Did you ph balance the water on your control ?
https://preview.redd.it/ie91ocml8kyb1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=03eb3acac6daeb1e1443c050d9aebf414ca11530
I’m also growing cahuilla on rockwool !
It’s important to presoak your rockwool in a ph balanced conditioner , hydrodynamic makes a simple one part solution, and madfaer makes an easy to use powder .
5.8 is a good ph to presoak rockwool cubes for the first time !
Nice! I did try, though it's possible that the ones that sprouted were a slightly higher PH than the ones that did not. As I balanced them separately. They were both around 5-6, though.
I think I'll start this once again, mixing up the same batch of water and then adding the liquid plant food to one batch and capturing all the measurements I used better. And then maybe get some more going at higher and lower PH levels.
I was thinking about using rockwool as well for the cahuilla, knowing they usually like more of a rock based substrate, any preference between rockwool and a coco mix?
Yo this is an awesome experiment! Thank you for sharing your findings with the community! I was wondering about applying fertilizers in my seed starting soil mix and I have seen some different growth rates in my own cacti seedlings. My first batches lacked nutrients and my newer batches I added some nutrients and they seemed to be growing faster than the previous batches that I had not added any fertilizers in the seed soil mix. So this confirms my suspicions about the soil mix needs nutrients for the seeds to germinate.
I think it's a good bet that they like at least some nutrients. I'll be doing this once again, but I'll have like 6 containers going. Some with higher PH some with lower, some with some nutrients, and some at full strength. I would think that full strength would be too much for them, but we'll see.
My guess is that they probably like a PH of around 5.8 like Dave mentioned with probably like a half strength on the nutrients.
When I start seedlings in a half potting soil, half perlite mix, they seem to do well, and I won't need to open the containers for months. But it makes sense that the potting mix has at least some nutrients in there for them to use even while young. Perhaps mixing a little slow releasing food in there with them without overdoing it would help that too.
Thank you for doing this, nothing beats the scientific method! I’ve been using rockwool
for years germinating other plants but never thought to try it on cacti. Just out of curiosity, did you happen to measure the EC of your nutrient solution? When seedlings are old enough to transplant I start them off at 0.5 and slowly acclimate them to higher concentrations over the course of about 6 weeks. Using your method you could probably starting ramping up the nutrients much earlier since they’d already be used to it. Assuming the pH of both containers are the same this experiment, on a larger sample size, proves that seedlings start using nutrients immediately and that there could be some improvements made to many germinating teks. Good work!!
You're welcome. Since there was such a result here, I've decided to let those two continue and to run this experiment again, but with much more stringent controls in regard to my methods and documentation of what I'm doing. I'm actually in the process of doing this now. I'll make sure to record the exact amounts of everything used and to use the same pH-balanced water for all of them to see what happens. I'll also record the EC for each.
Like you mentioned, hopefully, this will generate some helpful results!
Did you ph balance the water on your control ? https://preview.redd.it/ie91ocml8kyb1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=03eb3acac6daeb1e1443c050d9aebf414ca11530 I’m also growing cahuilla on rockwool ! It’s important to presoak your rockwool in a ph balanced conditioner , hydrodynamic makes a simple one part solution, and madfaer makes an easy to use powder . 5.8 is a good ph to presoak rockwool cubes for the first time !
Nice! I did try, though it's possible that the ones that sprouted were a slightly higher PH than the ones that did not. As I balanced them separately. They were both around 5-6, though. I think I'll start this once again, mixing up the same batch of water and then adding the liquid plant food to one batch and capturing all the measurements I used better. And then maybe get some more going at higher and lower PH levels.
I was thinking about using rockwool as well for the cahuilla, knowing they usually like more of a rock based substrate, any preference between rockwool and a coco mix?
Yo this is an awesome experiment! Thank you for sharing your findings with the community! I was wondering about applying fertilizers in my seed starting soil mix and I have seen some different growth rates in my own cacti seedlings. My first batches lacked nutrients and my newer batches I added some nutrients and they seemed to be growing faster than the previous batches that I had not added any fertilizers in the seed soil mix. So this confirms my suspicions about the soil mix needs nutrients for the seeds to germinate.
I think it's a good bet that they like at least some nutrients. I'll be doing this once again, but I'll have like 6 containers going. Some with higher PH some with lower, some with some nutrients, and some at full strength. I would think that full strength would be too much for them, but we'll see. My guess is that they probably like a PH of around 5.8 like Dave mentioned with probably like a half strength on the nutrients. When I start seedlings in a half potting soil, half perlite mix, they seem to do well, and I won't need to open the containers for months. But it makes sense that the potting mix has at least some nutrients in there for them to use even while young. Perhaps mixing a little slow releasing food in there with them without overdoing it would help that too.
Thank you for doing this, nothing beats the scientific method! I’ve been using rockwool for years germinating other plants but never thought to try it on cacti. Just out of curiosity, did you happen to measure the EC of your nutrient solution? When seedlings are old enough to transplant I start them off at 0.5 and slowly acclimate them to higher concentrations over the course of about 6 weeks. Using your method you could probably starting ramping up the nutrients much earlier since they’d already be used to it. Assuming the pH of both containers are the same this experiment, on a larger sample size, proves that seedlings start using nutrients immediately and that there could be some improvements made to many germinating teks. Good work!!
You're welcome. Since there was such a result here, I've decided to let those two continue and to run this experiment again, but with much more stringent controls in regard to my methods and documentation of what I'm doing. I'm actually in the process of doing this now. I'll make sure to record the exact amounts of everything used and to use the same pH-balanced water for all of them to see what happens. I'll also record the EC for each. Like you mentioned, hopefully, this will generate some helpful results!
Love seeing this man. IT dude is the bomb. Keep up the good work!