HELP with encouraging substantial roots on seedlings

[Anthony_Toronto]

Originally Posted by RayR

You need more than NPK if you want good root structure. Plants do not live by NPK alone.

Okay, so aside from what I've been doing what else do you think might help my seedlings before its time for them to be banished from my window into the great outdoors?

[Worth1]

Good lord I just goggled organic potting soil and a bunch of marijuana pictures came up.

Worth

[Anthony_Toronto]

Originally Posted by Worth1

Good lord I just goggled organic potting soil and a bunch of marijuana pictures came up.

Worth

And are you getting your seeds prepared?

[Hermitian]

I used "Jiffy Organic Seed Starting Mix" topped with some Vermiculite. As in past years, I'm having great success: Richard's Indoor Propagation

[RayR]

Originally Posted by Anthony_Toronto

Okay, so aside from what I've been doing what else do you think might help my seedlings before its time for them to be banished from my window into the great outdoors?

Some good suggestions have already been made. Is your mix to dense, holding too much water? Roots need an aerobic environment, they need air as well as water to flow through the medium.

Hermitian mentioned iron. What about other micronutrients and secondary macros?
They are all important to root development in one way or another. Root hairs follow in the direction of calcium in soil. If you are using city water you may be getting enough Ca that way, I don't know. If your fertilizer only contains NPK then that would be a limiting factor for root growth.
I also have never heard of a fertilizer, inorganic or organic for a soil free mix that had 5 times more P than N and K.
Many seed starting mixes and potting soils are more or less a blank slate and it's up to the grower to add the appropriate fertilization. I believe its better to have a little of everything than a lot of one or two nutrients. You're also using chemical salts, too much of those in a confined space can inhibit growth by damaging your roots.
Consider also adding organic components like fish hydrolysate and kelp for macro and micronutrients, growth hormones, proteins, amino acids and vitamins.

[RayR]

Originally Posted by Anthony_Toronto

And are you getting your seeds prepared?

Worth doesn't need to, I think he got high just looking at the pictures.

[barbamWY]

I had good results with a Tomatoville members seaweed formula. It is Saltwater Farms. Search the forums to see comments about it.

[Fusion_power]

Toss the moisture control mix. It suppresses root growth.

Tomato seedlings should dry out to the point the plants wilt. They MUST actually wilt a little bit. When they wilt, the plant triggers additional root growth. Water them and let them grow another round, then let them wilt again. Two times is all it takes to trigger the plant to produce a larger root system. This is the single most important secret to improving production of your tomatoes. I have a local guy who buys my tomato seedlings every year. He found that he could buy some good looking seedlings of the same variety from the local co-op. He planted them side by side with a row of my plants. My plants outproduced the co-op seedlings nearly double. They were the same exact variety so what made my plants so productive? The simple answer is that the root system on my plants was twice as large as theirs for the same size plant.

Temperature is important. Seedlings grow best between 65 and 75 degrees. They make the best stems about 65. They make the best roots about 60. Contrary to what most here would guess, tomatoes thrive with varying temperatures. If your daily temperature cycle is from 45 to 85 degrees, the tomato plants will grow gangbusters.

Sunlight is the most important factor in root growth. If you are using indoor lights or sitting them in a window, try putting a reflector around them so they get more light exposure. A sheet of aluminum foil will do the trick. I've seen some really good setups that were nothing fancier than a cardboard box lined with foil and placed in a sunny window.

[creister]

Fusion,

I have indoor grow lights. Would laying a sheet of alumminum foil underneath the plants help, or should I try to contrive something to go along the sides? Would I put the shiny side or the duller side of the foil towards the plants?

[b54red]

I have a small greenhouse so I usually don't have a light problem but getting them outside as soon as possible is the best thing for good root growth. Sometimes they get beat up by the wind but they usually recover nicely. As soon as my plants recover from potting up I try to get them outside at least in the day time if weather permits.

Fusion is right about the wilting. Sometimes I think I have nearly killed mine I let them dry out so much; but I have large root systems when it is time to set them in the garden. I used to pamper my tomatoes and keep them well watered at all times and when they hit the garden they usually had a hard time recovering and were slow to grow. Now when I set them out I nearly have to jump back they start growing so fast and I'm sure it is from the well developed root ball. I found this out by accident nearly 20 years ago when I forgot to water one tray of plants and they nearly died when they were hardening off. I gave them a dose of Miracle Grow and they recovered but didn't look nearly as nice as the other two trays. A week after planting all of the tomatoes in the tray that I had neglected were way ahead of the pretty plants even though they were given poorer spots in the garden since I thought they had little chance to be as successful. Since then I have been neglecting them on a regular basis when hardening them off.

I did something last year that I had never done before and that was to fertilize the plants every week to 10 days once they were established in the garden with Texas Tomato Food. The results were fantastic so I plan to do the same this year and see if that was just a fluke. Never had my plants set so much fruit as they did last year. In the past I had only given plants fertilizer about once a month besides the organic amendments added before planting.

Bill

[Anthony_Toronto]

Originally Posted by RayR

Some good suggestions have already been made. Is your mix to dense, holding too much water? Roots need an aerobic environment, they need air as well as water to flow through the medium.

