seeds Slow germination causes?

I

infiniti23

Hey guys and gals. I am second year grower. I had great success using Jiffy peat pots last year but this year, it's been a struggle.

The other difference this year versus last is I am now using a Hydrofarm heating mat instead of a typical household heating mat.

Before I set my peppers, I had germination two full sets of spinach, a set of lettuce and swiss chard, some perennial plants for outside, and tomatoes. All of these were met with great success. I had tomatoes sprouting in 3 days on that mat.

Now, onto the peppers. I have 38 peat pots. I am at day 9, with only 7 of 38 peat pots sprouted. The biggest oddity seems to be that some sprouted within 5 or 6 days, but their companions have yet to sprout.

I should have kept a log last year, because i don't remember how long they took to sprout. I don't remember it being quite this long, but maybe I am just getting a little paranoid.

Temperature is running from 80-88 F depending on what it is like outside.

Just needing a confidence boost I think. Any comments?
 
I think it depends on the kinds of pepper seeds you are germinating.
My seeds sprouted anywhere from 6 days to 28 days, with most being
in the 6-14 day range (ball park memory) . If your system is working for
other seeds, it should work for the peppers, as well, I would think.
Maybe just need a little patience : ) Good luck, I hope they pop all
over the place for ya!
 
yeah 9 days isn't long at all.. another week and you should see another set pop up.. as PaulG said, it depends on the type of peppers, and who they are from.. wait a full month before you start getting impatient lol, then you can wonder why the heck the seeds haven't come up.. and even then there are some that are likely to come up sometime in the next month, but I generally keep the seed tray until I have to move the older plants out of the cells.. then anything that hasn't sprouted yet... tough sh!t lol. I had most of mine finally come up about 3 weeks after I plant.. about 1 small group each week
 
Same thing here. I planted 7 varieties in jiffy pellets all at the same time, and among them only 2 varieties have popped up so far. I have one jalapeño plant that popped up right away and is a good size already, while other jalapeños are still waiting to pop up. My Reb Habaneros have come up, but they are slow going. I guess even among the the same variety, seeds take different amounts of time to germinate.
 
Mine are popping very sporadically which is apparently normal. No ryhm or rhythm to any of them even the same type seeds etc. hurry up and wait....
 
PaulG said:
I think it depends on the kinds of pepper seeds you are germinating.
My seeds sprouted anywhere from 6 days to 28 days, with most being
in the 6-14 day range (ball park memory) . If your system is working for
other seeds, it should work for the peppers, as well, I would think.
Maybe just need a little patience : ) Good luck, I hope they pop all
over the place for ya!
Click to expand...

+1

It varies from specie types and seed viability. The easy one ones germinate in about a 10 day span and like you I am working on the harder seeds now. I might not be able to germinate all the new types that I wanted, so I might have to improvise. I still have a lot of nasties from last season to employ if need be.
 
If the germinating medium, heat and moisture are all consistent then you have to look at the only real variable - the seed itelf.
 
Peppers are a lot slower to germinate and slower growing than tomatoes. 9 days isn't very long. 7/38 is almost 20%, if 1/5 of your seeds sprouted at 9 days then you're doing pretty well. They're on their own schedule aren't going to pop in unison. Even if you take a bunch of seeds all of the same variety and from a single pod, then dry them and store them exactly the same way they're still not going to germinate at the same time.
 
I bought $$$ seeds this year and they are showing (so far) much poorer results than my own collection of sorted seeds that have been in my spare bedroom for 3 years.
Keep hearing viable ?
 
Maybe the seeds you bought were refrigerated? I think seeds stored at room temperature usually sprout quicker. Where did you buy them from and what varieties?
 
Alright guys.  Here's what I know at this point and should  help answer some of the questions.  Maybe we can get to the bottom of this.

I have 37 total pods of peppers.  I am in a big crop rotation this year in my garden, so I have a limited selection of peppers.  I am growing duplicates of 18 varieties, and a singlet of one pepper.

