Still on December 11, after eating and relaxing, I decided it was time for some work--a bit of tidying and housework, and I ended up doing some watering etc.
I have a number of pots of (hopefully) hardy cactus seedlings which I sowed in spring-the first one (Escobaria vivipara, from Alplains) came up well and quickly, and after some weeks (or more, I forget) I decided to take the pot out of the plastic bag..the seedlings are still ok, but I felt they did not do as well as those that were left in the bags-I was thinking it was about even moisture, but it just occurred to me today that the added heat of the closed bags under the lights might also be a factor..
However, those that remained in bags have some moss growing on some pots-which would not be a concern in itself, but this moss can seem very dense, and I wonder if it will start to be a problem for the seedlings; in addition, I noticed some unevenness in moisture in the pots--those that were touching the sides of the bags, especially on the sides where the bags were bent over(to fit under the lights) had some wet spots, with more moss, even algae. Note: most of these bags were unopened for months--sowing was in spring, not all are dated, but mostly around the beginning of April, and I likely opened a few times to check on them etc, but certainly not for months since. Overall, though, very strong and no signs of damage from the moisture.
All of these pots are under fluoros (T8's I think, or T12's) and the bulbs are not new--couple years old-so between the old bulbs and further loss of light due to the plastic, I'd have thought they'd be much more etiolated than they are--no doubt they could be a bit more compact, but pretty good, and I figure they can plump up more later when they go outdoors.
All this tells me a few things: --enclosed growing is definitely better for me, though maybe I will try humidity covers, at least for older seedlings, or larger bags per pot to avoid the wet spots;
--at least some cactus seedlings are happy with much lower light levels than I would have thought ideal....
Since I had them out, I thought I might as well photograph them, even though it was long after dark; I tried a couple of flash shots, and thought they looked terrible on the viewscreen, so I went with high sensitivity handheld shots, and most are correspondingly crappy! In fact, the flash shot was not bad seen on the computer screen, and I should have used that for all of them! Worst was the pot I had sprayed the grit on, making it darker, and almost impossible to shoot--another learning experience...
album at Picasa:
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