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Rapid Rooter Plugs ?

if you pop them first place the root down obiviously... but other than that you can just drop them in .
i prefer to stick them down into the bottom with some hemostats, but its pretty much un necessary im guessing.
you might want to cover the plugs with cling wrap to keep them from drying out until they pop, this is what i do. and yes it works way better than just the clear domes.

i get real good rates with these things. soak overnight... then cram em into the bottom i get like 90% easily. with rockwool i let them actually pop before puting them in, never had great luck germinating in rockwool.

incaase you are interested, park seed sells some massive peat sponges that are like 3x bigger than normal. with those i skip the beer cup stage and just put them into 1 gallon pots
 
Nice idea. I am trying these for the first time. Now i just tried some sure to grow cutting and seed starter blocks. They are soft and flimsy and i was starting to doubt them but i got 100% germination from them when germinating some moruga seeds. The same seed stock gave me only 30% germination in seed started mix. Now trying rapid rooter plugs since PEX swears by them and informed me about them.
 
i have yet to see sure to grow in any hydro store. when i do ill defiantly give it a shot.
all my plants that end up in rockwool slabs start in 1.5" rockwool cubes. they are a bit of a pita and dont wet easily, i have to treat with with a non ionic surfactant for them to be worth a damn. they will literally float on top of water for like 36hours before they sink completely. add a few drops if surfactant to that water however, and they sink immediately.

the magic of rockwool happens later tho, when your plants are big enough to drink a slab dry in a day, you are able to keep the slabs very airy by watering frequently but just 2 minutes or so at a time. i set the drippers to water only enough to JUST get like 50ml of nutrient runoff
i havent done a side by side, but id bet that my rockoool bell peppers and maters are easly growing 30% larger in the same time.
 
thats actually ingenious, i hadent thought of that. the little plant would have 0 problem pushing it out too.

Thanks! I figure the seeds like darkness and the tiny piece helps them work the seed cap off. I will say that 3 out of 4 bhut jolokias i just started had the cap on....I lost 1 being impatient trying to pull it off. What is also nice is you can take some tweezers to remove the piece and check on your little guy's progress.
 
I used them this year for the first time to germinate well over 200 seeds. They worked great! There are more helmet headed seeds than with soil, but not nearly as many as I thought there would be. To each their own, but I didn't cover the hole at all. Just dropped in the seeds and put them in my starter tray on a heat mat. They did just fine, light or no light. I did have to water them every couple of days, but that was no big deal. They're so much more convenient than soil, as well.
 
I'll also add that, at least for me, seeds germinated much more quickly and I got a better germination rate than with soil. I did an experiment with both in my glog. The results for a large number of varieites are in the first post.
 
I started using them a few weeks ago because of DocNrock and others who raved about them. I'm having a pretty good result so far with the 30 or so that I have planted.
 
I just bought some yesterday because of this thread. So, what I did was soak them for a while, then I actually buried the seed in the bottom of the hole to the top of the seed. will this work, or should I drop it in and cover with a piece of the plug. I have never used these before if you can't tell.
 
I just bought some yesterday because of this thread. So, what I did was soak them for a while, then I actually buried the seed in the bottom of the hole to the top of the seed. will this work, or should I drop it in and cover with a piece of the plug. I have never used these before if you can't tell.

What you did should work fine. I didn't bury them at all, though, nor did I cover them with a piece of the plug. Just drop them in the hole. I pushed them to the bottom of the hole if they stuck to the side, though.
 
They work very well what i do is soak them in water for a couple of min. then just put one ore two seeds in each and put them under the dome with heat mat and i had very good succes rate with quality seeds just make sure to keep the plugs nice and moist ! good luck
 
I just soak them for a minute or two and put in the seed. After germination, I insert a pice of the peat into the holes also. It helps prevent "helmet head," as the seed has to push through the peat in search of the light, helping tear off the seed cap.
 
After germination, I insert a pice of the peat into the holes also. It helps prevent "helmet head," as the seed has to push through the peat in search of the light, helping tear off the seed cap.

That is a good tip.

My only real complaint about rapid rooters it that 30% of my seedlings are helmet heads. If that helps get rid of it, I'll be very pleased. I have s few straggling seeds going into the ground later this week. I'll try your tip and see if it works.
 
     I'll be using rapid rooters for the first time in just a minute. I decided to try something different for germinating seeds and looked into Aerogardens. After regaining my composure from laughing at their prices, I decided to build my own hydroponic seed germinators. 
     I'm using two 3 gallon rubbermaid totes to float a styrofoam barge of ten 2" net pots with rapid rooter plugs. I have a little air pump that I bought back before I understood how much air it takes to make AACT in a 5 gallon bucket. I think it ought to be adequate for one or two tubs. 
     I figured I'd just set it under the lights on my grow table with the rest of my starts and keep rotating seeds in as seedlings move out. 
     We'll see how this goes. Maybe I'll post pics in my glog. (I think I still have one of those...)
 
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