• Do you need help identifying a 🌶?
    Is your plant suffering from an unknown issue? 🤧
    Then ask in Identification and Diagnosis.

seeds Germination ?

HOH_Virus

HOH_Virus

Im recieving a wide variety of pepper seeds and I was wanting to know what some of you thought was the best way to germinate. I was thinking of using the paper towel method in the baggie or using one of the jiffy mini green houses with a heating pad. what are your thoughts and past experiences with this?
 
the paper towel method is working quite well for me, although in my opinion, its a bit slower as you have to do one more transplant than if you just put the seeds into pellets or seed starters.

If you have a large amount of seeds to germinate, just put them into seed starting mediums and skip the additional transplant.
 
I like to start mine in a soil-less seed starting medium like Hoffmans or Jiffy...keep them moist, not wet...and IMO the most important thing is temperature...86F/30C is where you want to be...stay below 90F32C....

Once they sprout, pour the light to them

if you use the domes for the greenhouses, be careful not to let them get too wet or you will get fungus/algae growing and risk the chance of damping off...
 
I often use the papertowel method since it takes up so little space and you can avoid the need for a germination setup or humidity dome, all you need is heat. As for jiffys, I'd avoid them and use a good loose soiless mixture in small pots or cells. I most often use pro-mix BX or PGX. Make sure to use a mix with no or little nutrients in it
Peat on its own is not a good growing medium, but with proper ammendments its hard to beat in my opinion
 
I went to the local home improvement store and picked up a three pack of the mini greenhouses that just had the cells (No peat pellets) and also a bag of jiffy seed starting mix. This a sufficient germination environment?

Also when I start to get some seedlings I planned on setting up a table with a few 48" shop lights, any special bulbs or other requirements I should know about?
 
assuming from your last post you are going soiless instead of paper towel method....if you have a variety that is hard to germinate, the paper towel method is good...

keep as close to 86F as you can...germination percentages drop both directions from that number and becomes an exponential curve as you get above 95F...86F down to 80F is just about perfect IMO...

here are two links that give some information although one of them I just found and the data can not be substantiated....the other one is from the University of Florida Ag research station down in Imokolee, Florida...

http://tomclothier.hort.net/page11.html

http://www.imok.ufl.edu/veghort/docs/trans_temp.pdf




I use a mixture of 6500K and 3000K color temperature bulbs (read cheap)...one in each fixture (assuming you will use standard two bulb 48" shop light fixtures)...seedlings can get along well with three fixtures per 4' long, 16" wide shelf...

do a search on "lighting setups" or something like that and you will see that subject has been beat to death...a LOT of information about lighting....
 
seedling heating mat or some kind of germination chamber...I think some use a reptilian heating mat with a thermostat on them....
 
I'm fairly new to this; I have spent the better part of 5 months trying to germinate orange and Costa Rica seeds. Almost 100 seeds later we have 1 plant to show for our efforts.
7 days ago I planted 20 seeds (10 orange and 10 Costa Rica) in 10 coir plugs placed in a Tupperware type container. Here's the results;

Coir-HabaneroSprouts.jpg


You might say I'm a fan of coir plugs.
 
I have the 72 cell Jiffy greenhouse set as well. Works great. A piece of advice though. When you plant them, moisten the Jiffy Mix before filling the tray. It is a PITA to wet after filling. Just put some in a bucket and slowly add water and work it in by hand until it is as moist as a wrung out sponge. Then put in the tray add seeds and wait.

Good luck!
jacob
 
Looking at your picture it looks loke most of your seedlings are coming up with the seed hat. You need to plant the seeds just a little deeper. That way the coir can strip it off as it rises.
 
I am doing a lil experiment with a few seeds in the coffee filter/baggie to see what happens.. I was planning on trying the 72 cell green house with heat mat but after the thermostat and heat mat for three trays it gets a lil pricey...
 
^ Hey, here in Thailand we all wear hats for protection from the sun. ;)

Thanks, I barely covered the seeds because of the horrendous time we've had getting anything to germinate. Now that I know it works I'll take your advice. Cheers.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top