ok ok ok, I has a Seedling!!!!!

2 things I'd like to contribute to this. I grow veggies in raised beds outdoors. I use a medium recommended in a popular guide, Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew. Mel's mix is equal parts peat, compost and vermiculite. Outdoors, in raised beds, vermiculite makes a lot of sense. Water retention is the goal in that mix, and it works well. But I grow huge plants with high water demand. I would never use that mix indoors because plant respiration and water uptake is that much less which means your plants are exposed to less nutrition over time. The solution, for me anyway, is to eliminate water retaining characteristics in my medium.

Secondly, researching Bugbees mix I came across a reddit from a year ago which said he has changed his mix formula and it's now 75% peat and only 12 or 13% vermiculite plus lime and calcium sulfate. I haven't read back but isn't OP using 50/50 peat and verm? If so, that formula is out of date.

shnkrmn said:

2 things I'd like to contribute to this. I grow veggies in raised beds outdoors. I use a medium recommended in a popular guide, Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew. Mel's mix is equal parts peat, compost and vermiculite. Outdoors, in raised beds, vermiculite makes a lot of sense. Water retention is the goal in that mix, and it works well. But I grow huge plants with high water demand. I would never use that mix indoors because plant respiration and water uptake is that much less which means your plants are exposed to less nutrition over time. The solution, for me anyway, is to eliminate water retaining characteristics in my medium.

Secondly, researching Bugbees mix I came across a reddit from a year ago which said he has changed his mix formula and it's now 75% peat and only 12 or 13% vermiculite plus lime and calcium sulfate. I haven't read back but isn't OP using 50/50 peat and verm? If so, that formula is out of date.

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I am using a modified version of the Original, In his video when going through what was in his mix, he also said Coco Coir could be used, so I am about about 30% peat,40% Vermuclite, and 30% coco coir (roughly, I added Coco Coir to the 50/50 mix, so the percentages are a rough guess.)

So, while yes, Vermiculite does retain about 3 to 4% of its weight in miosture, it also Loosens the soil and improves drainage.

What are the benefits of vermiculite?




Using plenty of vermiculite, or even straight vermiculite, can prevent bacterial and fungal problems such as damping off and root rot. It is commonly used for seed germination and in seed germination mixes. Improves drainage and lightens the soil in the garden, in raised beds, or in pots.

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I’ve never used vermiculite, but my basic understanding is that vermiculite retains moisture while perlite aids in drainage (which is important for aeration). I think you’re hearing a lot of us here say we use perlite, with good reason. Your plant is stunted. I’d be looking for reasons why. The substrate mix seems a likely culprit. Other know more than I. I mix around 20% perlite into a soil mix that already has perlite present. Works nicely.

DeadHeadX said:

I’ve never used vermiculite, but my basic understanding is that vermiculite retains moisture while perlite aids in drainage (which is important for aeration). I think you’re hearing a lot of us here say we use perlite, with good reason. Your plant is stunted. I’d be looking for reasons why. The substrate mix seems a likely culprit. Other know more than I. I mix around 20% perlite into a soil mix that already has perlite present. Works nicely.

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Yes, Vermiculite does retain some moisture, but it also Increases drainage, Granted, I will give you, not as well as perlite, but it does help.

One more thing. Way back when I was learning to grow I tried hempy buckets as a method. That medium was classically 50/50 perlite and verm, but most folks quickly switched to 100% perlite because it didn't become waterlogged and root growth was better generally.

Anyway, I've used verm in growing more than most but 40% wouldn't make sense to me unless I was growing in outer space and had a really limited amount of water available for my experiments which is maybe Bugbees mindset. So you see a lot of puzzlement here.

shnkrmn said:

One more thing. Way back when I was learning to grow I tried hempy buckets as a method. That medium was classically 50/50 perlite and verm, but most folks quickly switched to 100% perlite because it didn't become waterlogged and root growth was better generally.

Anyway, I've used verm in growing more than most but 40% wouldn't make sense to me unless I was growing in outer space and had a really limited amount of water available for my experiments which is maybe Bugbees mindset. So you see a lot of puzzlement here.

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I guess at this point, there isnt much else I can do but wait and see how it comes out. Fingers crossed.

Hugo Phurst said:

Until the cotyledon begin to fade/wither.

Have fun

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IndooorGardnerOhio said:

Awesome thanks!
I AM SUPER STOKED!

