moldy beans

tnkrer · May 28, 2015

First year growing beans ..

I use a sprout box to sprout the seeds before they go into seed trays or their own cups. sprout box is a big lunch box with many small dixie cups covered with a lid. A thin layer of Diatomaceous Earth is at the bottom of each dixie cup. Each dixie cup holds one variety of seed. The lunch box is on a seedling mat. this allows the temperatures inside to stay within 80-85 F. I have got almost 100% germination on most of my seeds with this method. (Lettuce seemed to have problems at higher temperature)

I was sprouting beans with this method and couple of varieties worked great. (vermont cranberry bean, Flamingo) while a few others, I got less than 50% germination and half of the beans became moldy. The picture shows blue lake bean

Is the problem with my sprouting method? the beans? or is this not a problem and the mold is fine?

May 28, 2015	#1
tnkrer Tomatovillian™ Join Date: May 2013 Location: MA 6a/b Posts: 352	moldy beans First year growing beans .. I use a sprout box to sprout the seeds before they go into seed trays or their own cups. sprout box is a big lunch box with many small dixie cups covered with a lid. A thin layer of Diatomaceous Earth is at the bottom of each dixie cup. Each dixie cup holds one variety of seed. The lunch box is on a seedling mat. this allows the temperatures inside to stay within 80-85 F. I have got almost 100% germination on most of my seeds with this method. (Lettuce seemed to have problems at higher temperature) I was sprouting beans with this method and couple of varieties worked great. (vermont cranberry bean, Flamingo) while a few others, I got less than 50% germination and half of the beans became moldy. The picture shows blue lake bean Is the problem with my sprouting method? the beans? or is this not a problem and the mold is fine?