• If you need help identifying a pepper, disease, or plant issue, please post in Identification.

soil How warm does the soil have to be?

Hello! I have a few questions on seed germination. I am growing about 15 plants in a seed cell tray, heat mat, humidity dome, and all that. I have it placed by a window that gets quite a bit of sunlight. My questions are:
How warm should the soil feel when I touch it? I know that sounds like a weird question but I don't have a soil temp thermometer. So when I touch the soil, how warm should the soil feel? Should it feel like really hot, or should it feel warm, but not like luke warm but warm warm? Whenever I touch the soil on mine it feels warm, not luke warm. Also, how hardy are pepper seeds? If I was to make some mistakes along the way, before they germinate, will they die? If I make little mistakes, will they be alright? I guess what I am asking is, are pepper seeds fairly easy to germinate? Thanks! If you guys want I can post a pic but not until tomorrow because I am not home rn.
 
Germination temperature between 25-28 degrees of celsius is ideal, no more than that and do not place them in the sun. Just put the mini greenhouse somewhere warm and dark, with the heat mat ideally set between the 25-28 degrees of celsius and wait anything between 1-3 weeks for them to germinate. 
 
The easy way is to use small rockwool cubes or coco coir to germinate, but keep in mind that rockwool and coco coir doest have any nutrient in it, so after they germinate to a small seedlings start giving them some weak fertilizer water mix or you can also use that weak fertilizer water mix to expand the dry coco coir in the beginning.
 
Ideal is to use two mini greenhouses to transfer the germinated small seedlings between those two mini greenhouses and placing the other one to a location where the seedlings get some light.
 
 
 
Thank you everyone for your replies! Do you know, from personal experience, how warm the soil was by touching it, when you guys touched your soil, if you did, do you remember how warm it was? Thanks. 
 
I use a digital thermometer for soil temps. One of those point & pull the trigger deals. I keep my soil between 92-96F.
 
 
 
Just started 2018 today lets see. 93F/34c is good I bet I get seedling in under a week.

Day 1.jpg

day 1 temp ...jpg
 
I always germinate my chilli seeds at 24°C and it has never failed.
 
Back
Top