No one is safe from acquiring low-quality seeds. Therefore, before landing, all hollow, ugly and damaged ones must be selected. This is best done not by eye, but by a calibration method.
We make a solution of table salt (we take 5 g of salt per 100 ml of lukewarm water), we soak the seeds in it. Dry seeds are poured into the solution and mixed well to remove air from their surface. Leave for how many minutes - the good seeds will fall, and the bad ones will remain on the surface of the water. The settled seeds are washed in clean water and dried a little. It should be remembered that fresh seeds are calibrated more accurately than stale ones.
It should be noted that 80% of vegetable diseases are transmitted precisely with seeds. Therefore, seed disinfection should be carried out. Only if the packaging indicates that the tomato seeds have already passed this procedure, it does not need to be repeated.
The easiest method is heat treatment, or heating in sufficiently hot water. Soak tomato seeds in a thermos, putting the seeds in gauze or linen bags. It must be remembered that with full disinfection, up to 30% of tomato seeds can lose germination.
After the warm-up procedure, the seeds should be immediately placed for 2-3 minutes in cold water.
Stopwatch and thermometer must be used when warming up! Do not break the mode!
The second method is soaking tomato seeds in potassium permanganate. It is necessary to make a 1-2% solution. If the concentration is increased, then the plant can be harmed. For half a glass of water, add 1 gram of potassium permanganate. This solution has a dark, almost black, color. If you can not accurately measure 1 gram, then use the volumetric method. One teaspoon without a potassium permanganate top is dissolved in three glasses of water.
Water should be at room temperature, after disinfection, be sure to rinse tomato seeds!
It is best to soak tomato seeds in rain or melt water. Of course, in cities, neither rainwater nor snow should be collected due to pollution. You can freeze taken from the tap - so we get rid of salts and water will be able to activate the processes of seed germination.
It is very important to know how to properly soak tomato seeds.
- Soaking tomato seeds should occur after the disinfection procedure;
- the amount of water should be 50-100 times higher than the volume of seeds. Do not be afraid to immerse tomato seeds completely in water - when swelling, they do not need air, they will not be able to suffocate;
- mix the seeds several times;
- water must be changed if it becomes brown or yellow;
- soak tomato seeds should be no less than 36 hours;
- do not soak the seeds in a solution of ash, fertilizers, saline solutions, because salts can inhibit the germination of seeds;
- after the soaking procedure, the seeds are either immediately sown, dried a little before flowability, or put on further germination.
It is useful to use biologically active drugs. Now there are about two hundred of them. Let's talk about three of them - "Humate", "Epin", aloe juice. The use of the first two drugs accelerates germination, and, most importantly, reduces the sensitivity of plant shoots to adverse conditions, increases their resistance to diseases, activating the protective mechanisms of the plant. When using aloe juice, you need to remember that it is not suitable for all seeds, but soaking tomato seeds in it is very useful to produce.
To obtain the juice, you need to take the lower leaves, not yellowing, from an adult plant not younger than three years old. Put them in the refrigerator for a week. Seeds must be kept in aloe juice for 24 hours, after which they are sown without washing.
Soaking tomato seeds is carried out at room temperature - about + 20 ° C. At lower temperatures, bioactive substances will not work as efficiently.