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IndooorGardnerOhio said:

Everything I have read and watched has said that a seedling has enough food for the first 10 to 14 days of its life and that you should not start nutes before then.

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Not sure if this has been addressed, but NO!

If you're not growing in soil, it needs an amount nutrients in every liquid the medium gets after germination. I've seen youtube vids of people who held off for a week or more with soilless and their plants look fucking sad and yellow by the time they pot up. One guy held off nutes in coco for 19 days and they looked so shitty and small for almost 3 weeks.

Mine popped exactly 3 days ago (thought it was 4 days until checking my notes) and I added 1/4 nutes to the coco before putting them in it. They're doing great for 3 days old. You should always add the proper PPM of nutrients to coco for the stage of development. Never straight up water. Unlike soil, there's nothing in coco/vermiculite to give them anything but moisture and a place for roots to go.

Just get an EC meter if you don't have one and make sure the solution is under 300 PPM at this stage. Then ramp up the PPM as they enter full veg.

LeoRavus said:

Not sure if this has been addressed, but NO!

If you're not growing in soil, it needs an amount nutrients in every liquid the medium gets after germination. I've seen youtube vids of people who held off for a week or more with soilless and their plants look fucking sad and yellow by the time they pot up. One guy held off nutes in coco for 19 days and they looked so shitty and small for almost 3 weeks.

Mine popped exactly 3 days ago (thought it was 4 days until checking my notes) and I added 1/4 nutes to the coco before putting them in it. They're doing great for 3 days old. You should always add the proper PPM of nutrients to coco for the stage of development. Never straight up water. Unlike soil, there's nothing in coco/vermiculite to give them anything but moisture and a place for roots to go.

Just get an EC meter if you don't have one and make sure the solution is under 300 PPM at this stage. Then ramp up the PPM as they enter full veg.

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Beautiful plants. Mine is 10 days old today, and she did get her first feeding based on the advice in this thread, came out to 236 ppm on the meter. This is her before the feeding, mind you she just had water two days ago. So she, at least to my eyes, isnt showing any signs of needing nutes ASAP, but she got some anyway, I did go light since she was just watered 2 days ago, maybe 1/8 gallon with nutes at the above PPM.

IndooorGardnerOhio said:

Beautiful plants. Mine is 10 days old today, and she did get her first feeding based on the advice in this thread, came out to 236 ppm on the meter. This is her before the feeding, mind you she just had water two days ago. So she, at least to my eyes, isnt showing any signs of needing nutes ASAP, but she got some anyway, I did go light since she was just watered 2 days ago, maybe 1/8 gallon with nutes at the above PPM.View attachment 5355228View attachment 5355228

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Nice. I use Advanced Nutrients Sensi coco and followed the feeding chart exactly for week 1. It came to like 275 PPM. I buffered the coco with calimagic first then flushed that down to under 100 PPM runoff, then added the nutrient solution to the coco until runoff. Then stuck the popped seedlings in it. Started them in peat pellets and stuck them right in the coco after their cotys opened up. They had their second fertigation this morning. With coco you can feed with nutrient solution every day since it's like hydro. Some recommend never letting it get dry at all.

LeoRavus said:

Nice. I use Advanced Nutrients Sensi coco and followed the feeding chart exactly for week 1. It came to like 275 PPM. I buffered the coco with calimagic first then flushed that down to under 100 PPM runoff, then added the nutrient solution to the coco until runoff. Then stuck the popped seedlings in it. Started them in peat pellets and stuck them right in the coco after their cotys opened up. They had their second watering this morning. With coco you can feed with nutrient solution every day since it's like hydro. Some recommend never letting it get dry at all.

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I am using Megacrop 1 part for Veg and Switching to Jacks Bloom Booster for flower. Mine isnt Pure coco tho, its coco, peat and vermiculite, so it will hold on to some of the nutes until it starts to dry.

IndooorGardnerOhio said:

I am using Megacrop 1 part for Veg and Switching to Jacks Bloom Booster for flower. Mine isnt Pure coco tho, its coco, peat and vermiculite, so it will hold on to some of the nutes until it starts to dry.

