Fast Growth

Not often I have to tell this: the growth in the last 4-5 days was dramatic. Whatever I am doing, it's working!

The two leaders really took off. #4 and #15 are growing over 1mm per day for the new needles. The stems continue to get thicker as well. There are three more seedlings that are still not doing well, with one expected to die by tomorrow morning.

I have been slowly transferring seedlings from the brown (underground stage) patch to the white patch, with 15 out of 16 slots now filled with nice little green growings.

I added a much more intensive light over the white patch. However, this just happened yesterday and can not account for the good growth:

Here is a few samples from today:

#4 took a solid lead over #15, claiming its previous spot as biggest and healthiest:

#15 is no slouch either, but was progressing just a bit slower that #4:

#30 is the sickest one of the white patch at this time:

Two Juniors

Two more seedlings moved from the peat cribs into the grown-ups tubes.

#32 and #31 emerged above soil level and showed some green. Here are the pictures just prior to the move:

#32 November 27, 2012. DOB Nov 25, 2 days old.

#31 November 27, 2012. DOB Nov 26, 1 day old.

There are 4-6 more seedlings in the brown patch ready to become erect trees rather than purple loops. For the first time the white patch is to get more green than dead seedlings, some time over next weekend.

Three existing seedlings on the white patch starting to look somewhat sick, with just one very likely to die in the near future. #23 turned completely inwards, but the stem remains of a healthy color:

#23 November 27, 2012. 2 weeks old.

I have replaced the 24W 6500K grow light lamp with a very warm 24W 3000K one for a few days. The new 6-lamp light is coming by the weekend. The idea is to mix both cold and warm lamps when it arrives. The humidity has been dropping recently, reaching 30% today. I added a humidifier that I put next to the white patch area. I am still blowing a gentle breeze with an oscillating fan.

Steady Growth

Nice steady growth continued with no additional issues over last several days.

I used my iPhone to take close ups of the seedlings. Since I have done quite a bit of astrophotography, I have the tools for image processing. Just for fun, I decided to run multiple zoom-ins from iPhone through the planetary alignment and wavelet feature extraction. Here are the results:

#4

#15

#30

The growing rig

Sequoia growing rig is getting a bit more involved with every passing week. Smily face.

Picture is worth a thousand words:

I have also ordered a moisture meter and a 6-light grow light from the High Tech Garden website. More things are coming this winter.

Johannes from The Sequoia Trees Blog has some advice for all people growing their sequoias from seeds with some impressive results over last few years.

Measurements

I photographed most promising seedlings today against a measuring tape.

Here is the line up, from shortest through tallest:

The very sturdy and stubby #21 opens the row at 15/16 of an inch:

#30 stands at 1 1/4 inches tall. It also now has a well developed second generation needle core:

#15 has been accelerating its growth standing at 1 and 3/4 of an inch:

Finally, the current leader is #4 at 1 7/8 inches:

Since #15 started catching up with #4 it's just a matter of time before it takes over the lead. The second generation needles are already more developed than those of #4.

Today also was the first time I applied feeding material in the form of liquid "Fish feeder", which is 2-4-0 for all seedlings still standing above ground. The two tallest ones got 40ml each and the rest got about 10-20ml.

Again, I had concerns that the seedlings did not have enough water judging by the dry appearance of the top level of soil at mid day. I dag into free space of #24, removing about an inch of soil. Two things: first, there was definitely some remaining moisture in the soil at that level, so the seedlings are not in the danger of dying from lack of water. Second, I noticed that the #24 root was not going directly down into the ground as I was thinking the roots are doing at this stage. Instead, it was curving around almost to the container wall. This gave me a big pause, because I was routinely checking the feel of soil in the past by sticking my finger about an inch into the ground for several samples. This now looks like a bad idea, because the roots could be anywhere in the container and not immediately under the seedling. It would be exceedingly easy to damage the roots in such a fashion. I also now understand why transparent containers are highly recommended in favor of non-transparent PVC. It would be much easier to judge the moister levels had I been able to see through.

