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  • From: Matt Cheselka <cheselka AT freestateproject.org>
  • To: sunnfarm AT bellatlantic.net, Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Cc:
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] A Riddle ...
  • Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 11:54:21 -0600 (CST)

On Wed, 31 Mar 2004, robert schuler wrote:

> Matt when seedlings become rootbound they stunt out. I guess you grew
> them under very strong lights in rather cool conditions, at least that's
> the only reason for the short height and strong root system.

I don't use grow lights at all. It's nice enough during the day here
(usually int he 40's or 50's) in the winters in southeast AZ that
everyone's ok. I take all my babies in at night though. The coldest we
got last winter was 5F. Is 50F a "rather cool" condition? I can
correlate the fact that it's the seeds I planted in Dec/Jan that have
pretty much all done this. I'll need to look at my notes for sure,
though.

> If I were you I would toss the whole mess and start again. A
> well rooted young 4-5 week old seedling makes a great transplant but an
> older rootbound seedling seldom produces a good crop. Stunted seedlings
> usually make a stunted crop or at best they take a week or two longer to
> mature while they try to make fresh roots, and over come the hard old
> growth.

Ok, well that's what I thought in terms of what to do. I still really
need to understand the reason this happened. Last night I took the
largest of the stunted seedlings and planted them all. Everything else
I'll toss. If I reuse my 72-bin seed trays, I'll clean 'em out with
bleach to make sure I kill all the fungi and mold. However, the 72-bin
trays are pretty beat up so I'll probably chuck 'em and just continue to
use my sweater boxes.

> I will bet that if you start new seedlings today, they will
> outgrow your old plants and mature faster in the garden...Bob. Sunny
> Meadow Farm Bridgeton, NJ.

I've already observed this, Bob! It's pretty amazing. Lettuce I planted
on 3/12/04 is already bigger than some I planted in January. How
annoying! I *really* wanna understand what happened.

Thanks for the help.

Matt





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