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I gotcha. The peat will reduce drainage. I'm just using straight coco with a tiny bit of perlite in the cup stage. A higher percentage of perlite will be added to bigger pots because when running coco, you want the best drainage you can get. That's kind of the purpose of it. The more frequently you fertigate with nutes the faster the plant with take off. It's like the middle ground between soil and pure hydro, hydro being the fastest. If adding something that makes the drainage less and feed less frequently, you'll probably get more soil-like results in the end. With better drainage the roots are getting flushed with nutrients regularly.

My cups were still heavy this morning and I put 30ml (1 ounce) of nute solution in each one and got a decent amount of runoff. Pure coco holds water great and is also pretty much impossible to overwater since any excess comes right out of the bottom while the coco still holds lots of air for the roots.

LeoRavus said:

I gotcha. The peat will reduce drainage. I'm just using straight coco with a tiny bit of perlite in the cup stage. A higher percentage of perlite will be added to bigger pots because when running coco, you want the best drainage you can get. That's kind of the purpose of it. The more frequently you fertigate with nutes the faster the plant with take off. It's like the middle ground between soil and pure hydro, hydro being the fastest. If adding something that makes the drainage less and feed less frequently, you'll probably get more soil-like results in the end. With better drainage the roots are getting flushed with nutrients regularly.

My cups were still heavy this morning and I put 30ml (1 ounce) of nute solution in each one and got a decent amount of runoff. Pure coco holds water great and is also pretty much impossible to overwater since any excess comes right out of the bottom while the coco still holds lots of air for the roots.

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I was aiming for a Balance between Holding water so i dont have to water daily in the early stages and Drainage from the Added Coco and Excess Vermiculite. Only time will tell if I hit anywhere close to the balance I was looking for. I will say this, when I let it dry back to almost dry and hit it with a gallon of water(in a 5g cloth bag) A Lot of it did drain out the bottom. Prolly over watered it but it was dry about 5 inches down.

IndooorGardnerOhio said:

I was aiming for a Balance between Holding water so i dont have to water daily in the early stages and Drainage from the Added Coco and Excess Vermiculite. Only time will tell if I hit anywhere close to the balance I was looking for. I will say this, when I let it dry back to almost try and hit it with a gallon of water(in a 5g cloth bag) A Lot of it did drain out the bottom. Prolly over watered it but it was dry about 5 inches down.

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Ah, you went straight to the 5g. I'm going solo cup, 2 gallon, then 5 gallon. That way it'll take less solution with every feed until it's big enough to drink lots from the 5g. I'm also doing photoperiods. With autos I'd go solo cup then straight to 3 gallon.

LeoRavus said:

Ah, you went straight to the 5g. I'm going solo cup, 2 gallon, then 5 gallon. That way it'll take less solution with every feed until it's big enough to drink lots from the 5g. I'm also doing photoperiods. With autos I'd go solo cup then straight to 3 gallon.

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I wanted a big pot to see if i could up the size yield a bit.

IndooorGardnerOhio said:

I wanted a big pot to see if i could up the size yield a bit.

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Bigger pots definitely produce bigger yields. Most people recommend starting small and potting up. It makes it easier to feed and also helps the roots not become bound in a big pot too early if you'll be running in veg for a long time. Haven't looked much into the science of it but most of the OGs pot up.

LeoRavus said:

Bigger pots definitely produce bigger yields. Most people recommend starting small and potting up. It makes it easier to feed and also helps the roots not become bound in a big pot too early. Haven't looked much into the science of it but most of the OGs pot up.

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Most of what I have saw on Autos say to never to repot them.

That sentiment is probably a bit of a leftover from a time when autos were more unstable and generally touchy than they are these days. They can be re-potted and even topped. Recovery time can become an issue, though, if you're too aggressive and piss them off too much.

IndooorGardnerOhio said:

Most of what I have saw on Autos say to never to repot them.

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Oh yeah autos are different. I've talked to a few people who start them in a cup then go right to the final pot without disturbing the roots since they run so short. Others do final pot right away.

I plan on running my photos for at least 2 months in veg to fill up the tent. Then flip to 12/12 until flowering's done. So probably close to 5 months until ready to smoke. lol

LeoRavus said:

Oh yeah autos are different. I've talked to a few people who start them in a cup then go right to the final pot without disturbing the roots since they run so short. Others do final pot right away.

I plan on running my photos for at least 2 months in veg to fill up the tent. Then flip to 12/12 until flowering's done. So probably close to 5 months until ready to smoke. lol

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Ya I cant wait that long till I get some bud built up.