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- Joined: Fri Jan 29, 2016 3:58 pm
- Location: FL Zone 9B
seed starting soil temp?
Hi everyone. I'm new to this, so I hope you don't mind the newbie questions. I started 16 cells last week and yesterday a few of them germinated. I put them under 4 100w (equivalent) CFL bulbs. Two at 6500k and the other two at 2700k. The lights are about 4-5 inches above the top of the stems. The flats are in an aluminum roasting pan in a bathtub we never use. The bulbs are generating some heat so I wanted to check the temp. The air temp at plant level is about 75F, but the soil temp has shot up to 90F. Thee is no heat source other than the bulbs. Is this normal? Will the high soil temp hurt the seedlings? Thanks for your help.
It is probably the tub and foil pan. They conduct heat and you probably don't have a fan either for air circulation. You could probably remove the lower lumen bulbs and still get enough light for now. The light would only be on for 14 hours so the soil will have some time to cool off a bit. Open the window a bit to let more cold air in. Try to get the air temp between 65-70 degrees it should help. As the plants grow the lights will go higher so there will be less direct light heating the tub and the pan.
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- Newly Registered
- Posts: 6
- Joined: Fri Jan 29, 2016 3:58 pm
- Location: FL Zone 9B