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bspofford

sowing seeds

bspofford
15 years ago

I obtained some seeds at a club meeting last night, and we will use them for a club project.

I am curious about the sowing medium. For those of you that have sucessfully grown from seed, what did you use for medium?

Man, those are tiny little buggers.

Barbara

Comments (8)

  • robitaillenancy1
    15 years ago

    Barbara,

    Hybridizers I know say they use a shrunken peat pot, the discs you enlarge by soaking in water. When it has swollen with water, they break it apart and spread in a small pot.

    They spread a few of the seeds keeping most for a second and third application in case their technique fails. Do not cover with soil. Cover container with plastic until you see green appear.

    Violet seed can take from 7-40 days to germiniate. Keep moist but not wet. Bottom heat may help germination.

    Seed need light to germinate.

    Nancy

  • bspofford
    Original Author
    15 years ago

    Thanks, Nancy.

  • smed66
    15 years ago

    Hey, I have a pod I cross-pollinated my self. It was a very long project that has taken over nine months to complete. I used the 12 pellet greenhouse and placed it inside of an old fish tank with a grow light and timer. The timer is set for 12 hours on and 12 hours off. I am a beginner in cross- pollinating plants and this is my first experiment. This is the first time I have ever saw AV seeds, dust is a good way to describe them. I used my exacato blade to pick them up because the seeds were so small. I am still learning and having fun along the way and I hope this information helped you. Â Theresa

  • fred_hill
    15 years ago

    Hi Barbara,
    I only did it once with a pod I had from one cross. I dampened some seed starting mix and put it into a jar. I sprinkled the seeds on top and closed the container tightly. My mistake was spreading the entire seed pod in one jar. When the plants started to grow I had a tough time separating them even with a tweezer.
    Fred in NJ

  • bspofford
    Original Author
    15 years ago

    Thanks for the info Theresa. Fred, as small as the seeds are, you could have had 500+ seeds in that jar!

    I've been thinking, I have these beading tweezers with an extremely fine, sharp point. What if I used those and a magnifying glass to pick them up individually, so that 'thinning' is a little easier. Sprinkling from the folded paper seems a little random to me and could result in 'none here, ten there, 2 over there, etc'.

    Barbara

  • robitaillenancy1
    15 years ago

    "none here, ten, there, etc." is exactly what you want. Especially in strep seed. You pick out seedlings at 2 weeks, or so Dale Martens says.

    I pour a few seed onto a creased white paper and tap gently hoping seed are spread individually. If you start with only ten or so seed on the paper, they seem to drop off one by one to whereever you aim the creased paper.

    The reason the hybridizers use the dried disc for medium is that our soil less mixes have too much perlite and vermiculite in them and this makes holes where seed can get lost and never germinate.

    Nancy

  • lilypad22
    15 years ago

    Thanks for that information! Very helpful. I have some gessie seeds I put down in January. I had used my violet potting mix in individual plastic condiment cups..after sowing seeds, I put a light cover of vermiculite to keep them moist. Only some have come up, I guess I need to wait awhile for more of them. But it is a good point that they got lost in the "holes" of the potting mix and would be too deep to germinate especially after I added vermiculite to the top. The next seeds I sow I will Keep that in mind.. try another way, possibly the jiffy.

  • seamstress
    15 years ago

    I use straight vermiculite with a thin layer of milled sphagnum sprinkled over the top to help with damping-off.

    I set the pot in a dish of water until the surface is wet. If the milled moss resists getting wet, I'll spray it with a fine mist of water until it is thoroughly wet.

    Then put some of the seeds into a creased piece of paper and gently tap the seeds over the surface of the mix. Then the pot goes into a loose plastic bag in a spot with good light but no direct sun. Germination takes about 30 days. When seedlings have the first true leaves I start transplanting into regular potting mix, but keeping them covered for a bit longer until they are established.

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