Pink seedlings?

[TheFury]

Hey y'all -

About a month and a half ago, I mixed some D. indica and D. spatulata "Fraser Island" seeds together in a pot to germinate. Both varieties germinated in force. But I'm struck by the pink coloration on the D. indica seedlings. Have a look:

What concerns me is that I have some more mature D. indica seedlings as well, and the younger ones have a similar coloration on their stalks:

Is this anything to be concerned about, or is this normal for D. indica? I'm not sure since I've never grown them before. I just want to make sure it's not something in the soil that's making them turn pink. That would be bad news bears.

Thanks in advance for your advice!

 

[Taliesin-DS]

Isnt it just a sign that they get plenty of light ?

 

[TheFury]

I hope so! I just haven't ever seen seedlings that dark before. And when I see plants turn pink, I see it more on the petioles than the stems. What's more is that the more mature seedlings in that second pic are only getting about 10 hours of light a day - which is nowhere near enough to turn my other dews pink. Then again, the babies in the first pic are about 3" away from a 25w CFL bulb pumping out a good amount of light.

Thanks for your reply.

EDIT: Of course I'm in the process of raising that 10-hour photoperiod back up to 16 or 17. It got down to 9 originally for the purposes of gemmae production, but now that's all over and done with.

 

[Joseph Clemens]

Perfectly normal, a sign that growing conditions are okay. Though the smaller stunted looking plants may respond to tiny, but frequent dilute applications of complete fertilizer (with trace minerals). The larger plants will usually exhibit a growth spurt when small amounts of dried insect powder (such as crushed freeze-dried blood worms), are dusted on their leaves.

 

[TheFury]

Phew, glad to hear it. I'll whip up a batch of extra-dilute fertilizer and dab some on with a Q-tip next weekend. Just yesterday I made a sort of soup out of crudely crushed betta pellets and dropped the juice on with a medicine dropper, but I'm not so sure if that achieved the fertilizing effect that I was after since not many of these seedlings have dew-producing leaves yet. Thanks for the info!

 

[jimscott]

I read that D. indica is one that needs to be fed early and often.

 

[eou812]

Isnt it just a sign that they get plenty of light ?

I agree i think that's it here's a pic. of my indica it's about 5 months old. http://s1194.photobucket.com/albums/aa363/eou812/?action=view&current=DSC00015.jpg

---------- Post added at 11:29 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:28 PM ----------

I will get better pics later.

 

[TheFury]

I read that D. indica is one that needs to be fed early and often.

I heard that too, from a number of folks... and I'm certainly doing just that! I just fed the tiny seedlings in my first pic for the first time this weekend. I'm feeding the larger seedlings every week until they grow a bit. They really are growing quickly - I hope I can get my babies to grow that fast.

@eou - nice pic. The older leaves on mine turn pink too. Looks like I have nothing to worry about!

Thanks guys!