UL listing and meanwell driver is a really good safety bonus.
Does that lamp have a build in timer? (day night)
that would be ideal. Switching on / off after the switching power supply. Means you don’t have to switch a large inrush current.
If it does not have an build in timer, and your gonna use an external one…
Even though it is a quality meanwell driver it still has 50A inrush current. So is not safe to use with a 16A resistive load rated relay like found in the wall plug timers.
I’m not an electrician. And you should check up on safety rules and precautions yourself (I.E im not responsible)
But i’d look into either the ICL-16L linked above in this topic.
Or into something like an Arduino to switch on/off the power supply (if B type) with a pwm or 0-10 volt. Or open/short signal like discribed on page 5.
Ideally a grow light would have a build in timer though. (i can’t seem to find the manual of the one you bought)
Sorry I forgot to mention that I will be manually dealing with it. These cheaper lights never seem to have built in timers unfortunately. Thank you again for all your in depth explanations!
Update #1: I definitely regret directly sowing the seeds in their 1 gallon containers. Consistent watering has been difficult but I’ve been doing my best to keep the soil moist but not soaking wet. Once they have a full set of true leaves I give them a little 1:1:1 fertilizer. Some seedlings have unfortunately died and I’ve already started a new set in a germination tray.
@oscar Yeah they seem to germinate within 7-20 days! Part of that may be because Mike from strawberry seed store cold stratifies them beforehand but the bowlenzauber seeds I bought were not cold stratified and seemed to germinate along the same timeline.
Unfortunately I don’t have a humidity gauge but out here in California it is quite dry. I do have a humidifier I can run while the lights are on and see if that makes a difference.
My only concern with not using fertilizer is that the pro-mix I’m using only has peat, coconut coir and perlite so its deficient in nutrients. Do you have experience growing seedlings in a relatively nutrient deficient starting mix?
Or if I’m making cuttings or afraid of fungus/rot due to slow seed germination, i tend to go for more sterile coco coir/perlite mixture.
there might be slightly slower growth at the start. But i get plenty of roots.
if had passionflower cutting grow almost a foot long/high in a 30cc cutting tray filed only with 50% perlite and 50% coco coir. And no apparent nutrient deficiency. Since than I’m not that worried about seedlings lacking nutrients.
Although they do grow faster above ground when they have some more easier access.
you could also put a humidity dome above them. Or even a old plastic container with a few holes in it would work to raise the humidity.
Wow that is quite interesting! All reports I’ve read online always say peat and coco coir have essentially no nutrients. Clearly thats not true, while Im sure the nutrient profile is low, a foot of growth would not be possible with no nutrients in your mix. I’ll hold off on any additional fertilizer until they’re a bit more developed. Unfortunately, quite a few of my seedlings have browned up like the ones in the picture (all over the last day or two) so this little experiment will take a bit more time. I’m glad I restarted extra seeds last week, 2-3 of them have already germinated.
Also forgot to mention, I spoke with an electrical engineer friend of mine. He let me know that while its true any wall timer unit is only rated for 15 amps, if a light were to require 50 amps at any one given moment it would be extremely brief and would not cause a problem with the timer. He assured me that even if somehow the timer couldn’t handle the charge, the worst outcome would be a broken timer (and not a fire luckily). I’ve restarted using the timer and so far so good.
i don’t have your friends degree. So you should trust his advice more than mine.
Still as far as i know, a relay is most sensitive to overloading (plasma arcing) when switching on or off. And this is when the inrush current can go 5+ times over the rating. I would not trust this to be fine.
Especially if the “fix” is an inrush current limiter costing roughly 20$
I don’t have experience with strawberry seedlings in particular, but those look like over-watering to me, which is common when starting seedlings in too-large pots. The planting mix looks a little too water retentive to me… I’d double the perlite % unless strawberries have unique soil needs I’m unaware of.
Also I concur on no nutes that soon. Fertilizer burn could be the problem as well, and seedlings generally don’t need nutrients for a bit.
@oscar Fair enough, this little indoor garden isn’t worth a fire. I’ll look into it. Thanks!