Hermitian mentioned iron. What about other micronutrients and secondary macros?
They are all important to root development in one way or another. Root hairs follow in the direction of calcium in soil. If you are using city water you may be getting enough Ca that way, I don't know. If your fertilizer only contains NPK then that would be a limiting factor for root growth.
I also have never heard of a fertilizer, inorganic or organic for a soil free mix that had 5 times more P than N and K.
Many seed starting mixes and potting soils are more or less a blank slate and it's up to the grower to add the appropriate fertilization. I believe its better to have a little of everything than a lot of one or two nutrients. You're also using chemical salts, too much of those in a confined space can inhibit growth by damaging your roots.
Consider also adding organic components like fish hydrolysate and kelp for macro and micronutrients, growth hormones, proteins, amino acids and vitamins.

I will consider those, but I know I didn't add anything special years ago and got amazing roots, so was more thinking that the medium (which was definitely not anything special) was less of a factor in the results I had than the method...and I definitely wasn't letting them dry out in between waterings back then, but have done so since (and roots are far worse than they had been). The 10-52-10 fertilizer is this:

http://www.plantprod.com/turf-en/Pro...1530&CatID=161

The promo language on the product describes it as "a fully soluble starter formulation that supplies the necessary high phosphorus levels for young plants to initiate rapid root development. A very safe fertilizer with a low salt index, contains no sulphates or harmful chlorides. Use when transplanting seedlings or bedding plants or whenever a high phosphorus fertilizer is required".

So based on that it seemed like it was at least described as a good option to use to encourage more root growth.

Lots of good suggestions so far, definitely trashing the moisture control mix!

[creister]

Bill,

Did you foliar feed or soil drench with the Texas Tomato Food?

[RayR]

Originally Posted by Anthony_Toronto

I will consider those, but I know I didn't add anything special years ago and got amazing roots, so was more thinking that the medium (which was definitely not anything special) was less of a factor in the results I had than the method...and I definitely wasn't letting them dry out in between waterings back then, but have done so since (and roots are far worse than they had been). The 10-52-10 fertilizer is this:

http://www.plantprod.com/turf-en/Pro...1530&CatID=161

The promo language on the product desPcribes it as "a fully soluble starter formulation that supplies the necessary high phosphorus levels for young plants to initiate rapid root development. A very safe fertilizer with a low salt index, contains no sulphates or harmful chlorides. Use when transplanting seedlings or bedding plants or whenever a high phosphorus fertilizer is required".

So based on that it seemed like it was at least described as a good option to use to encourage more root growth.

Lots of good suggestions so far, definitely trashing the moisture control mix!

Probably a good idea to trash the moisture control and switch to a lighter mix. Never used moisture control myself, but a lot of people here have had problems with it.

I don't think it's all that important to have a real high ratio of P for growing tomato transplants, but more importantly how much of the Plant-Prod 10-52-10 were you applying. Their instructions call for a lighter application of 100g to 100 liters of water, that's 1g/liter for us small scale growers. you might even cut that in half for a starter fertilizer just to be safe and see what happens.
Do you have a gram scale and did you weigh it out before mixing it?

[b54red]

Originally Posted by creister

Bill,

Did you foliar feed or soil drench with the Texas Tomato Food?

Soil drench. I used an Ortho sprayer that is calibrated and diluted the TTF so that it didn't block up the fine screen on the suction tube. I diluted it 2 parts water to one part TTF then applied it at one ounce to the gallon if it was dry and one and a half ounces to the gallon if the soil was already moist. I would just soak the area from the main stem out about a foot or so and as the plants got larger I applied it a bit heavier. It would take some time to do this since I had around 60 tomato plants and I would have to refill the container 3 or 4 times in order the fertilize them all. I ended up using a full three gallons of TTF over the entire season and I will probably use just as much this year. I varied the amount I applied from reading my plants so if they were dropping blooms too much I would apply a little more and if they were getting dark green I would apply a little less. When the plants were younger I would apply a little more diluted because I wanted to encourage more root growth but when they were starting to bloom heavily I applied a bit more to encourage fruit set.

The Apple and Citrus fertilizer they sell was fantastic for my small lemon, lime and one satsuma that I have. My satsuma which had never produced more than a few fruits had to be culled heavily and I still got 3 full 5 gallon buckets off it last year. I lost a lot of limbs to the freeze this year but the satsuma looks like it is coming back out again. I don't know if it will produce anything this year since this time last year it was covered in blooms and now it doesn't even have any leaves. My lemons and limes which are in containers that I could move into my plastic wrapped porch are looking very good so far with lots of flowers. I try to give them a dose of the Apples and Citrus at least once every 10 days to 2 weeks.

Bill

[Anthony_Toronto]

Originally Posted by RayR

Probably a good idea to trash the moisture control and switch to a lighter mix. Never used moisture control myself, but a lot of people here have had problems with it.

I don't think it's all that important to have a real high ratio of P for growing tomato transplants, but more importantly how much of the Plant-Prod 10-52-10 were you applying. Their instructions call for a lighter application of 100g to 100 liters of water, that's 1g/liter for us small scale growers. you might even cut that in half for a starter fertilizer just to be safe and see what happens.
Do you have a gram scale and did you weigh it out before mixing it?

Yes indeed, and I typically added a little more water than suggested by the instructions, as I wanted to avoid overfertilizing...but I certainly didn't dilute to the point that the fertilizer would have been ineffective. I did love the moisture control for the times I was watering from the top, and just for soaking pots full of the stuff before transplanting up (simply for the ease of absorbtion), but won't be using it this year.

And its not like I've had no success, the ones pictured here could have had nicer roots but picked up by July, but most years since this year they could have done a little better especially at the beginning of the season.