The Spring is here! Full capacity achieved

This week both 4x4 grids have been filled with seedlings for a total of 32. Four more seedlings are available in the temporary cups as replacement. After all this time, there is little rhyme or reason which seedlings would survive and which wouldn't.

For example, #104 had such a sickly looking root during the movement from its starting brown cup to the white patch that it was all but discounted for dead.

#104 January 4, 2013. 11 days old.

A much "stronger" #103 was a favorite. Fast forward two months, #103 is all but history, while #104 is doing better than a lot of older plants:

#104 March 2, 2013. 2 months and 1 week.

The second white patch B (clear plastic tubes), have another unusual specimen, #72. It continues to grow vertically significantly ahead of any other plant:

#72 March 2, 2013. 3 months old.

#72 is beginning to looks like a next leader after still dominating #39. It is now becoming difficult to decide what "leader" means. If #72 starts adding some volume in the near future to the already existing branches it will jump ahead with ease. I can see this as a more likely scenario than #39 all of a sudden starting to grow taller. As #39 continues to add a lot of volume as it literally pushes needles into the soil and into the container walls:

#39 March 2, 2013. 3 months and 2 weeks old.

At its current lateral growth rate, #39 will start to interfere with neighboring seedlings. At that point I will need to build a new grid with larger spacing.

Here is a view at the two 4x4 grids:

Patches A and B March 2, 2013.

General observations on patch A (top): #39 continues to dominate landscape with many more seedlings quickly adding lateral volume as well. Oldest seedling #4 keeps looking healthy but shows barely any growth. On the second patch, patch B (bottom), #72 stands well above all other seedlings. #39 remains one of the top three, at least in overall volume.