The test batch of Halloween peppers all sprouted, although one was an albino. Kinda weird, the leaves stayed white and didn't improve, I ended up pulling that one and lost one to damping off somehow. Probably because I didn't have the top fans on, as I'm using a bottom heating fan to try and warm it up for the Reapers to sprout.
Went ahead and decided to try transplanting one of the Halloweens over to it's own pot with a skull in the bottom really early. Normally I'd wait until we had at least a couple sets of true leaves on it, but I'm getting a little bored and wanted something for a post, so I went ahead and did it now. The above picture of the seedling was taken several days after the transfer, so it obviously survived and is putting out it's first true leaves, so all good there.
Gone ahead and started 6 more Halloweens to have enough stock to really mess around with later, but these I'll leave in their starter plugs until they have at least a set of true leaves on them. Transplanting as early as I did that other one is risky. I've grown these before, and they stay pretty small, so I'm thinking I might try grafting the stems of three or four of them together to get a single really beefy trunk out of them. Will also mean lots more roots for interesting nebari work.
Speaking of nebari, the Laughing Peter is doing well after it's chopping and wiring.
As you can see, we've got some roots that are plumping up, and some that are withering back. Thats exactly what we want, let the plant decide which roots are strongest right now and beef them up for us. As we pull down more and more, it should keep winnowing the weaker roots out for us, and then at the end we can manually prune any that are left over that we don't want.
Its been about 2 weeks since the initial pulldown, and I'm tempted to do another pulldown now. I know from past experience that the plant would be just fine, but I want to take my time on this one and let it really have plenty of time to get used to whats happening, so I'm going to wait until next weekend for another pull.
I've also been watering inside the bag more since the pulldown because I want to make sure the exposed roots that are still in contact with soil have a reason to grow quickly. We're mostly past the point of encouraging deep root growth now. The pulldowns will do that for us, so instead its time to focus on ensuring the exposed roots keep functioning. Whole thing will be for naught if the roots we're digging out all wither and die back save for one or two really deep ones. So, watering inside means they're encouraged to keep growing, and the pull downs will force them to keep going deeper.
Remember, better to have an embarrassment of riches now when it comes to roots than not have enough to choose from later on.
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