Second Generation Growth

Two more seedlings sported brand new second gen needles. Also, the combination of a grow light and a fan moving air around the grow area are probably contributing to the noticeable growth of the two leaders over last few days.

Both #4 and #15 took very similar shape with the needles slightly curving outwards. Color of the stem and the needles also started to look very similar, that is #4 became slightly darker and #15 adding some thickness and appearing more succulent than it was a few days ago. Second gen needles in both #4 and #15 are also growing at least a millimeter per day. It's not easy to say who is in the lead at this time.

Three days ago I checked the temperature at the ground level and observed 84F (almost 29C). After that I moved the grow light higher to 4 inches and added a fan that moved the air immediately around the grow area, but not blowing at the seedlings. I placed the fan so that I can feel the air passing over the plants with my hand but I do not  see any movement of the needles.

#30 was showing some damage to the very tips of the needles over last 3-4 days, which were turning dry and brown. It remained otherwise straight, thick and bright colored. I noticed yesterday a hint of second gen needles and today it's clearly confirmed:

#30 November 23, 2012. DOB Nov 16, 1 week old

The presence of second gen needles in a one week old seedling is by far a record. #30 germinated at the same time as #15, but it took it two more weeks to get above ground level. Once it got above ground it stared growing vertically very quickly, but the needles remained almost folded (see picture from November 17, 2012). I attributed very slow emergence of seedlings #17-30 from the ground to the shortage of water in the seed mix. Most of them survived but the growth slowed down drastically.

Finally, #21 showed a swelling in the center as well as of this morning, promising second gen growth in the next few hours. It remains the shortest one of all living seedlings:

#21 November 23, 2012. DOB Nov 15, 1 week and 1 day

The New Leader

The new leader has emerged over last several days. #15 has now outgrown its older contender.

As I noticed two days ago, #15 showed clear signs of the new needles emerging from the middle a whooping one week earlier than previous leader #4. As of this morning #15 new needles are visibly longer than those of #4:

#15 November 22, 2012 

#15 also remains significantly differently looking than #4. It's much more compact, with its three main needles pointing more vertical. The color is overall darker, both for the stem and the needles.

Here is side by side comparison (click to enlarge, as always):

I also made a change to the watering of the Brown Patch seedlings. The growing medium dries out very fast. It appears that it can hold the water deep inside pretty well, but the cups weigh significantly less at the end of every day. I started adding water at the bottom of the holding pan, about 8-10 oz last couple of days. Note darker wet stains on the cups. I am trying to keep the brown patch wet, but it's quite hard, without pouring a lot of water on top of the seeds, which is not a good idea, I think:

Number 8 is officially dead and will be removed today. The king is dead, long live the king.

Mostly good news at mid-week

Two seedlings showed excellent signs of growth while one is dying and another one struggles.

The mid-week report is mostly positive with #4 getting overall thicker and taller, with very clearly visible four additional needles emerging from the middle:

#4 November 21, 2012. 3 weeks and 3 days old

#15 also started showing some tiny needles emerging from center, which is almost a week earlier than the current leader #4:

#15 November 21, 2012. 2 weeks 4 days old.

#8, which was pronounced dead last weekend still has not given up completely. It leaned almost all the way to the ground, with the needles getting thiner and dryer. However, some green is still present:

#8 November 21, 2012

An unexpected casualty was #19. It was standing very tall just two days ago. All of a sudden it fell completely on the ground. I re-planted it a bit deeper in to the soil and it's currently holding its weight, for now:

#19 November 21, 2012

The left-for-dead #26 is still showing signs of life:

Next Generation

One of the seedlings reached a new level of development for the first time.

#4 has demonstrated that it's still well and developing normally when it shot two new needles from the middle:

And here is an extreme close up:

Observations and Tweaks

Some additional insights were gained today, leading to some minor changes in the experiment.

