Growing seedlings: warming seeds, soaking seeds, hardening seeds, how to distinguish good seeds? How to soak pepper seeds before planting? Soaking methods Is it necessary to soak pepper seeds before planting, and why they do it
"Finally! Otherwise we thought that we would be so lost with these preparations for the whole month! ”- everyone wants to see the first result as soon as possible: the sprouts. We'll see them soon. It is understood that we have finally waited ahead of the sun's clearance and it's time to start.
What is seed soaking for? In nature, seeds are dormant for a long time under the influence of drought or cold, as well as under the influence of special inhibitory substances (inhibitors) in the seed coat. Consequently, warm water will wash out inhibitory substances from their shells and make them hatch. "Wouldn't the same thing happen, we just sow seeds in the wet ground?" The thing is that the seeds can wake up quickly and amicably, or for a long time, one at a time, within a month. There is a difference, and it depends on the volume of water. The seeds somehow know how to distinguish a small amount of water from a large one. If they feel that a lot of water has “leaked”, then this already reminds their relatives of 40-70 cm of water column of annual precipitation - such soil moisture can not only be trusted, but necessary: \u200b\u200bthe seeds give themselves the command to germinate immediately! And if it's just wet land - who knows, maybe an occasional rain, after which drought will come again ...
So, seed soaking is not just a ritual; it speeds up germination. Although the seeds of many crops germinate easily without soaking.
The soaking technique also has its own secrets. Spring melt, or draft, or rain water - "flowing", that is, saturated with oxygen. It is this kind of water that awakens the seeds. Therefore, there is a noticeable difference whether you soak the seeds under a thick layer of water in a jar or saucepan, or in a plate with a layer of water no more than 3-5 mm (I pour the layer even thinner so that the seeds lying on the bottom even protrude a little out of the way]. In the second case, a thin layer of water breathes perfectly and is all saturated with a high percentage of oxygen, here the seeds will germinate much faster, sometimes even with evening soaking, if the room is warm, the next morning some of the seeds have already hatched.
For soaking, we use snow water or settled tap water. If there are a lot of seeds, a flat container is desirable, like a tray or pot holder for indoor flowers. The seeds can be completely submerged, or you can simply let them float on the surface (I experimented what would happen if the seeds are soaked floating on the surface, will they swell if they touch water only with one side - yes, they are soaked and then germinate perfectly, probably because guaranteed to breathe while soaking in a warm place).
So that the water does not inadvertently evaporate during daily soaking (say, near a battery), cover the container with glass on top or place it in a bag.
It is customary to soak seeds of different crops at different times depending on the "hardness" of germination, some 12 hours, some 24 hours. However, for our convenience, so as not to break the process and deal with all crops at the same time, it is more convenient to soak everything together. from evening to evening ", ie for 24 hours (It is unlikely that everyone will be pleased to warm up the seeds or sow in the morning before work!) With a layer of water, no kind of crops can be harmed.
I propose to carry out such an experiment during the spring on some insignificant seeds: place them on soaking in a tray, which stands slightly obliquely (a book is placed on one edge), pour in enough water so that in the raised part it forms "shallow water" of 1-2mm ; now distribute the seeds evenly at the bottom throughout the tray - and then let them lie for 1-2 days: you will make sure that during this time the seeds have sprouted in shallow water, and the seeds at the depth will not germinate until they rot. This experience clearly shows how much more vitality water, strongly saturated with oxygen, has. Only a few centimeters of depth - there is still oxygen there - but it’s not that, it’s not enough for the life of the seeds. And then what will happen to the seeds when they are soaked in a deep jar, and even if the water goes bad in the heat ?!
The yield of pepper depends on several factors: the quality and biological capabilities of the variety, the correct preparation of seeds for germination and compliance with agricultural technology for growing crops. In this article, we will consider only one aspect - the effect on germination and yield of soaking.
Do I need soaking
Opinions differ among vegetable growers. Some say that you can safely do without soaking, while others insist on carrying out this preparatory operation. Which one is right? Oddly enough, both sides are right, but only if certain conditions are met.
If you live in warm regions of our country, then the date of planting pepper in open ground is not critical, there is enough time for fruit ripening. Soaking the seeds speeds up the emergence of seedlings; this is important only for regions with cold climates.
