So I've got two 4 day old seedlings (seeds popped out of the ground on the 8th) that have developed some seriously purple stems. I've seen this many times before, but never have I seen such intense purpling on the bottom side of their first leaves. Additionally, the first set of true leaves appear to be forming with purple tips. Is this normal? Is this alright? BOTH my seedlings exhibit the same traits. My setup: Strain AK-47, no autoflower, feminized. Lights 2x 26w 6500K bulbs for vegging. 24 hour lighting (24/0) since germination. Daytime temps in the grow area are around 71f, nightime temps are around 69f. Daytime temps under lights are around 75f and nighttime temps are around 72f. Fan blowing across seedlings 24/7. Soil Mixture: Soil is a mixture of 30% Miracle Gro Perlite (0.04 - 0.01 - 0.06) 60% Miracle Gro seed starter mix (0.00 - 0.01 - 0.00) 10% Coco Husk Chips. As you an see, it's a very airy and light soil mixture, with a very low concentration of nutrients (not using any nutrients yet, as they're obviously seedlings. I have better soil coming for the first transplant. I've run around 300ml of water through each cup to flush them, just in-case it's a salt build up or something soluble due to the shitty MG starting soil. Collected runoff pH tests at 6.8. Soil tests at 7.1 using a crappy 15$ pH meter. They've been growing very well. For day 4 under cfl's, I'm rather impressed. Any input? Looks like a Phosphorous issue to me... Any quick fixes? Cheers folks. If ya'll help me out, I'll consider throwing up a grow log. I'll be using a 175w MH and 3 watercooled 50w 2700k LED's (5k lumens each) for these two ladies.
miracle grow perlite has nutrients in it.. like the other dude said, it's probably strain specific.. it's way too early in that seedlings life to have any sort of nute deficiencies. It's still living off of the cotyledons. Keep an eye and if the tips start getting brown, then it could be overfert or something. wouldn't try and do much at this point though.. seedlings are fragile enough without having to mess with the dirt and roots. is this the case on all of the seedlings, or just this one?
Yeah, the perlite has a (0.04 - 0.01 - 0.06) Nutrient content, but as it's only 30% of the volume of my soil, I can't see it being a huge factor. My mix is very low in phosphorous, and possibly high in salt due to the coir. But yeah, I agree, it's so young. Let's cross our fingers. Got it under a small MH now. I'll update this in a few days.
Way to soon to define, so popular now with many strains, and besides it's just anthocyanin, or sugar build up in the leaves, so keep an eye on your temps at night