this phase:
– Deficiency makes the stems white and elongated. It’s easy to solve by upping the exposure.
– Overabundance is rare, but it happens, stunting growth when it does. Moving the lamps a bit farther from the tips does the trick.
- Temperature
Medicinal seedlings require moderate, stable temperatures to thrive. They’re quick to react to sudden heat changes, and the stress is no good for maturation. Keeping things balanced and steady is the goal.
The ideal temperature for most medicinal plants strains is between 70 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit and a bit lower in the hours of darkness.
– Overexposure to cold inhibits growth. It limits the weed plant’s ability to take in water and nutrients it needs to flourish.
– Overheating makes the leaves curl upward. The heat stress dries out the leaves and prevents future development.
- Humidity
Medicinal plants seedlings use osmosis to absorb water while their roots are tender and developing. High humidity is vital to optimizing this process – think 60% to 70% and stable.
Reduce it once your plant enters the rich-leaved vegetative stage to prevent mold, fungus, and rot.
Want to know how often to water medicinal plants seedlings? You’ll have to play it by ear and add moisture whenever the soil looks dry. Frequency is your friend here, as is mindfulness. Young crops drown in too much liquid, and routine misting is your best bet.
- Nutrients
A medicinal plant sprout comes equipped with everything a young plant needs to survive. They’re susceptible to nutrient deficiency and oversaturation. Optimal amounts are indispensable to avoid costly issues in the future.
A high-quality, clean growing medium without added fertilizers is ideal. That way, you’ll avoid nutrient toxicity and all the annoying issues that come with it.
Inadequate soil causes nutrient deficiency, which will be evident as soon as the first true leaves emerge. In that case, start supplementing a mild, high-quality commercial nute solution with each watering.
Start with half a dose and watch how your medicinal plant responds. Going overboard can disrupt the sensitive balance or even lead to a lockout.
Now that you know the theory behind growing healthy seedlings, it’s time to get your hands dirty. Remember to invest in one of ECO Farm products for the best, most reliable results, and keep reading our blog for more tips on growing spectacular medicinal plants at home.
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