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.