The peppers came from three sources:

4 of the pods house peppers from Tomatogrowers
4 of the pods house peppers from Peppergal
29 of the pods house peppers from Tradewindsfruit

Success rates after 11 days:

1 of 4 pods from Tomatogrowers has sprouted (25%)
1 of 4 pods from Peppergal has sprouted (25%)
7 of 29 pods from Tradewinds has spouted (24%)

Hence, I do not think it is the seeds, since germination rate is constant across the suppliers.  I can further this theory with a couple of examples.  I had two pods of Super Heavyweight Hybrids.  Each pod had 3 seeds.  All three seeds sprouted in one pod in 7 days.  No seeds have sprouted in the other.  Same thing with my Cowhorn and Peter Peppers.  Seems odd to get 100% germination in one pot, and 0% in the next, right?

Temperature is constant in the 80's as required.  I had great success last year using all seeds from Tradeswinds.  All seeds are new this year.

Could it be a bad batch of Jiffy peat pellets?  Maybe the pH is off?
 
if it's only been 11 days, but you have 9 seedlings up.. I'd say your still doing good, the plants take a while to come up.. wait till it's the end of 3 weeks.. at the end of 3 weeks you should have somewhere around 70% or higher germination if you are doing everything right.. which seems that you are

with Jiffy pellets I seem to notice that it is better to soak them and let them dry up.. but not completely dry out because then they get really "crusty" and some clumps harden in the middle and bottom and don't really loosen up sometimes when you soak them again.. but I have noticed it is better to be a little wet, so that it is damp all the time (at least until seedlings come up, then you can let it dry out a little more, but not much) but before they pop up, just keep them damp, other seed soils I have noticed stay wet a lot longer and get really soaked, but the Jiffy pellets dry out really fast, which also means that they don't hold as much water (they do hold a lot but I just mean they don't get sopping wet as easily, and they dry out fast anyways so you don't have to worry about it for the most part like you might with other soils)

oh and btw, the last set of seeds I put out.. or rather the 2nd to last, I just put out another try, but anyways, I had only a couple come up at like 4 days, but most of them didn't even pop up till 9 days.. and even then.. it took a full 2 weeks before I had double digits for seedlings.. or close to it.. and that was in a tray of 36 seedlings.. so really it's just patience..
 
not sure what you mean, so you have seeds still in the pods and are trying to germinate them or something? because if they are just fresh pods with radicles from the seeds coming out, then either the pod isn't fresh or something, or the seeds should be dried out or your just seeing the placenta still attached to the pod.. or something like that I don't really know, I haven't had experience with that happening if that is what you are describing.

but I noticed that when I had my seeds in a plastic container with the lid closed and wet paper towels in there, and after the little start of the root (radicle) came out of the seed, case, then I put them in the soil, and it took about a week or maybe a little longer for them to pop up through the soil.. like I said, depending on how deep they are planted in there,

I'm sure pics would always help
 
Maxsack331 said:
not sure what you mean, so you have seeds still in the pods and are trying to germinate them or something? because if they are just fresh pods with radicles from the seeds coming out, then either the pod isn't fresh or something, or the seeds should be dried out or your just seeing the placenta still attached to the pod.. or something like that I don't really know, I haven't had experience with that happening if that is what you are describing.

but I noticed that when I had my seeds in a plastic container with the lid closed and wet paper towels in there, and idafter the little start of the root (radicle) came out of the seed, case, then I put them in the soil, and it took about a week or maybe a little longer for them to pop up through the soil.. like I said, depending on how deep they are planted in there,

I'm sure pics would always help
Click to expand...

I did not describe well. I was pulling a little peat back on the peat pellets and I could see seeds in there with the white radicle sticking out.
 
oh, so yeah, a few days to a week.. but now that you know they are coming up.. make sure you don't touch them again, might damage them
 
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