Plants grow slowly and yealds are bad

Stretch is your guide to amping up light intensity. Initially it won't want too much teh fisrt 24-36 horus, but it quickly demands more. This is like riding a bike. You have to learn through trial and error how to steadily increase the light to avoid stretch... while also not giving too much too soon which will also have negative impacts. Make sure 'some' length of stem does eventually develop between growth nodes. if it ever stays super tight, you know that's a bit too much light. Local climate and ambient co2 impacts exactly how much light per day a particular plant can handle. A poor VPD will result in less potential photosynthesis per day. So, your garden will almost certainly be different than someone else's garden in this respect. If you both control the climate and other factors in similar ways, you'll have similar 'max' light per day. Old seeds aren't why somethind grows poorly. If it germinates, it's fine. An old seed may have a higher rate of germination failure, but won't impact the plant after that point. -------------- Could be any number of reasons for slow growth. So, i'll just hit some basics and point you toward some quality grow guides worth reading over... The seedling definitely stretched before ths photo was taken, but if you icnreased light since then, don't further overreact until you canobserve how that adjustment impacts growth. If you haven't increased light intensity, do so now for sure, but again... incremental adjustments, observe and re-assess. Take notes when you find a happy zone -- light distance and power. It may take you a couple cycles of seedlings to have a proper method. Don't be too hard on yourself learning new things. Be systematic about it to shorten learning curve. be smart. Substrate looks to have poor aeration properties. a heavy soil should have 50% perlite or similar (1:1) - this includes what may come with the soil - some low-level algebra can help you calculate how much to add. Coco coir holds less water per volume, therefore only needs about 33% perlite (2:1). In the end both will have similar gas:water mixture per volume and excellent drainage properties that makes overwatering impossible, unless you flood it for 10-15+ minutes, lol. so, don't fall asleep watering, basically. Coco coir has zero advantage i nthis regard despite what commonly gets repeated. Simply a matter of properly amending a soil or coco to achieve similar gas:water mixture per volume. Also, regardless of what bro science says, potting up does not shock plants. Never seen it and i've done over 400+ 'transplants.' A large pot and small seedling will slow you down. It also makes watering properly a pain in the ass. 1) fully saturate -- this should never cause a problem. when it does it is the fault of how the substrate was constituted. 2) wait for appropriate dryback and repeat. In soil, usually waiting for 1" deep to dry is a good trigger. You can also use the weight lost as your trigger. If you irrigate at same weight-loss, you need a very similar amount of water each time. Do not whimsically choose to give a volume of water each time. You give enough to get the job done - full saturation with no dry pockets. This promotes deep roots and proper growth patterns. Not doing so leads to microbial growth on top layers and superficial roots and roots exposed to bone-dry pockets for no reason. the drying pattern is all fucked up if you water superficially. check out growing guides on cocoforcannabis.com. Even if you use soil, there are numerous parallels and they don't delve into bro-science nonsense. they'll keep you on the right path. soilless should have 10% runoff in addition to the above 2 steps. Soil should have minimal runoff unless you are trying to dilute the soil due to previous over-feeding mistake. No reason to leach off the amendments in soil that you paid for. the 10% runoff or more for soilless gaurantees you won't have buildup from fertilization over time -- this does not preclude you from overfeeding, of course, but eliminating the chance of buildup is one of the superpowers of soilless growing.