Seedlings Stretched Out: Reasons And Salvation

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

Heat-loving plants, which, in the middle lane, often lack a relatively short summer to grow and have time to give a crop, are grown through seedlings. However, sometimes errors in calculating the timing of sowing or unaccounted for features of care lead to the fact that the seedlings are pulled out. How to avoid this and what to do if the plant still could not be overlooked?

How to prevent seedlings from pulling

The first thing that experts warn novice gardeners against is too early sowing dates for seedlings. Of course, you want to be in time for everything and prepare for the spring planting in advance, but haste can result in weak and low disease-resistant seedlings.

Another nuance associated with early planting of seeds for seedlings is the short daylight hours in the winter months and cloudy weather. Plants do not have enough light, as a result of such maintenance, the stems are stretched.

The peculiarity of many thermophilic plants is that they require a sufficiently warm temperature regime for seed germination and at the initial stage of growing seedlings. But in the future, good healthy seedlings are obtained with a timely decrease in temperature. And when plants are left in warm rooms, especially when surrounded by dry air, this has a negative effect on development. The pots need to be watered more frequently and the growth rate increases. In order not to bring their seedlings to such a state, they continue to grow them at a moderate temperature, and then even lower them a little for the purpose of hardening, moving them to greenhouses, to unheated verandas, glazed balconies and loggias.

Cucumber rings and tomatoes without crown

What should be done if, despite all precautions, the seedlings still stretched their high tops on thin stems? In this case, transplanting into deeper containers helps a lot in order to slow down the growth of the stem and stimulate the development of the root system.

This procedure is especially beneficial for tomatoes. In the lower part of the stem, you can even find peculiar tubercles, which, when immersed in the ground, almost instantly release the roots and cling to the ground with them. To do this, approximately a handful of fresh earth is poured into a new, deeper pot, seedlings with an old earthen clod are placed on this layer and crushed with a nutritious substrate to the desired height.

If the transplant took place without much damage to the existing root system, in fact, by the transfer method, then after watering the tomatoes can be immediately put in a bright place. When the procedure was somewhat traumatic for seedlings, then at least for a day it is shaded from the bright sun.

In addition to transplanting, if the plant has already managed to stretch quite strongly, you can pinch the top of the seedling. At the same time, based on the state of the plant, the pinching can include not only the top, but also the top leaf.

Cucumbers, by their very nature, also tend to stretch out, especially when they are in a warm room. These crops can also be transplanted. And if the soil mixture in the cups has not filled the container to the very edge, then you can even do without transplanting, but perform another maneuver. To do this, the stalk is bent to the ground, rolled up in the form of a ringlet and sprinkled on top of a fresh nutrient substrate. This will slow down the growth of the seedlings.

It should be borne in mind that such techniques are not suitable for helping pepper and eggplant seedlings. Despite the fact that these crops are also classified as nightshades, like tomatoes, they are not prone to the emergence of "saving" tubercles, which will develop a strong root system. And when you try to wrap the stalk in a ring, the plant simply breaks.