Presowing Seed Treatment. Part 3

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

The seeds will delight you with friendly shoots and will grow much better if you organize appropriate pre-sowing treatment for them. In addition, such a procedure will help rid the valuable seed of numerous pathogens of various diseases. In short, pre-sowing preparation is a very important stage in preparation for sowing seeds of various crops

Germinating seeds

Seeds are most often germinated in plates, after placing filter paper or a small cloth on their bottoms, on which the prepared seed is laid out. Seeds placed on a kind of "bedding", covered with water a little, are taken out to a semi-dark and rather warm place before the start of pecking of small white sprouts about 1 - 2 cm long.

When germinating, the seeds should be periodically turned over for better air access. It is equally important to ensure that they do not dry out. Sprouted seeds should only be sown in damp ground.

Seeds of radish, turnip and radish can sprout well without prior germination. But if you wish, you can still germinate them slightly throughout the day.

There is another interesting and in its own way original way of germination - non-acidic and slightly moistened peat is thoroughly mixed with seeds and sent to a warm place for a week. Care must be taken to ensure that the mixture receives good oxygen supply and is always moist. A peat mixture with seeds is planted on the beds in the same way as ordinary seeds.

Enrichment with biologically active substances and nutrients

This technique is used to stimulate the metabolism of young seedlings, improve their nutrition and increase the germination energy. Enrichment is carried out by immersing the seeds in a special solution after the stages of their dressing and warming up. Enrichment is especially important and necessary for small seeds (carrots, onions, tomatoes, cabbage, etc.), because the supply of various nutrients in them is relatively small.

Such processing should be carried out several days before sowing. For its implementation, fertilizers containing macro- or microelements (cobalt, nickel, molybdenum, boron, copper, chromium, manganese, zinc, magnesium) should be diluted in water, the temperature of which is about 40 - 45 degrees. Then they put seeds in a warm solution (and they need to be immersed completely) and keep them in it for 24 hours (twelve hours are enough for pumpkin seeds). The extracted seeds are dried until they become free-flowing, and only then are they sown.

Keeping the seed in solution can be replaced by spraying with solutions of microelements (0, 1 - 0, 3%) or by treating the salt containing microelements with powder.

Copper fertilizers are great for enriching beet, carrot and onion seeds. Molybdenum is good for processing the seeds of lettuce, zucchini, carrots, tomatoes and cauliflower. Boric fertilizers will give a good effect when enriching the seeds of turnip, carrot, tomato, radish, beet, as well as cauliflower and white cabbage.

Among the effective biologically active substances, one can distinguish such growth regulators as solutions of ivy (0.001%), succinic acid (0.02%), sodium humate (0.01%) and heteroauxin (0.03-0.0005%) … Seeds, depending on the culture, are soaked in them for 12 - 24 hours. Soaking in sodium humate lasts a little longer and takes from 24 to 72 hours.

A good analogue of micronutrient fertilizers is wood ash, 20 g of which is diluted in a liter of water, they insist for a day or two, and then the seeds are soaked in the resulting solution for 6 hours.

Seed bubbling

Under such an interesting name is the treatment of seeds with oxygen, which enhances the activity of various enzymes, as well as washing away pathogenic microflora from the surface of the seed. A good solution is a combination of bubbling with enrichment (treatment with microelements). Seeds are first poured into containers filled by 2/3 with a solution of trace elements (the temperature of the solution should be 20 degrees), and then the compressor hose from the aquarium is immersed. The air blown through this hose mixes the seed well with the water.

Pea seeds are bubbled for 6 to 10 hours; prepared seeds of radish, lettuce and tomatoes bubbled for 12 - 16 hours; spinach and onion seeds with carrots - within 18 - 24 hours; and for peppers, the duration of this procedure will be from 24 to 36 hours. In case of seed spitting, the procedure should be stopped, and at the end of the treatment, the seed should be dried.