First, most of seedlings started a strange behavior not observed before: they started to straighten vertically, towards folding the needles. They do not seem to be sick, but continue to become more a more vertical. Here is a look at all of them, with #4 and #15 well visible (click on image to see better):

The completely new thing I introduced was the light. It is logical to interpret this behavior of the seedlings somehow related to this change.

It is recommended to use soft light for seedlings. I checked my light that I bought yesterday. It was a high intensity (HO) 24W 6500K, meaning it's quite hard light, not soft. I went to a hardware store to get a softer light. I got 3000K bulb, but only at 14W. They did not have HO. I ordered a couple of HO lamps at 3000K. For the time being I will use the soft low intensity light to see how things progress.

Next adjustment was the use of a slightly modified plastic cover cups. An advice was given to make a small hole on top of the cup to let some of the moister escape. In fact, if there is still too much vapor on the cup walls it was recommended to wipe it to further remove the moisture. I made eight cups with 5mm holes on top and placed on all samples under the light:

The "dead" seedling #26 appreciated the newly enhanced damp peat moss and apparently is not dead anymore. It raised above the soil level rather quickly today:

#26 November 18, 2012. DOB Nov 18 2012, 0 days old

Finally, six more brand new seedlings were planted today as "brown patch v2". All six were very tiny, with virtually no growth outside the seed. The largest one, which now gets designation #31 looked like this:

All six were placed in the damp peat moss:

I placed all new seeds very close to the surface, just barely covering the seeds with dirt. I would say less than 1/8 of an inch.

Sanity Check on Soil

pH of the soil was tested today to ensure that it's near optimal (6.5 pH). No major surprise as the picture shows, the pH of the soil that I use is indeed about 6.5:

There Will Be Light

Light is an important thing, it turns out. I bought a grow-light contraption at Earl May today, which provides 24W of supposedly optimized light at adjustable distance from the seedlings. The Internet says 2-4 inches, so I put it at 3 inches so that it would illuminate quite uniformly two rows of the seedlings:

So, here is the new line up of contenders, from oldest to most recent:

#4, the oldest surviving seedling. Original soil, no replanting, heavy watering last weekend, lightly watered today to get ground visibly damp:

#4 November 17, 2012. DOB Oct 28 2012, 3 weeks old

#8, same planting date as #4, only it fell on ground this morning. No other seedling at that state of deterioration survived. So, I am not calling this one a survivor. #8 was kept under a tight plastic cup for a bit over a week, looking very healthy until yesterday. It still looks quite impressive (for a dead one) and stands on its own after replanting. Note, I planted it quite a bit deeper than it was before to support the weight of the top given poor stem condition:

#8 November 17, 2012. DOB Oct 28 2012, 3 weeks old

#15 is one of the two true survivors from the old patch. It was not replanted, and like #4 survived heavy (50ml) watering last weekend. It is one week younger than #4, from the Nov 4 planting:

#15 November 17, 2012. DOB Nov 4 2012, 2 weeks old

#19, one of the five brown patch seedlings that emerged above ground level past week. All of these five seedlings exhibit common sickly features, being thinner, bent both in stem and needles,  and somewhat darker green color of the needles. Needles are not unfurling into palm-looking arrangement. I suspect under-watering is a culprit. #19 looks healthiest of them all though:

#19 November 17, 2012. DOB Nov 14, 3 days old

#21, 23, 24 and 30: sickly, dry, short from the 5 that made it out of the brown patch:

#21 November 17, 2012. DOB Nov 15, 2 days old

#23 November 17, 2012. DOB Nov 15, 2 days old

#24 November 17, 2012. DOB Nov 15, 2 days old

#30 November 17, 2012. DOB Nov 16, 1 day old

P.S. There is one more "dead" seedling that I decided to give another chance in a damp peet moss, #26. It failed to emerge above ground in two weeks. I will keep it for another week:

#26 November 17, 2012. DOB Unborn.

Consolidation and Replanting

It's time to reflect and re-evaluate. Things are not going well.