Experienced summer residents advise not to be lazy and soak the seeds in all cases. It takes a little time, and the effect is very positive. It is recommended to soak the seeds of both sweet and hot peppers.
When and why to soak seeds
The process can be done without preparation, but in this case the effect of such actions is significantly reduced. The quantitative and qualitative indicator of the pepper harvest depends on the thoroughness of adherence to the recommended technology. Despite the fact that the process consists of several operations, the preparation cannot be called troublesome.
Practical advice. Seeds of hot and sweet peppers quickly reduce germination; after a year, this figure can be reduced by about half. Conclusion - never take them "in reserve" and use the services of only trusted stores.
Responsible distributors carry out pre-sale preparation, treat seeds with antifungal drugs, provide microelements, growth stimulants, etc. This information should be on the packaging, such seeds do not require additional preparation before soaking. But this does not apply to seeds collected independently from ripe fruits. Such material can be contaminated with spores of pathogenic fungi and various bacteria, they do not understand the germination rates. As a result, the pepper harvest at the end of the season will bring disappointment instead of joy.
This question is of interest to many vegetable growers. It seems that even so it will be seen which seeds have sprouted and which have not. But not everything is so simple, with the help of soaking there is an opportunity:
In addition, soaking for seeds creates the most favorable conditions for germination - the process of growing seedlings is accelerated.
Checking seed germination before soaking
First, you should check the germination of seeds, this is done in an old proven way. Dissolve 30-40 grams in a liter of water. salt. Throw all the pepper seeds into this solution and wait about 5-7 minutes. Those seeds that have sunk to the bottom of the container have a normal embryo and can be used for further sowing. Everything that floats on the surface should be thrown away without regret. Quality seeds should be washed in warm running water. This method does not test imported seeds and hybrid varieties.
Simultaneously with the germination test, the seeds must be calibrated. The smallest and largest need to be removed, medium-sized seeds are left for sowing. It does not hurt to pay attention to their fullness during calibration, hollow bodies are unsuitable for sowing.
Preparing seeds for soaking
During preparation, you need to perform several operations.
Etching
Seeds should be treated with any disinfectant solution. It is best to use a 1% solution of potassium permanganate, but at present it is rather problematic to find this drug.
- First, it is only sold by prescription.
- Secondly, not all pharmacies have it in implementation.
No potassium permanganate - not a problem, you can use hydrogen peroxide or boric acid... In a 2–3% solution of hydrogen peroxide, the seeds are kept for no more than seven minutes, removed and washed. The boric acid solution should have a teaspoon of concentrate per 200 ml of water, the duration of the etching should be no more than three hours.
Another way is to dress the seeds with phytosporin. It is sold in specialized stores without restrictions; you need to prepare a solution at the rate of four drops per 200 ml of water. Fitosporin - effective drug from natural bacteria Bacillus subtilis, destroys pathogenic fungi and pathogens. It is completely harmless to people. Pepper seeds with such preparation give healthy shoots before soaking, and large yields are harvested from them. It should be borne in mind that after disinfection, the seeds should be soaked no later than a day later.
Processing with trace elements
Due to this, the germination of seeds increases, the shoots have important elements for development, which allows them to grow in favorable conditions. It is best to sprinkle the pepper with ordinary wood ash, it contains more than 30 essential trace elements.
Treatment with growth stimulants
It is advisable to treat the seeds with growth stimulants. There is a sufficient selection of them in stores, you can buy any of them, they all do an excellent job with their tasks. Seed treatment should be done according to the instructions recommended by the manufacturer.
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Biological product "Fitospectrum" 
Practical advice. Most preparations for disinfection or growth stimulation must be diluted in water to achieve the required concentration. As a rule, the number of drops per 100 ml of water is indicated. Better to measure with a pipette. If not, then you can use a syringe without a needle.
After the seeds are fully prepared, you can start soaking them.
Seed soaking
For soaking, you need to prepare water. The city water supply should be defended for at least a day, during which time chlorine will be removed from it. But to increase the effect of soaking the seeds, it is better to use melt water. There are two ways to prepare it.
This water is believed to have a beneficial effect on the seeds. It is from melt water that they begin to awaken in nature.
Step 1. Pour water into a shallow dish or container. The size of the plate should correspond to the number of seeds. If you have several varieties of pepper, you will have to prepare a separate plate for each.
