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.