2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Not all vegetable crops benefit from picking. But for tomato seedlings, this operation helps to stimulate the development of the root system, harden and strengthen the plant. They start picking when the seedlings acquire the first pair of true leaves. What rules do you need to know for such a procedure to be successful?
Preparation of nutrient substrate and seedlings for picking
Half of the success of the picking results will be ensured by the correct preparation of the nutrient substrate. It includes:
• sod land - 3 parts;
• humus - 3 parts;
• peat - 3 parts;
• sand - 1 part.
Add 1 glass of ash to a bucket of the resulting nutrient mixture; it will also be useful to fill the substrate with 1 table. a spoonful of complex fertilizer.
For prophylaxis, pots and containers stuffed with substrate are disinfected with a solution of potassium permanganate. In addition, in the fight against late blight, root rot, black leg and other misfortune, microbiological preparations, for example, phytosporin, help to fight.
These preventive procedures are carried out the day before the planned pick. Also, 12 hours before the scheduled work, it is recommended to water the seedlings in a container. Immediately before picking, the soil mixture in new pots is loosened, and then holes for seedlings are formed.
Tomato picking technology
Unlike nightshades such as peppers, eggplant, which do not like to be bothered by their roots during the cultivation of seedlings and are transferred to large containers with a lump of earth for them, the tomato, on the contrary, responds well to the classic pick - that is, to the pinching of the main root … Thanks to this agricultural technique, the fibrous root system will develop better.
The pick is carried out both in separate containers and in a common container. In the second case, we must not forget that the grown plant needs a large area of nutrition. The planting scheme depends on the variety of the selected tomatoes. Tall holes are prepared in a checkerboard pattern at a distance of 10 x 10 cm, other varieties have enough space with an area of 8 x 8 cm.
Seedlings are immersed in the hole until the cotyledon leaves. The earth in the hole is watered, and after that the stalk is squeezed around with dry earth. With such a sequence of works, the seedlings will take root better, since the water helps the delicate roots take a natural position in the ground, are drawn into the soil and do not bend up. In addition, with this technology, moisture does not evaporate too quickly, and soil crust does not form.
Seedling care after picking
Despite the fact that picking is beneficial to tomatoes, this operation is still traumatic for the plant, and in the first days after that they need to be protected. Seedlings are left in the shade for a day, protecting them from the bright sun. In the future, tomatoes will require good lighting. When seedlings grow in the shade all the time, it will stretch, and the thin stem becomes more vulnerable to disease. In the daytime, the temperature is maintained within + 20 … + 24 degrees C, and in the evening the thermometer should drop to + 16 … + 18 degrees C.
Watering tomato seedlings is done with an abundant volume of water in order to completely wet the soil in the pot. The next moistening is carried out after the earth is dry enough. If you keep seedlings at high humidity, favorable conditions are created for the appearance of a fungus. Irrigation must be done carefully so that drops do not splash on the stem and leaves of tomatoes.
A week and a half after the pick, the seedlings should take root well. This is the optimal time to carry out the first feeding of tomatoes. The second is carried out approximately another 10 days after the first fertilization. Liquid dressing, like regular watering, is carried out in the morning or evening.
Before transplanting seedlings into the ground, the plants need to be hardened, leaving them for a while in the fresh air. If the planting will be carried out in a greenhouse, then the pots are regularly left in it for a short time so that the tomatoes gradually acclimatize to new conditions.
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