Step 2. Soak a small piece of cloth in water, preferably natural material. If the cloth could not absorb all the water, then the excess should be drained. The plate must be empty.
Step 3. Put the pepper seeds on a damp cloth, correct their position with a match or toothpick. The seeds should only be laid separately, not in "two floors". If you have several varieties of pepper, then for each you need to prepare a separate soaking place. You should not place different varieties on the same plate, your marks may get lost over time and it will become impossible to understand where which variety is.
Step 4. Cover the seeds with the edges of a cloth, put it in a plate and stretch the film. If there is no film, then the plate can be put in a plastic bag of a suitable size.
The container with seeds is covered with foil
Step 5. Remove the plate of seeds to a warm place.
Important. To accelerate germination, the temperature should not be lower than + 25 ° C. Maximum + 30 ° C. At low temperatures, the germination time increases significantly, and if the temperature is below + 18 ° C, then the seeds may rot and not germinate at all.
Practical advice. Plastic cups can be used instead of plates. Glue paper construction tape to them, it is easy to write the name of the pepper varieties on it.
Seeds should be checked every other day. As soon as sprouts appear, the peppers are transplanted into the soil for growing seedlings or immediately transferred to the garden bed.
Before being transferred to the garden, the seedlings must be hardened. To do this, place them in the refrigerator; the temperature in the chamber should be within + 5 ° C.
Transplant the sprouts into a nutrient mixture, do not forget to feed once a week. It is better to use sapropel, biohumus and other natural nutrients for this purpose.
Very important. The first shoots do not like drafts very much. You need to control the soaking process indoors with closed windows, exclude the possibility of drafts.
Experienced growers advise using one of the following soaking schemes.
The soaking process takes quite a long time, depending on the varieties of germination, you will have to wait up to 25 days. Much depends on soaking, but not everything. What should you do next to make you happy with the next harvest?
Seed transplantation is carried out as soon as sprouts appear, it is better to use peat tablets, if they are not there, then use ready-made soil mixtures.
Crops should be placed where there is enough light, preference is given to diffused. To achieve this effect, you can install aluminum foil and use additional artificial lighting. Pepper does not tolerate a pick; it must be immediately planted in separate containers. After a pick, development may slow down by two to three weeks.
Experienced gardeners claim that peppers grown from soaked seeds are less likely to get sick, are more resistant to weather fluctuations and give maximum yields. For each bush of seedlings, it is necessary to prepare a pot with a volume of at least one liter. It is not true that good seedlings can be obtained in small plastic cups, in such conditions the root system will be underdeveloped. And this will definitely negatively affect adult plants.
And the last thing. Soaking times are selected individually. The main thing is that the seedlings are planted in open ground in a timely manner. Planting too early, as well as too late, is not good for the pepper.
Video - Soaking pepper seeds before sowing
More than half of the seeds sold are of poor quality. Neither beautiful packaging nor the availability of quality certificates serve as a guarantee. There are even bags that are filled with dust instead of seeds. And if everything is clear with them when opening the package, then it is more difficult to distinguish low-quality seeds.
Salt test
Large seeds such as cucumbers, zucchini, beets and pumpkins are easy to sort with a 5% salt solution (50 g per 1 liter of water): the seeds are poured into the solution, mixed and left alone for 5 minutes. Then the "waterfowl" seeds are thrown away. "Drowned" can be considered qualitative. They must be rinsed in clean water and dried by sprinkling them in a thin layer.
However, this procedure does not guarantee that the seeds germinate well. It must be checked separately, taking a little for germination. For this purpose, frail, floating seeds will also fit ...
It is undesirable to carry out a salt test on seeds coated with a protective coating of fungicides. They can be distinguished by their red or green color. Dyes are specially added so that the seeds are not accidentally used for other purposes. Unfortunately, seeds and counterfeiters began to dye. It is not always possible to calculate them visually. The presence of shriveled seeds or uneven coloration should raise suspicion.
Checking with a comb
You can also relieve your soul when buying small-seeded crops. All you need to check is a plastic comb and the seeds themselves. Sprinkle the seeds on paper in a thin layer and brush over them with an electrified comb. The puny ones will stick to it, and the rest can be safely used for sowing. They will provide a crop - if, of course, they have not been stored for 20 years in a store. Germination can also be checked using discarded seeds. Slender - do not sprout so amicably and give a lower percentage. But if at least some of the seeds have sprouted, then you can sleep peacefully ... Or rather, calmly wait for the sowing season, the rest will sprout even better.
