I have a very small hydro set up ready to go and some good seeds that I have gotten from a friend. I have grown in soil before but I can not get my little babies to sprout in the rockwool. I have soaked the rockwool in ph adjusted distilled water, and been very very careful with the seeds tucking them in with the tap root facing down. I have the plain block rockwool and have cut a small hole into it about 1 inch deep, been keeping the rockwool moist but not wet followed all the posts that i could find about rockwool. Now that I have run through about eight seeds that I am sure I could have gotten started in soil but I just am having real problems with this rockwool. I want to use the hydro to improve the time and yield and really just to figure out somthing new, so any tips advice or recomendations to grow guides or step by step trouble shooting stuff would be awesome.
Rockwool is pretty much impossible to overwater as long as you allow gravity to drain it. Let the rockwool drain as much as it wants, but otherwise keep it as wet as possible. Also make sure you keep the temps up (80 or even a little more if possible). Using this method I had 15 out of 15 seed germinate for me. It also sounds like those seeds might be in a little deep. They should be fine as long as the plant can push the seed casing out as it grows and doesn't get stuck and just push the root down.
I find when raising seeds in rockwool do your presoak, shake them out well, the put ur seeds in and try to keep them moist, when you water dip the bottom very quickly in the water, this allows the roots to go looking for water, its the only way i could get the seedlings to take well to the cube, ususally when they wont take its becasue they are to wet, and yes rockwool can get to wet for a seedling. Once the plant has a root structure i agree you cant overwater, but you can when they are trying to row thier roots/// gluck buddy
I don't know. I was in their spraying them with General Hydroponics germination/seedling strength solution at least 4 or 5 times a day until the cubes were saturated. The temp was between 80-85 and I kept it totally dark in there. 13 germinated within 3 days and the other 2 germinated a few days later. All 15 that I planted germinated into healthy little seedlings (So far I've lost one of them because I tried to reroot him due to too much stretching). Once the roots were about a half an inch long I peeled the grodan open and repositioned it with as much of the root underground as I could but enough room for the seed pod to be sticking out just a little so that any continued growth would move the seed pod/soon to be leaves into the air so it could get light. My solution was ph 5.5 and not aerated but I did use a spray bottle which might of helped with getting some O2 into the solution. However, rockwool when saturated and then drained fully contains about 3-5% medium, 80% water and 15% air. That gives the plant plenty of O2 compared. I guess I don't have the experience of a lot more seasoned growers on here but from my one germination attempt I found that keeping the grodan as wet as I could worked great.
Depending on how long that tap root was when you planted them a 1 inch deep hole could be too much if you have covered the seed after planting. Have you checked the seeds if they actually cracked and just didn't make it out of the rockwool?
Good point leapfrog. I had these little groden cylinders with a cut from the center to one side. I only planted them maybe a half inch down but they were having such a hard time pushing the pod out I need to help most of them or I expect they would have died stuck in there. They can't push the grodan out of the way like they can with dirt.
if your cube didnt come with a prefab hole, make one with a pencil before you plant the seed, then just barly close the top of the hole, then they come right thru, no worries... hope that helps guys.... gluck
Because I was worried about the seeds and wanted to be able to check on them I cut a large block of rockwool then cut a smaller cube out of the center of the larger cube then I made the bottom of the hole as flat as possiable and then stabbed a pen through the smaller block. So when I placed the seed in the center of the larger blocks hole I could cover it with the smaller block having placed the hole in the smaller block over the seed. I thought that this would let me have a lid to take off and be able to check on the seed and provide more air to the roots after growth. All of the seeds had fully cracked and had tap root starting out of them but after putting them in the rock wool they just stopped growing. I am thinking that I may use the larger cubes this time but fill the cut out area with a bit of dirt to let the seeds get a start and then once the roots grow through the roots should be able to feed from the hydro nutes. What do you all think of that as a solution?
You need to start them in a small cube, let the roots fill that cube before putting it in a big cube, start with a 1 1/2 x 1 1/2" cube, these fit in the larger cubes, you have to close to the top of the whole a little to give them dark, They need veru little water as the roots need to look for it, If they are soaked the roots have no reason to grow, so keep them just damp, when they are close to dry dip the very bottom in water only, this promoted the roots growth. It shouldnt be this hard for you you muct be getting them to wet, they should only be about 1/2" down in the cube, shake those cubes out so they arent soaked and give em a couple days without water, i bet they will pop right thru, when i started i had the same issues and found that i just had them to wet.... gluck buddy