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Broccoli Seedlings

16 years ago

Looking for some advice on broccoli seedlings.

I started my broccoli inside about 3-4 weeks ago, and they came up great.

I built a fluorescent grow light this year and have been keeping that on for about 15 hours a day. I keep the bulb about an inch above the plants to keep them from getting leggy (this was always the problem before). IÂm using sunlight bulbs as I read they were closer to real sunlight than plant bulbs.

Over the last couple of weeks, the plants have started looking pale/burned-out, but are not drooping.

I started with 3 seeds in each pot, and clipped the two smallest sprouts. The stems from the clipped sprouts are green, but the stems on the good plants are a white/blue color.

IÂm using screened soil from my compost pile (very rich stuff)-70% and mixed in about 30% peat.

IÂm watering with tap water (city water), whenver the top of the dirt starts looking dry. It's very dry in our house right now, so I'm watering a little almost every day. The pots drain well. (I make my own pots out of newspaper.) Each plant is in an individual pot, about 2-1/2" wide x 4" deep, so I don't think they're over-crowded.

IÂve used this dirt and tap water in previous years with no problems.

The emergent leaves that die off first, have gotten tan spots on them and look like theyÂre dying, but the real leaf is not that big yet (approx. 1/8 - 1/4" long?).

I have not used any fertilizer, as I'm trying to go organic this year.

Am I watering too much? Mineral deficiency? Light problem?

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