Only when checking it is necessary to maintain the height: carry the comb no closer than 1 - 2 cm above the surface of the seeds. Otherwise, the entire "strategic stock" will stick to it. If the height is correct, some seeds will stick. But to guarantee the operation, repeat the operation several times, electrifying the comb more and more against the hair. 20-30% will be rejected - not scary, the strongest and most productive will remain.
Living seeds
Harder with medium sized seeds. They are like tin soldiers - they don’t drown in water and don’t stick to a comb. However, there is no need to sort here. If you notice signs of poor quality - take a receipt, seeds and demand replacement, or better - a refund.
Tomatoes are harder to figure out. Sometimes they are polished, inlaid - what is not done with them. Here you can get into a mess - demanding the replacement of elite seeds that have undergone a full cycle of refinement to condition. But there are patterns. The main thing is to know the selected variety well. So, usually large-fruited tomatoes have an average seed size, hybrids are small, and gray seeds are either low-quality or polished.
It's even harder to guess with eggplant. Here it remains to trust the conscience of the manufacturer. Although experienced gardeners even here by eye immediately identify a low-quality seed, noticing a suspicious shade.
But with pepper everything is simple - straw-yellow seeds are alive and healthy. Grays and other colors of the rainbow - unusable or etched (red and yellow). If desired, they can be tested with water. Unlike large-seeded crops, you don't need to add salt, otherwise potential "divers" will emerge.
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- one of the first vegetable crops, which gardeners are planted to obtain seedlings. This is due to the long vegetative period and the ripening period of the fruits of this southern plant.
One of the constant questions that worry summer residents is whether to soak pepper seeds before planting or sow them directly into the ground? The final result - yield depends on proper preparation before germination.
Do I need to soak pepper seeds before planting, and why do they do it
Soak - the process itself is optional, the seed will germinate without it, and may even give an excellent harvest. This allows sowing advocates to argue without preparation that soaking is a hassle.
Accommodation in warm climatic conditions makes it possible to sow pepper even immediately into the open ground, it will still have enough time to ripen. Residents of the temperate zones value every day, and if there is an opportunity to speed up the process and gain time before the finish, they readily use it, because the pepper ripened on the bush is much healthier and tastier than the one that came later. In moderate conditions, pepper seeds must be soaked; without this procedure, the fruits will not have time to ripen before the onset of frost.
However, summer residents - residents of warm regions will also benefit from such a handicap: firstly, the harvest is more abundant, and secondly, it is pleasant when the pepper ripens earlier than expected. This also applies to spicy varieties.
Benefits of soaking seed before planting:
- allows you to win 7-10 days, since seedlings from treated specimens appear on the 5-7th day, while those sown "dry" emerge up to 2 weeks;
- makes it possible to select the strongest plants, providing them with immunity, high resistance to and m and giving better conditions already at the start.
Important! Be sure to soak the pepper seeds before planting when there is no certainty about the quality of the seed. This will help you to immediately see what you are dealing with, and not to harbor illusions.
The main stages of preparing pepper seeds
Seed preparation begins with the acquisition stage. You need to carefully consider the manufacturer and carefully study the information indicated on the packaging, choosing the characteristics of the variety you need. A self-respecting manufacturer indicates what treatments his product has undergone. The seeds treated by the producer and pelleted should not be exposed to any additional impact, they only need to be sown into the ground. It should be noted that, although they will rise a couple of weeks later, they will subsequently catch up with their "relatives", and then overtake them, while they will suffer less from pests and diseases.
Did you know? At the end of the 16th century, pepper came to Russia, or rather- to the territory of the modern Astrakhan region. According to various sources, Turkey and Iran are considered the source of penetration.
It is better to prefer the material of those manufacturers whose packaging indicates compliance with GOST - it is more reliable.
The packaging must not have any mechanical damage. It is imperative to pay attention to the year of collection of raw materials and the deadline for sowing - this information must be present without fail.
Pepper seeds planted in the second year after harvesting lose their germination and yield by half. 
Calibration
Calibration is the germination test of the seed. When soaked in a saline solution, hollow specimens float, and those capable of germination sink to the bottom.
