Windowsill seed raising - Small Cacti and Mesembs

[jfabiao]

The cacti will test your patience, but at least the north-american are not especially difficult (I have never tried Blossfeldia).

[IrisA]

Yep, in general I find this hobby is great for building patience My blossfelida are still going, I'd agree that these aren't hard just slow, seems like the main thing is just doing a good job with the initial sterlization. The good about blossfelida is that these are cheap seeds, so they make for good practice for the pricier guys like Aztekiums.

[greenknight]

LED lights are rapidly becoming more available - all the big hardware chains carry them, and there's a vast selection available online. I agree the red/blue grow lights are no good for displaying your plants, but there are plenty of "warm white" ones available that will show them off to good advantage.

I'm specializing in small species these days, definitely going to give Blossfeldia a try.

[iann]

That's where LEDs have an advantage, they produce light with very little heat.

Everyone keeps saying that but it isn't true. LEDs produce more or less the same heat as any other (non-incandescent) light source, comparable to fluorescent tubes, although better than the little compact fluorescents that are now become historical collectors items. Well over half the electricity that goes in ends up as heat in the LED itself. You can potentially use a a lower power LED setup than fluorescent tubes but the difference is not huge. LED arrays powerful enough to be useful need fans to remove all the heat they produce or they quickly overheat and die. A bit like Monilarias

I'm sure you can find white LED growlamp arrays somewhere. Maybe just get one of those cheap security spotlights that claim to have a 500W LED but are probably about a tenth of that. Very hard to know what you're getting with LEDs, even paying massive money might only get you worthless rubbish. Many of the aquarium folk are making their own, a sure sign that the stores have poor offerings. You can buy a (real) 100W LED for a few dollars and your only problem is finding a heatsink big enough to stop it melting.

Is it time for another "Top ten myths of lighting" thread, with the emphasis on LEDs this time? The last thread brought so many crackpots out of the woodwork, perhaps I shouldn't. I don't have the energy for dealing with potheads and their lighting fetishes any more ...

[greenknight]

I didn't say LEDs don't produce heat, said the light they produce has very little heat.

LEDs get hot, but they don't radiate heat - they produce light in a narrow band of wavelengths. Incandescent and fluorescent lights produce a fair amount of infra-red light (radiant heat), LEDs don't unless they're specifically designed to. If you put an LED lamp inside an enclosure with your plants, it will warm the air in the enclosure - if the lamp itself is outside the enclosure, shining in through an opening, it will not warm the enclosure. If you're not using an enclosure, put the lamp above the plants and convection will take the heat away from them.

LEDs are highly directional, if you need to light just a small area you can use a lot less power for that reason. For supplemental light of a small windowsill growing area you wouldn't need 100 watts, 30 would probably be plenty. You have to shop very carefully, I agree that there are a lot of junk LED lamps out there. I bought mine on Amazon, and read the reviews very carefully.

[IrisA]

I am definitely interested in learning more about LEDs (think a new myths thread on this would be great if you feel like writing one Ian), I am sure I'll want to adopt these at some point, but I find the massive units with fans aimed at growers who grow more lucrative crops a bit too intimidating at the moment (definitely have plenty of stores selling these here in Vancouver ). I have been slowly switching my ambient household lighting over as my incandescents burn out, but I don't think bulbs like this are bright enough for plants.

In the meantime, I plan on doing another 6 pot sowing later today And I finally took the time to take some update photos.

First off the new guys. Some conos (I think I have another mesemb hitchiker in the first pot)



Pachypodium rosulatum. My first time sowing these, they make for pretty adorable seedlings, anyone have any advice on when to take out these out of the bag?


Now some from last year.
Geohintonia, blossfelida, and a single aztekium hintonii still in their baggies




Some of my lithops (plus some lapidaria and plesiopolis), new leaves starting to poke through:





Some fenestria, they look thirsty as I had left them for about ten days without a drink.


My pseudolithos, have these on a heat mat, they get a little sip about every week. My other pot got boiled in the heat of the summer.


Some argyroderma, I have been raising these as summer growers, wondering if I should water they look pretty thirsty.


Some conos and monilaria from 2 years ago. Unfortunately I accidentally chopped of the one of the ears. With some M. carmenae and lithops in the background.


A whole lot here. Some astro hybrids and avonias in the foreground. Lithops and some lophs in the background.


A single Copiapoa Laui


Parodia magnificus


And finally as 7george predicted my agaves are indeed victoria reginae!

[greenknight]

The Pseudolithos are looking good - like something from another planet. Just the way they should look.

Those LEDs would certainly be bright enough - if you used enough of them! The problem is, as ian pointed out, the rated power may not be accurate. The first one I bought was a "5w" spot grow light, but one reviewer had tested and found it drew only 3 watts - the "10w" version drew 5.5 - 5.7 watts.

The "5w" one was adequate for a small spot, it covered the few pots of seedlings I was growing then. This year I planted twice as many, and it wasn't enough any more - I bought a "10w" and moved it farther back so it covers more area. It's a different make, don't know what its actual power is, but it is brighter and it's doing the job. It's also more blue/less red, so it should be better for growth (red light is supposed to encourage blooming). Which raises another point, their spectra vary as well as their output, and the spectrum has a major bearing on how plants will respond to them. It's pretty much a matter of trial and error to find ones that work well. With "white" LEDs, you will, of course, need a lot more power - much of their spectrum is in wavelengths plants can't use well.

