Seedlings stretching with cotyledon leaves curling inwards.

[Cesar Chavez]

Hi. So I got my beans to pop through the soil, but then I ran into a couple of problems. First, I believe I have major stretching going on. I have a 4' 8-bulb T5, which I am only using 4 bulbs during the seedling growth, placed 18 inches above the top of the soil. Should I move the light within 12 inches of the soil to help solve/slow down this problem? Second, my seedlings cotyledon leaves are curled/curling inwards. The first set of "true leaves" seem to be normal(may be to small to see them inward facing; ill check). Is this a symptom of over fertilization? Here is my process I followed to get to this point: I soaked seeds for 24 hours after scarifying them. Placed them in a soil mix on July 7, 4 days ago. Also I put plastic water bottle containers over them. They popped through the soil yesterday, July 10, 3 days after planting in soil; took plastic containers off. Seedlings are in a black one gallon container with drainage holes. The soil is 2/3 FFOF, and 1/3 LW. Daytime temps are 78-82, night time temps are 72-75. Only watered them twice. No nutes added besides what is in soil already.
Ok, thats about it. Hope someway can offer their advice. Thanks in advance.

 

[leafminer]

Stretching depends on the strain. You could have those lamps 6" above a pure sativa and they are still going to stretch, it's just what they do; I had mine outside from seeds under full tropical sun, and I think the first internode was about 4" up with at least 4" between successive internodes. Whereas a pure indica shouldn't stretch.
Can't say any more without PICS.

 

[Cesar Chavez]

The beans that are stretching are Dinafem's White Widow and Powerkush. I will take and post pictures around 4pm pacific time. Thanks.

 

[Alistair]

Yes, you should be able to place those lights closer. I don't know how hot they are, but often times, I can put my fluoros about 2" away without burning. However, as leafminer said, stretching is what seems to happen to seedlings, even with the lights close up. But, they do stretch a lot less when the lights are close up.

 

[Cesar Chavez]

Ok these were taken just minutes ago. First two pictures show my possible stretching problem. Third picture is of leaves curling inwards. *Having issues uploading pictures. Says dimensions need to be 1200x1200. Any advice?*

 

[Newbud]

http://www.marijuanapassion.com/how_to_upload_pictures.html

 

[Cesar Chavez]

Thanks for the picture information link.

 

[Newbud]

Looks normal.
I've just popped some sweet tooth in the thread in my signature if you wanna look for reference.
As for stretch as said get light as close as poss, but what i did was germ them then root em in cubes in a dome and then put them in pots.
Doin that you can bury the plant deeper and so shorten the stem.
If you get lights as close as poss without burning them and they should do fine and if you carn't re pot then there nothing you can really do about any stretching thats happened already

 

[Cesar Chavez]

So you germinated then placed into root riots, how did you transplant them? I did the same, with AK-47 and Shiva Skunk but broke seedling heads off, snapped radicles, and had a tuff time craming them into 'rapid rooters'. I would be very appreciative of a step by step process. I have some MK-Ultra on the way and dont want to have another disaster. Thanks.

 

[Newbud]

Once they have rooted in the cubes just throw the plant and cube in a pot and cover with the chosen media, its not transplanting cos you dont need to remove anything to plant them.
As for using the cubes i only germed till was a small root out of seed and placed in the hole of the cube root down then covered with a little piece off the corner of the cube.
Put cubes in supplied tray in a propagator and moisten and add litttle water to dome tray.
A day or so roots should be coming out the cubes and its ready for pots.
Put plant cube and all in pot and plant at a depth that allows you to adjust all plants so you have an even canopy.