Did you know? There is one caveat: material from large manufacturers is almost always dried, so immersion in a saline solution of such seeds will show that they are all unusable, but this is not true.
Before immersion in the solution, you should visually evaluate the material laid out on paper, and immediately discard specimens that seem unusable, as well as too small or too large. After that, in a glass of water, you need to dilute a teaspoon of salt (or in a liter of water - 40 g of salt) and lower the seeds there for 3-4 hours. Some gardeners limit themselves to a few minutes. Floating seeds should be thrown away, and drowned seeds should be dried to further use or sow immediately.
If you bought a bag with ten seeds of a rare variety of pepper, perhaps you should not calibrate them - germination will show everything clearly. But your own collected seed, which you have in a decent amount, should be checked in a similar way in order to immediately get rid of the unusable ballast. 
Etching
Etching, or disinfection, is carried out in order to rid the prepared raw materials from possible contamination with pathogens that can harm the future. In essence, this is disinfection.
Important! The pickling method is one of the main ones in preparation for sowing, all other manipulations are carried out after it.
Such processing is all the more relevant, the less reliable the source of raw materials. The material of a large company with a reputation may not be etched, especially if the package contains information that it has already been etched. But the seeds collected personally, received from friends in exchange, and even more so seeds bought on the market, should certainly be pickled.
For this, different drugs are used: potassium permanganate (potassium permanganate), hydrogen peroxide, vinegar, boric acid and even formalin; there are also specials that can be bought at the store. Each of these methods has both advantages and disadvantages, and the gardener himself chooses which one to give preference to. 
Despite the fact that potassium permanganate is not so easy to find on sale, this technique remains the most popular: it has an unlimited shelf life, and one bought many years ago or on the occasion of a bubble is enough for a very long period.
Some seed dressing techniques:
- In a dark pink 1% solution, seeds are placed previously soaked in warm water for 2-4 hours, which can be placed in a gauze bag for convenience, and left for 15 minutes, after which they are immediately thoroughly washed under running water and immediately sown or laid out on paper to dry.
Important! Seeds can be chemically burned if not soaked before the procedure and not rinsed afterwards.
- A solution for disinfection requires 2-3%, and it must be warmed up to 38-40 ° C without fail. Soak the seeds for no more than 7 minutes, rinse thoroughly.
- The drug is diluted at the rate of half a teaspoon of acid per glass of water. Solution temperature 25-30 ° C, processing time 2-3 hours.
Important! When treating the seed with any acid, keep in mind that if the seed has the slightest crack, the acid will causehim harm.
- It is a commercially available formulation that contains natural bacteria and fights pathogens. It is diluted at the rate of 4 drops from an eye dropper to a glass of water.
Disinfected raw materials cannot be stored for longer than a day, it is advisable to plant it immediately or begin to germinate.
Treatment with microelements and growth stimulants
Treatment with microelements and growth regulators is needed in order to have a positive effect on the quality of seedlings and germination, to increase resistance to negative effects and resistance to sudden changes in temperature, as well as to increase yields.
For the enrichment of the seed, an infusion of ash, juice, as well as purchased preparations "Ivin" and others are used. 
- This technique is used only after disinfection, but in no case before it.
- Dissolve trace elements in hot water 40–45 ° C, and place the inoculum in a solution cooled to a warm state.
- It is possible to subject raw materials to processing with growth stimulants only once and only with some one preparation.
- The rules for the preparation of the solution and the holding time in it should be strictly observed, so as not to cause harm.
Several options for solutions for enriching seeds with microelements:
Important! Be careful: aloe juice is very bitter, moreover, it leaves stains, so it is advisable to cover it when handling it. workplace cellophane.
Soak
How to soak pepper seeds to give the embryos the best at the start for future lush growth and active fruiting? To increase the likelihood of germination, they should swell after being saturated with moisture.
The pre-treated seeds are placed on a substrate and covered with water so that it barely covers them. The raw material of the pepper should be kept in a warm place for two days, during which time the water should be changed 2-3 times. After swelling, germinate or sow. 
Important! In the warmth, a thin layer of water evaporates quickly, so you need to carefully monitor so that its level does not drop, but you cannot pour more water so that the seeds do not suffocate. You can cover the container with the material with foil to prevent evaporation.
