Growing vegetables is a laborious process that requires not only diligence, but also certain knowledge. Each culture should have its own special approach. Any vegetable production begins with seeds. Their quality depends on the correct collection, as well as the conditions and shelf life. Vegetable growers have different approaches to seed material. Many in vain neglect a very important stage in the cultivation of vegetables - the pre-sowing preparation of seeds. These are processing methods such as calibration, disinfection, heating, soaking pepper seeds before planting, germination, sparging, hardening. It is these techniques that improve the quality of crops and allow you to get healthy and strong plants.
What you need to know when growing peppers?
On the vegetable garden you can find a wide variety of vegetable crops. But among the most popular and favorite can be considered pepper. This is a thermophilic plant with a long ripening period - from 150 to 200 days. Because of this feature, peppers are grown in seedlings.
When to sow pepper seeds? This question arises in many vegetable growers. The sowing season falls at the end of February. Such a race will help to obtain vegetable products before the onset of the cold season. It should be noted that the seed material of this vegetable crop is covered with essential oils. This leads to a rather long period of germination. It can last from twelve to eighteen days. Seeds are quite dry, therefore, with prolonged or improper storage, germination is significantly reduced and can range from fifty to seventy percent.
How to grow peppers from seeds?
Given all the features of a thermophilic vegetable crop, to obtain good seedlings, you need to pay special attention to the seed material. You can sow and unprocessed grains, however, pre-sowing seed treatment contributes to an earlier and better vegetable products. It is undesirable to neglect simple and affordable tricks.
The main methods of preparing seeds for sowing
Quite often mistakes are made during the pre-sowing preparation of seeds. The seeds are heated, treated with disinfectant solutions, soaked in various growth stimulants without following certain rules. In this case, the wrong concentrations of all kinds of solutions are used, they violate the timing and temperature regime. And these are very important factors. As a result, the seeds lose their germination and do not germinate. An inexperienced gardener cannot understand why, after lengthy procedures, the long-awaited seedlings did not appear in the seedlings. Let's try to describe the whole process of the basic methods of processing seed.
How to prepare pepper seeds for sowing? Where to begin?
Seed calibration
Seedlings are grown using a wide variety of seeds. It can be own seeds or acquired. Seed quality is an important condition for the future harvest. First of all, all seeds are sorted, varieties are determined and their storage periods are checked. If they exceed 5 years, it is better not to use seeds. Overdue seeds will certainly bring only disappointment. Even the methods of processing and stimulating vitality will not help. Plants will be weak, or shoots will not appear at all.
After determining the entire seed, proceed to calibration. When sorting seeds, large, intact seeds are selected, which are the key to good and strong seedlings. Naturally, a visual inspection of 100% will not be able to determine full-weight seeds. The next calibration step is sorting in saline. To prepare it you need:
- 1 liter of water;
- 40 g of table salt.
The resulting solution is well mixed and dipped in pepper seeds. After this, the liquid is stirred again. In this case, calibration occurs: full-bodied seeds will sink to the bottom of the vessel, and the lungs will emerge. The calibrated seed is well washed with running water. This method allows you to select seeds suitable for sowing.
Disinfection
How to prepare pepper seeds for sowing so that plants are less susceptible to disease? For this, seed dressing is used. A 2% potassium permanganate solution is prepared.
Protectant consists of the following components:
- 100 ml of water;
- 2 g of potassium permanganate.
The resulting solution is quite concentrated and has almost black color. Pepper seed treatment time is twenty minutes. This procedure is completed by high-quality washing of seeds with running or prepared melt water. Then they are dried to a state of flowability.
Warming up
How to prepare pepper seeds for sowing using heat treatment? This technique involves placing seeds in water heated to fifty degrees. Seeds are poured into tissue envelopes, which are dipped in a heated liquid. A thermos is used to maintain the temperature of the water. Processing time is from forty to fifty minutes.
Soaking pepper seeds before planting
This technique significantly increases and accelerates the germination of seeds. It is preferable to use rain or melt water. In the absence of such, tap water frozen in the freezer is used, which is used after melting. Such a liquid is an excellent stimulator of the process of germination of seeds.
How much soak pepper seeds? The time of the procedure depends on the swelling rate of the material. You can soak the pepper seeds for eighteen hours, while they are completely immersed in the liquid. Periodically, it is replaced, and the seeds are mixed.
The use of biostimulants
Soak pepper seeds before planting is possible with the use of biologically active substances, of which there are quite a few varieties. Among the most common are Epin and Gumat. Processing time is 10 to 12 hours. The solution is prepared based on:
- 200 ml of water;
- 2-3 drops of the drug.
You can also prepare a nutrient solution of the following composition:
- 500 ml of water;
- 2 teaspoons of ash;
- 2 g of boric acid.
All components are dissolved in hot water. Use the drug after cooling. Processing time is 12 hours.
The use of such biological stimulants will allow to accelerate the process of seed germination. They also contribute to increasing the resistance of grown planting material to adverse weather conditions and diseases. Quite often, aloe juice is used as a nutrient . It is also a good biostimulant with similar properties to mineral counterparts. It should be noted that the liquid used should be at room temperature and not lower than twenty degrees Celsius. At lower temperatures, the method used will be ineffective. After the soaking procedure, the seeds should not be washed. They are slightly dried, and then sown in seedlings or proceed to the next stage of pre-sowing treatment.
How to Sprout Pepper Seeds
For seed germination , such components will be necessary:
- plastic or glass container;
- plastic bag;
- gauze cut or rag;
- swollen seeds.
Germination of pepper seeds lasts until sprouts appear. Seeds are packaged in tissue envelopes and placed in containers. They are marked with an indication of the variety of pepper. Envelopes moisturize. Prepared containers are placed in plastic bags and placed in a warm place. Germination of pepper seeds is carried out at a temperature not lower than 25 degrees Celsius. Capacities are checked daily. Ensure that envelopes are wet. Drying is unacceptable. After the seeds have nested, they are sown in seedlings.
How to germinate pepper seeds? How long will this stage last? In our case, seed sowing can begin after the partial emergence of sprouts. You can also wait for the mass germination of seed material. Usually this process takes three to five days. This technique accelerates the appearance of sprouts of pepper by 5 days. After sowing, the first sprouts appear within two days.
In addition to the above techniques, other equally effective presowing methods can be used.
Sparging
How to prepare pepper seeds for sowing if valuable varieties have exceeded shelf life? Here the method of saturating the seed with oxygen will come to the rescue. The reception is quite simple, but quite effective. He is able to reanimate valuable seeds. In this case, a compressor is used - equipment for aquariums. Seeds are placed in a container with water, the ratio of the filling of the vessel is maintained 1: 5. Using a compressor, the liquid will be saturated with oxygen. During processing, the seeds are periodically mixed. The whole process is from 24 to 36 hours. Finish the intake by drying the seeds.
Hardening
This method is used for many thermophilic vegetable crops. However, for the treatment of pepper seeds, hardening is rare. It is considered more rational to harden the grown seedlings.
Useful Tips
In our article, we told you about how to grow peppers from seeds, and also examined how to process them. The application of the above methods will definitely contribute to obtaining fast and high-quality seedlings. However, these procedures are not required. As a rule, each grower applies a particular technique or completely abandons this troublesome business. If desired, you can use one or more techniques. Most often they process seeds of unknown origin, the quality of which is doubtful, or the seed of their own harvest. It should be noted that many producers sell processed seeds. When purchasing such material, you should carefully study the packaging on which this information will be indicated. In this case, you can limit yourself to mechanical calibration.