Diatomaceous Earth as a seed starting medium

[tnkrer]

Originally Posted by RayR

Thinking about where the Pythium or whatever spores came into the picture since the DE is sterile out of the bag.
What is your water source that you used?
Did you sterilize your seed trays before filling them?

How warm was the soil on the heat mat?

Water source is city water. Next time I will make sure that I use the filtered city water (that we use for drinking, filters the water using GE FQSVF filter)

Did not sterilize seed trays only lightly cleaned after last year's use. So now a bunch of seed trays are in 10% bleach solution. I will take those out after an hour, air dry them and remaining seeds will go in those

Have not measured soil temperature. The air temperature in the seed tray + plastic enclosure stays between 70-80.

I am letting the DE almost dry out before adding some water to the bottom tray instead of keeping water there all the time

Lets hope that sterilizing the trays solves my damping off problem