Seed Starter Tray

When I began my journey into growing Kanna, I did what most people do when trying out a new hobby or interest: tried the budget option. In rearing Kanna, that usually means sending off for some cuttings, and trying to root them yourself. After all, forums and internet research assured me this was an extremely easy task. I had a problem though. I couldn’t get the cuttings to root!

In fact, even after I gave up on the cutting root (Ahem, Route.), bought a plant, and tried rooting cuttings from my plant I STILL struggled! Believe me, its frustrating struggling at something that is widely regarded as an easy task. So I decided I had to figure it out. I made some posts on reddit. which can be both a good idea and an awful idea. There is a lot of good information on reddit, but there are as many opinions as there are users, and those opinions on rooting kanna can be wildly different. You can easily be led into a ton of different paths and end up wasting time, money, and plant materials on trying out all the different methods.

Thankfully, I did end up figuring out how to root my cuttings with a high success rate. My advice if you’re looking to get your first kanna and not confident in rooting? Just buy a rooted plant if you can. Doing that would have saved me a lot of money when I first started out. If you want to try rooting some kanna, click on the button below for a guide.

Kanna rooting guide

All that to say that today I would like to show you the piece of equipment that has been most useful in rooting my kanna, and giving you my opinions on it.

I am not sponsored by Vivosun and I paid for this product with my own money. I like using this product and I am telling you about it because it may be useful for you.

Vivosun 40 cell seed starter tray with integrated lights

Vivosun Seed Starter Tray with Kanna plants inside — Vivosun seed starting tray.

This is the tool I use to go from cuttings to healthy plants with a high rate of success. The vivosun seed starter has a few features that made it stand out when I was looking for a kanna cutting tray: adjustable vents, large capacity (40 plants), integrated lights, and removable cell trays.

Adjustable Vents:

Vivosun Seed Starter Tray vents — Simple vent setup.

The vents on this humidity dome are simple but effective. Spin the green vent piece to adjust how much air flow gets through the openings on the dome. The integrated grow lights heat up the soil, and evaporate the water in the system, so opening these vents allows the humidity to escape quite effectively.

Large Capacity:

Vivosun Seed Starter Tray with plants in it — A look at the cells

I like that one tray can hold 40 plants as I can have a good selection of different genetics in one tray. I can also do large batches of cuttings and increase my plant stock quickly.

Integrated Lights:

Vivosun Seed Starter Tray vents, lights, and humidity dome — These black strips are the lights that are integrated into the system. they are held in place by grooves in the plastic of the humidity dome. they aren’t held in with any sort of resistance, so if you’re handling the lid, be careful not to tip it too much as they might fall off the lid. Also, they can get hot, so if you’re picking up the lid while the lights are on, avoid touching the lights. The lights also have holes for different mounting setups, but they would be best utilized on the humidity dome as they aren’t very strong.

Vivosun Seed Starter Tray controls — The light control buttons: On/off, intensity, and timer. Red LED light is shining to tell you the unit is in 18h light mode

A neat thing about these lights are the controls. The lights themselves allow you to change intensity and set a timer in addition to an on/off switch. The timer feature is a great addition as you don’t need to buy a wall timer. The operation of the timer is simple. Lets say you want the lights to turn on at 8 AM. At 8 AM, turn on the lights with the power button and then press the timer button (Clock Symbol). The LED light will turn Green for 8 hours on, Blue for 12 hours on, and Red for 18 hours on.

NOTES:

The lights will turn off totally if power is lost. We have had some issues with short power losses where I live, so we have had to reset the lights a few times. The timer indicator light stays on constantly, so if they are off, you know that your lights may have experienced a power interruption and turned off.

You can’t set your lights to start at a point in the future which is a bit of a bummer. IE, The first time you start your timer, you have to be doing the necessary actions to start your timer. So if you want your timer to start at three in the morning for some reason, you will have to get up at three to program your timer’s start time.

Removable Cell Tray:

A removable cell tray is surprisingly handy. Once a batch of cuttings is mature enough, you can easily remove the cell tray and put your batch of baby clones under a larger grow light array until they are ready for planting. Then your humidity tray is freed up for another set of cuttings if you have extra trays.

Conclusion:

This starter tray is a great tool for anyone trying to grow some kanna. I am sure it would be useful for growing other plants and seeds (I’m growing a batch of kanna seeds in one of my trays right now). I have been using mine for a few months at this point and I have not had any issues with durability. I am expecting to be able to use it for a few years at least.

Transplant Garden — Rare and Curious Plants