Given that there is only one seedling remains from three weeks ago, the chances of success are not good. I decided to re-evaluate current sequoia seedling growing process and here is what came out of it.

First, the soil and watering are clearly having a major impact on seedlings. With little understanding how to differentiate between over- and under-watering I decided to investigate that further and to change the soil and methods of its watering for most of the seedlings.

Second, I began to suspect that the light probably is having an effect on the older, 2-3 week seedlings. Green needles shoot out of soil (if they shoot at all) very fast, typically at least half an inch in one day. Then a seedling grows for another half an inch over one-two weeks and then stops. Overwhelming majority die at that point. The lonely stand-out that did nto die, but did not grow either over last week was #4.

I went back to Earl May to get a few more things. I got Vermiculite, and a growing light. At home, I poured contents of several white tubes into a plastic pan, mixed their contents thoroughly, that is heavy black top soil and the brown grow mix. Then I added a cup of vermiculite to the soil mix and stirred it more. The resulting mix if much more uniform and clearly has more air inside. I filled white tubes with this new concoction to about 3 inches below top.

Based on more online research it appears that peat-moss-based seedling grow mix needs to be prepared with a generous dose of water so that it starts to look and feel like a damp sponge. Watering of the medium after it's already placed in a container did not seem to have desired effect.

I poured content of a few brown pots into a plastic pan and kept sprinkling it with water while mixing it vigorously until it started to resemble damp sponge consistency. I filled the top 2 inches of the white tubes with the damp peat moss.

Then I used a teaspoon to scoop seedlings from the brown pots and transported them into the white tubes. Notice the distint color difference in the damp and the dry peat moss:

Replanting November 17th, 2012

Finally, I added more damp peat moss and a bit more water to make the remaining dry soil same consistency:

I repeated same procedure for all five brown patch seedling and also for the #8.

#8? Was it not pronounced dead this morning? Well, it's most likely is going to die, but there was one noticeable difference between #8 and other seedling that did not make it. The difference was in the  appearance of the needles. Although the stem was bent and almost touching the ground, the needles were still green on top. The underside of the needles was turning clearly brown, but overall shape of the plant was more preserved than in previous cases. Other seedling became very thin very quickly. #8 leaning towards ground was still substantially thick. So, I decided to move it and see what happens. 

Since I now know what the wet peat moss is supposed to look like, I will attempt to keep it that color as it keeps drying up.

That's all for soil and watering changes.

Major Death Update

Saturday morning November 17th was not good for the Sequoia grove. One of the surviving white patch seedlings, #8 was found slouched on one side. The very minor irregularity that I noticed yesterday was indeed a bad sign:

#8 November 17th 2012

The brown patch had five seedlings above ground as compared to zero a week ago. However, the remaining nine were pronounced dead:

White patch is getting sparse

More bad news and then some. #2 as predicted two days ago collapsed. #9 shriveled and also is dead. This leaves three surviving seedlings: #4, #8 and #15.

#4 appears doing fine. #8 (the one under a plastic cup) started showing some irregularities in the green needles marked with arrows in the picture below.

A narrowing near needle tips also appear to have a slightly darker color than the rest of the green. I have added just a few drops of water yesterday to this sample. The plastic cup placed on top of the tube remained foggy with water vapors. For now I am keeping the cover.

Mid-week update after heavy watering

Is more water better? Well, let's see. I watered all white patch samples with 50ml on Monday except #8 (which is under plastic cup) and #9, (which was still wet from the original heavy watering two weeks ago). The result two days later is dramatic and not good.

#2 started to have the leaf ends to curl and shrivel:

#4 appears normal:

#6 fell on the ground:

The unwatered (under cup) sample #8 remains healthy:

The unwatered (from initial heavy watering) sample #9 continues to struggle, but still appears growing:

And finally, watered with 50ml sample #15 appears to be doing fine:

With one more confirmed death of #6 the total surviving count is 5 out of 16 for the white patch. It appears that by the week's end one more is going to die (#2).