Many gardeners know a way to soak pepper seeds and germinate them at the same time before planting. For this, the seeds are placed in an envelope made from a square of shabby natural fabric, moistened with water and placed in some kind of container. Excess water from the container is drained or soaked and, covered with a film, is placed in a warm place.
For this purpose, it is better to use thawed or spring water.If there is no access to the spring, the snow has not fallen, and all you have is tap water, you will have to turn it into melt water. To do this, the settled water is placed in the freezer for a couple of hours, the middle, which is not frozen, is poured out, and the ice formed on the walls is allowed to melt. After that, the water is carefully drained, leaving a sediment in the container. The drained melted water is used for germination.
There should not be excess water in the container where the moistened cloth envelopes with seeds are located, but if the container is large, you can put a "reservoir" there in the form of a moistened piece of foam rubber or several cotton pads. 
There is no definite answer as to how long it takes to soak pepper seeds before planting. Every day you need to look under the film, sprinkle the envelopes with melt water and check if they have begun to hatch.
Important! For the germination process, you should carefully monitor the temperature, it should be around 25–30 ° C. If it is lower, germination will be delayed, and at temperatures below 18 ° C the seeds will completely rot.
After waiting for pecking, each living seed is placed in a seedling box with tweezers. A day later, another revision is carried out, the revived are selected and landed. Seeds that have not sprouted are not used - they will be a little confusing.
Nature is designed so that the seed is not exposed to external influences and does not deteriorate for a long time. This is due to the protective layer located on their surface. But the same layer interferes with rapid germination. 
One of the technologies that reduce the germination time is bubbling. This is the effect of oxygen for a specific time on seeds of a certain type. Using this method allows you to get seedlings a week earlier.
To carry out the bubbling procedure at home, you need to have a container with a volume of about a liter and an aquarium compressor.
The jar is filled with water at a temperature of 20 ° C a little more than half, a compressor and seeds are placed there, no more than ¼ of the volume of water.
The compressor turns on, the material is processed. Pepper seeds will take a day for this.
After the procedure, the seeds are dried to a free-flowing state and, if it is not possible to plant them immediately, they are finally dried, spread out in one layer on paper in a ventilated room away from sunlight. 
Hardening of the planting material
It makes sense to harden the seeds if there is an intention to sow them under the film a week ahead of schedule. If hardening is used for seeds for seedlings, then subsequently the seedlings themselves will need to be hardened for a fairly long time.
Did you know? There is a method of hardening, in which the seeds, wrapped in a bag, are placed in a snowdrift for three days, but this is possible only if the air temperature outside is kept around zero degrees.
The heated and treated seeds are hardened. They are soaked in warm water until they swell, mixed with sand or wet sawdust
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Seed treatment before planting is the key to healthy and strong plants. Most diseases are transmitted with seed, so it is necessary to properly prepare the seeds for sowing.
Let's take a closer look at how to prepare seeds before sowing.
Before sowing, the seeds must be disinfected, except for encrusted and coated seeds.
F1 Hybrid Seeds - are processed before entering the store counter. The treatment is carried out against pests and diseases. Hybrid seeds are completely ready for sowing. They are sown dry directly into the ground or, if desired, are treated with growth stimulants.
Sorting seeds before sowing
The collected seeds in your garden before sowing must be sorted out, leaving large and healthy ones. To select empty seeds, we need a solution of sodium chloride (dissolve 2 grams in 100 ml of water).
Dip the seeds into the solution, stir and after 10 minutes the empty seeds will float to the surface, discard them, they are not suitable. Rinse the remaining seeds in running water and dry.
How to process seeds?
Varietal seeds, purchased and harvested in the garden - must be treated against diseases and pests. Flower seeds are also processed before sowing.
Video - We process seeds before sowing
The seeds are placed in a bag and dipped in a thermos with hot water for 20-30 minutes. After that, immediately washed cold water within 1 minute. Observe the heat treatment regime, otherwise most seeds will become unusable.
Temperature and processing time are shown in the table.
Attention: during heat treatment of seeds, about 30% may lose germination. Everything is in order, non-viable seeds die.
To combat viral diseases, soak the seeds in a weak solution of Imunocytofit (1 tablet per 100 ml of water) for 3 to 12 hours. You can also hold Fitosporin in solution according to the instructions.