@swincher Well you’re the second person to recommend no nutrients, Ill definitely stop using them for now. Hopefully some of the seedlings will bounce back. Im a bit shocked that this may be the underlying cause as the mix I used was only a 1-1-1. When do you generally start using nutrients?
Depends on the plant species (and like I said, I have no experience with the particular needs of strawberries), but for most things I wait until they are potted up from their seed starting pot, and even then I usually start with just a more nutrient rich potting mix in their second pot (up to 1/3 mature compost) with no other added nutrients. Then the first proper feeding isn’t until they start looking hungry or growth slows down.
But I know some things need more nutrients than others, so that’s not a hard and fast system by any means.
Are you going to put a fan directly on the plants?
I am not sure of strawberries , but indoor plants seem to get leggy with no direct wind on them.
Also I do not know the name off the top of my head , and it was difficult in the past trying to re find it,
but When plants have wind on them they make a hormone that makes them stronger , and thicker .
(I may have read it on BBC news science or something , but it was over 5 years ago I think , and since A teenager always put a fan on indoor plants starting germinating (at least at the beginning I mean.)
Thanks for the tip, yes I do have an oscillating fan blowing on them at all times. So far the seedlings that didn’t die (from excess nutrients likely, as stated above) are quite strong and sturdy!
I use different mixes for different plants. When I don’t just get a commercial mix I go with something like equal parts perlite, coir, and vermiculite, with or without a little bit of compost in the mix depending on the plant. E.g., peppers or bananas get some compost, but not most other stuff. Sometimes I’ll add some sand, but not usually.
To moist of a growing medium, damaging the roots can be another one.
But to much air flow of low humidity can also cause that.
Most plants like some airflow. But it’s rarely necessary to have a fan directly blowing on them.
for me, when starting seeds indoors under a LED light. The fan of the LED light is usually enough airflow. And that’s faced away from the plants.
to much air flow is forced extra evaporation, and especially if the medium/water is nutrient rich, this can damage plants due to exces nutrient uptake.
i usually go for organic nutrient sources (organic as in carbon (manure) based, not necessarily organically certified) Since they are slow release, and usually released by microorganisms and fungus when plants “ask” for them.
i could probably get faster growth with artificial fertilizer or paying more attention to fertilizer. But you can quickly overdo it.
Anyway either way you want to fertilize to compensate for used nutrients. So pay attention to growth. 2 plants of same species in the same pot, Plant A only has 2 smal leaves. Plant B is a few foot tall with side branches, which one needs fertilizer? and which one does not? you can probably figure that out.
Honestly I don’t do my soil mixing quite so scientifically as I should, it’s more like grabbing handfuls of each and mixing them in my wheelbarrow until it seems like a good consistency… It might be closer to 2 parts perlite, 1 part of each of the other two. I use pretty coarse grades of both perlite and vermiculite:
Just wanted to send a quick ~5 week update. All but one of the seedlings survived my probably too early fertilizer attempt. The one that passed away was a yellow wonder and the other yellow wonder seems to be slower growing than the other varieties. Besides that theyre all doing quite well! Both hawaii-4 plants seem to be the most aggressive growers (I included a picture, both of the plants are already sending out runners!) followed by Reine de vallees. Its hard to say anything about bowlenzauber since i started them later than the others but they also seem to be growing pretty quickly!
The only issue some of the plants seem to be having is a slight yellowing of the outer leaves and the leave are curling slightly to form a little concavity. Im thinking potassium or phosphorus deficiency? Im planning on feeding them with a 0.5-0.5-0.5 fertilizer but was hoping to hear everyones thoughts.
I am not as familiar with the fertilizer requirements side of things, but I did want to recommend diatomaceous earth in lieu of perlite/vermiculite for future mixes. I have put it in most of my mixes for trees, hanging baskets etc since I read Drew’s thread about it and I’ve not been disappointed.
I sourced my “optisorb” from grainger supply for around 12 bucks a bag. Based on threads here that is the largest available particle size. Napa floor dry is slightly smaller sized particles with more fines but possibly more readily available if you don’t have a grainger nearby.
I also used it to root my fig cuttings with about 10% coconut coir mixed in, with 100% takes so there are many uses.
. I once had to wait a full month before the first leaves!