Their mode of failure is also an issue - they tend to lose brightness gradually, instead of burning out abruptly. You really need to use a light meter to tell when they need replacing.

Plenty of issues with LEDs. I do think an LED spot light focussed on your Mesembs, to provide extra light without extra heat, could be helpful.

A new "sticky" thread which covers current lighting technology is an excellent idea.

[iann]

You can use standard domestic LED bulbs for lighting small areas or starting seeds, just as you can with the twisty tube CFLs or fluorescent tubes, but you won't get one of the main benefits of LEDs which is being highly directional. You're probably going to find CFLs pretty hard to find now or soon, so you won't have much choice anyway. Unless you're going into it fairly seriously, the initial startup cost of any substantial LED lights might be a bit daunting and a few four-foot fluorescent tubes are still effective if you just want to use them for a few weeks over the winter. LED spots have the LEDs all pointing in the same direction, but you can also get things like floodlights very cheaply (and often worth about what you pay!). Other possibilities are LED fluorescent tube retrofits, a long line of LEDs all pointing more or less the same way. For some fun, you could play with the flexible LED tape, but be aware that it isn't especially efficient in terms of light out per watt in.

"much of their spectrum is in wavelengths plants can't use well". Are people still stuck on that one? I guess they are since there are masses of pinky-purple LED growlights on eBay, but I assumed most of them were going to people who'd destroyed a high proportion of their brain-cells with home-made pharmaceuticals.

[iann]

What is that monster in with the Conophytums? A Delosperma? Something even bigger? Might be an idea to evict it pretty quickly. And plant up separately of course

[Pushrestart]

Cute seedlings!

Most of what I know about LED's has come from reading through cannabis forums and videos on youtube, there is a ton of information out there and it can be very confusing at first. If you're interested in learning more about light types, efficiency, spectrums, its a good place to start. Personally I am not a fan of that neon magenta color "hello here is trouble" lighting that is often advertised for growing those types of plants. If anything they're outdated, as most growers are looking for higher efficiency and moving to as full a spectrum as possible.
While yes plants predominantly use reds and blues, they do utilize other colors on the spectrum.
I've been waffling for a long time over grow lights- even though I need them because LED's are quite the investment and to get the right kind of output and such is not cheap. Most of these other 'growers' are able to quickly make back whatever they've spent on the lighting, not so much for mesembs/cacti lol. If someone is looking to really invest in LED's look into DIY COB LED set ups and plan accordingly.

This is something I've been eyeing (not affiliated) http://www.rapidled.com/10-solderless-l ... oting-kit/ this looks like it would be great for seedlings.

[IrisA]

Thanks everyone for all the great info on LEDs. I'll definitely be taking a look at the lighting section next time I'm in the hardware store. I think I'll see if I can find a decent cool spectrum compact LED,to try out with some seedlings.

The pseudolithos are a favorite of mine greenknight. I love how weird they are. Just hoping I can keep these going.

Not sure what the monster or where it came from, wondering if it was in with the seeds (seems like it would have been a considerably larger seed and I didn't notice anything) or if it survived the microwave (I sometimes re-sterilize soil from failed pots). I'll do my best to replant and save it. Should make for a good mystery.

[greenknight]

It may be that the real advantage of the red/blue LED grow lights was the efficiency of the LEDs. There are no LEDs that produce white light, the white LED lamps use blue LEDs with a phosphor coating that absorbs light and re-emits it in different wavelengths. There is some loss of efficiency in the process, but it's less than it used to be due to more efficient phosphors - just between 2012 and 2014 the efficiency of white LEDs improved by about 50%, and progress is continuing. Of course, this rapid progress means there's a lot of outdated junk on the market.

[mmcavall]

Iris, I would take the Pachypodium out of the bag. Mine germinated in an open pot,no bags, and is doing just fine. They don't seem to need (and to like) too much humidity. Keep frequent watering/spraying though
On the other hand, I've just sowed Pseudolithos and may ask you some advices!

[IrisA]

Ah had no idea the white LEDs used phosphors, this makes a lot of sense. Glad to hear the trends are moving toward a fuller spectrum.

Thanks for the advice on the pachypodiums, mmcavall. I'll start to air these out. Also great to see another pseudolithos grower on here! There is not a lot of info out there on growing these from seed. The one thing I can tell you with certainty is to watch out if it gets hot where you are in the summer, I boiled one pot the hottest day this year on my windowsill and all of the neighbouring cacti and mesemb seedlings were fine. I had mostly read a lot about not getting them too cold, and I figured something from Somalia could take any heat we get here in Vancouver Fortunately I had another pot in a slightly cooler location, and aside from that incident I haven't found these difficult. For the most part I just use a heat pad in the winter and light watering all year long. I took these out of the baggie after germination completed (pretty quick, if I remember correctly) I may have used a plastic cup to keep humidity a little higher for a few weeks right after.

[mmcavall]

Hi Iris, you probably saved my Pseudolithos from being cooked. I read your post and almost leave the office as if there was an emergency. I came home to lunch and moved the pots to a cooler spot in the greenhouse. Thanks!