How deep were the seeds in your experimental 2 oz cups? Did you start some in the normal cups the normal way at the same time?


I had a bunch of stuck coats with my okra starts but learning about the spit trick saved many of them. I did put in a lot of time babying them. I may put the seed deeper next season, or experiment some when I get a chance.

[QUOTE=Nan_PA_6b;703215]Groundhog, how deep do you plant your seed? And do you think you planted them the same depth in the 9 oz & 2 oz cups?
Nan[/QUOTE]

I planted them at the same depth. I wish now I'd started some in the larger cups at the same time but I already had all the plants I needed.

I forgot to mention, I believe they sprouted a couple of days earlier than the ones in the larger cups.

How deep do you plant? I plant shallowly (1/16") and get lotta helmets.


Nan

[QUOTE=Nan_PA_6b;703237]How deep do you plant? I plant shallowly (1/16") and get lotta helmets.


Nan[/QUOTE]

A little deeper than that, maybe 1/8" or a little deeper.

I seeded another flat of okra this week; when the peas are done, these are going in their place. There was more than one major variable since the last time and no control group but the results are clearly much better when it comes to clean release of the cotyledons. There were two major changes. Deeper seeds, and they went outside immediately after sprouting, rather than to table with grow light/fan in the basement. This past week was full sun, humid, and 85-90+ with no rain until last night.

This time I planted 3/4" down into the moist soil block, instead of a shallow 1/4" with extra mix sifted on top. Okra seed is round, so I pushed them down with a brass tube just slightly smaller than the seed diameter. They were triple seeded, put on heat mat at 95F, and had a dome on. After 3 days, 50% of blocks had a visible sprout. I moved them outdoors, removed dome, and covered with an aged scrap of agribon.

A month back when I seeded shallowly, then grew under light and fan, maybe 25% shed the seed coat themselves. Those helmets dried out and were really hard. This time, maybe 75% emerged with the seed coat already shed or very loose. The tray was in the yard last night covered with its agribon cover during the steady/heavy rain, and the remaining stubborn ones had their seed coats dissolved/rubbed off when I checked them this morning. I was able to easily remove any remnants.

I started a great deal of older pepper seeds (some from 2011) along with my newer seed, thinking use or loose these packs. I used Jiffy mix, and at the last minute dusted a very thin coat of food grade DE over the cells as a preemptive strike against fungus gnats.



From my observation, the DE dried out the emerging seed heads. I would wait until seedlings emerge! The helmet heads are so dry, some seed didn't germinate, and they are far behind where they should have been. I added a few varieties in another tray with Jiffy and with no problems. My first tray looked so bad that I basically started the original varieties over again in Wondersoil, and they are much more robust. Any helmet heads were easily removed with my valuable spit.


On a positive note, coated seeds dated 2015 were viable! I gave then a little soak in blue stuff, and they were among the first to come up. Before I planted, the seeds looked like tiny pearls. The coating was a very fine milky looking dust, and it basically split in half allowing leaves to emerge. They're like a time capsule. The seeds were Home Farmer from Menard's, a local hardware superstore.


- Lisa

Interesting, Lisa, about the DE.
- Joyce