Starting Nutrient Feeding

No, no need to feed a plant/seedling in soil for at least the first 4 weeks, even at 10% strength. Feeding a baby seedling is likely to burn it and not benefit it. All seedlings will develop at different rates, even those of the same strain and from the same packet. Deep watering is vital to plant health, your babies roots would be, by now, all the way to the bottom of the pot, so skimping on water is counter productive - make sure to water from edge to edge of the pot and until water comes out of the bottom of the pots, this will ensure correct hydration of your plants and allow for proper root development, as new roots won't grow in dry soil. I find it far better to deep water every few days rather than watering little amounts often. Keeping just a small area damp near the stem and to a shallow depth will only support shallow root growth with little lateral expansion, meaning your plants' "anchoring base" will be shallow and confined and not provide a decent root system to stabilise the plant properly and this can cause problems during flowering with plants being unable to support the weight of the flowers and literally falling over! Dry soil will also mean the soils' micro life will be limited and the nutrients being less available too. Try and maintain a completely moist soil mass, without being over wet or too dry either. Finding this "Goldilocks" zone is not that difficult and when learned, watering will become intuitive; you will "just know" how much to give and how often and to each plant too. Over watering is something I don't really understand and is a topic which arises in this forum often and I wonder why this has occurred - is there a great big anti-watering propaganda/campaign in America? Judging by the amount of perlite/vermiculite you all seem to have in your substrate mixes, I thought it would be almost impossible to over water and don't understand the almost guilty complex of people who are quick to defend their actions very early on, by stating they have not been over watered! Plants grown in Deep Water Culture and hydroponics have their roots in constant contact with nutrient solution, but no one complains about over watering those plants. To cause any real damage through over watering in soil would mean having a completely saturated soil for days on end. Any damage would be almost impossible to cause with a "normal" watering schedule. You would be surprised at the size of the root system on plants of the size you have and I suggest you look at my diary "cannabis conundrums" to see some pictures of a 3 week old seedling with its roots exposed and this may give you an idea as to why deep watering is so vital. Feeding once your plants are 3-4 weeks old and when they have 8-10 nodes would be an appropriate time to start feeding, but quarter strength at first will be plenty. After another 3 weeks or so, going to half strength should be about the right time frame, depending naturally on how much your plants have grown or not grown and as to when you transplant them. Remembering that when transplanted into fresh soil, there will be nutrients in that too, so feeding with a low dose and only after a period of 2-3 weeks after the transplant takes place, before resuming feeding. Remember too, it is very easy to correct a slight under feeding, but very, very hard to rescue an over fed and badly burnt plant. Hope this helps,......... Organoman.