A solution of potassium permanganate (potassium permanganate) works well. For this, the seeds are preheated in hot water (45-50 degrees) for 2 hours. Better to use a thermos for this procedure. After warming up, place the seeds for 30 minutes in a weak solution of potassium permanganate (1-2% solution).
For processing crops such as onion, radish, tomato, physalis, lettuce, legumes, corn - Etch in a 1% solution of potassium permanganate for 45 minutes.
Carrots, eggplant, peppers, dill, cabbage and pumpkin seeds - use a 2% solution of potassium permanganate for 20 minutes.
Also use special preparations for seed dressing - Bunker, Commander, Winner, Baytan, Fundazol and others.
Attention - after processing chemical preparations be sure to rinse the seeds with room temperature water.
Seed treatment with hydrogen peroxide
An effective way of treating seeds before sowing, disinfecting and preparing seeds. You will need 10% hydrogen peroxide. Seeds spread on gauze are soaked in a bowl, or you can put the seeds in a bag and dipped in peroxide. Soak for 12 hours, no more.
For the rapid growth of seeds, they are soaked in any growth stimulant or warm water (it is better to soak in melt or rain water).
Pre-freeze the water, then place the ice in a bowl and let it melt completely, then lower the seeds, they should be completely in the water. Cucumbers and tomatoes are soaked for 19 hours, legumes for 7 hours, celery and onions for 35 hours.
Biological products stimulate seed germination more strongly.
At home, you can prepare growth stimulants as follows:
Dilute 1 spoon of wood ash in 100 ml of water, leave for a day (solution temperature 17-20 degrees), in this way the seeds are enriched with microelements;
- Dilute 20-25 drops of liquid peat potassium Humate in 100 ml of water, soak for 12 hours;
- With Epin (2 drops per 100 ml of water), soak for 18 hours;
- Fertilizer New Ideal or Signor Tomato (20 grams per 1 liter of water), soak for 30 minutes.
There is also a proven old way: soak the seeds in Aloe juice for a day. Then dry the seeds on paper.
Attention: when soaking seeds for more than 10 hours, change the water every 3-4 hours to enrich it with oxygen and so that the water does not deteriorate.
After the soaking procedure, dry the seeds a little and immediately sow into the ground.
Video - Super way to soak seeds
To increase the cold resistance of crops, it is necessary to pre-harden them. Place the seeds in bags and soak in water for 12 hours. After soaking, keep at a temperature of 15-20 degrees for 12 hours, then place in a refrigerator with a temperature of 3 degrees for 12 hours.
Vernalization of seeds
Cooling down or vernalization of seeds accelerates the germination of cold-resistant crops. This method is used for parsley, carrots, parsnips. Pre-soak the seeds at room temperature until they swell, germinate in wet gauze until 10-15% of the seeds hatch. Then place the seeds for two weeks in a room with a temperature of 0 to 1 degrees.
Attention: seeds of beets, spinach, lettuce are not recommended to be prepared in this way.
Video - Super agent for soaking and germinating seeds
For rapid germination of seeds, they are saturated with oxygen. You will need a conventional aquarium compressor or a dedicated bubbler.
Seeds of perennial crops with a pronounced dormant period need stratification. Such seeds need cold to germinate. The container is filled with sand and the seeds are placed in it.
A container with seeds is placed in a refrigerator, you can bury it in the snow for a period of 2 weeks to six months, it all depends on the type of crops.
Seed scarification
Seeds of perennials with a dense shell are scarified. The dense shell prevents the appearance of sprouts, so the seeds are rubbed with sand or between sheets of sandpaper.
Stratification and scarification not for all crops, so it is not necessary to process all seeds in this way.
The appearance of red, yellow and of blue color... Such seeds are processed with polymers, which ensures germination to the seeds and reliable protection from pests.
There is no need to additionally process these seeds. They are sown dry into moist, prepared soil.
The seeds are covered with a peat-mineral mixture. The mixture creates a nutritious and protective shell, the treated seeds are larger and round in shape.
Sowing pelleted seeds is economically profitable, the consumption of seeds during sowing is small, thinning is not necessary.
Seeds are sown dry and laid out in prepared holes or furrows. Water the soil well before sowing.
Video - Three ways to soak seeds
You have learned all the ways to prepare seeds before sowing in the ground. The main types of processing are sorting, dressing and soaking, without which you cannot get healthy and strong plants and, accordingly, a good harvest.
