Germination times - Tomatoe varieties

[erlyberd]

Build a box to hold a seed flat and a small 15 watt light bulb or a string of x-mas lights for bottom heat. Old seed, immature seed, very dry seed or over fermented seed changes everything. Get some reliable bottom heat and go from there. Fresh properly processed seed should be up in 3-5 days max I feel. Do you need more seed?

[ScottinAtlanta]

Thanks very much for the offer -- I do have more Black from Tula seeds and planted them today on Jiffy pellets to see if I can get them to germinate. I used heating pads on my flat, so no problem with cold soil. Let's see if I can coax these babies to emerge.

[sirtanon]

Could be:

Old seed
Seeds were exposed to heat

just to name a few..

Originally Posted by ScottinAtlanta

Why would Black from Tula be 0% (none of out 5 cells germinated)? Old seeds?

[hornstrider]

This year I am using Root Riot seed starting plugs. I made friends w/ a hydroponics store owner. He recommended I use these all organic spongy plugs because I would get better germination results. I planted my seeds on Jan 1, and I planted 144 tomato seeds. I planted:
Cherokee Purple (100% 6 days) 18 seeds
Rutgers (100% 5 days) 12 seeds
Big Beef (95% 6 days) 18 seeds
Sun Gold (100% 5 days)
Early Girl Bush (100% 7 days)
Black Krim (60% 7 days)
Amish Paste (100% 8 days)
Roma (95% 7 days)
Juliet (100% 6 days)
San Marzino (100% 6 days)
Brandywine Sudduth (100% 7 days)
Tasmanian Chocolate (100% 8 days)
Wild Fred (100% 8 days) Free seed pack
Rosella Purple (100% 8 days)
Big Boy (0% 9 days)...Old seed ..5 years old maybe... stored outside in the greenhouse. I did not even know I had them. I had a few empty spaces so I said what the heck give them a try.
Early Girl Bush (I saved seeds from my super plant that I picked my first ripe tomato April 28, and my last tomato yesterday (I picked the last 15 ripe tomato's left on the plant before I pulled the plant). (100% 8 days) 4 seeds. I don't know what I will get from these plants, but if they are anything like the momma plant they will be tough, hardy plant.

Thus far I am very happy with the Root Riot seed starting plugs.

[ScottinAtlanta]

Great results, Horn. I put some of my non-germinating Black from Tula on Jiffy Pellets to see if they would work.

Folks, Here are my plants today. Some more vigorous seedlings are putting out a third leaf. When is the right moment for potting up?

[dice]

When is the right moment for potting up?

I pot up into 3" pots when they have a pair of true leaves.

You might take a few of the Black from Tula seeds, soak them
for 24 hours, then tuck them into a moist coffee filter and put
that inside an open plastic sandwhich bag. Put it in a warm place
and let it set. Check it after a week, then daily for any sprouted
seeds. It can take a few weeks for seeds that are old or have low
viability for some other reason. If the coffee filter dries out before
they sprout, remoisten it. (A couple of tweaks: use weak tea water
for the 24 hour initial soak, and moisten the coffee filter with a mild
solution of hydrogen peroxide to inhibit molds.)

This way you probably have at least one plant to save seeds from, even
if all of the seeds in seed-starting mix fail. (It took me 3 different tries
in 3 different years to get some reluctant Guido seeds to sprout. They
were 1 for 18, and that one took two weeks in a moist coffee filter.)

[lakelady]

DarJones, that's good to know, I have an opened bag of Promix here too that I was planning to use for seedlings. ugh. The opened bag should be fine for containers in Spring, yes?

Dice, I've tried the coffee filter method but don't have any luck once I put into peat pots or whatever after they sprout, they just die. I seem to have better luck with just putting in soil less mix from the getgo.

Scott, I have some BFT seeds I can send you that I know will germinate. I feel your pain; I've reseeded some micro Tom seeds I got in a trade and this is my second set, nothing is growing at all. Let me know if you want some seeds.

[Tania]

Originally Posted by lakelady

DarJones, that's good to know, I have an opened bag of Promix here too that I was planning to use for seedlings. ugh. The opened bag should be fine for containers in Spring, yes?

Dice, I've tried the coffee filter method but don't have any luck once I put into peat pots or whatever after they sprout, they just die. I seem to have better luck with just putting in soil less mix from the getgo.

Scott, I have some BFT seeds I can send you that I know will germinate. I feel your pain; I've reseeded some micro Tom seeds I got in a trade and this is my second set, nothing is growing at all. Let me know if you want some seeds.

Antoniette,

If the sprouts die after you put them into the soiless mix, I'd bet the mix is not good. I observed this with my 'bad' mix. The root will just die off... With the new bale of mix, everything is growing so well, it is amazing! every seed sprouted in a paper towel grew into a healthy seedling, I have not lost a single sprout! I have about 250 little seedlings by now

Tania

[Wi-sunflower]

When I saw the variety of seeds in the early posts here I was wondering if the seeds came from me.

When you have more than 500 varieties, it's hard to grow and SAVE them all EVERY year. I can usually save about 150 - 200 batches of seed / season. I'm trying to replace seed at least every 4 years even tho I know most of the seed will still be good or decent for longer than that.

Last year we tried to get all the varieties with seed grown in 2006 (for planting 2007) replaced. Due to a crummy growing season we didn't get all of them. Those we didn't get, I put on my "Low Germination" page without even testing them.

This summer we hope to replace the seed grown in 2008 for 2009 planting. I believe I saved pepper seeds in 07 as there are no tomato seeds from 07.

The Black From Tula is in that group. So Tuesday I started a quicky germination test just to satisfy myself to see if the seeds were bad or not. Just some seeds on a wet paper towel in a quart zip-lock baggie blown up. Below is a pic taken this morning ( 4 days). I hope you can see that the germination looks to be about 80 - 85 %.

Sometimes the older seed takes a bit longer to germinate than fresh seed.

Personally I didn't think the technique in the early posts was the best. It's possible the heat mat cooked the seeds. I also don't like on and off heat for germinating. Keep it warm ALL the time. There have been several good suggestions given. Here is a page on my site where I show how I start my seeds. Not saying it''s better, just how I do it. Once you get something that works for you, stick with it til you have problems.
http://knapps-fresh-vegies.netfirms....enhouse06.html

I hope you get some plants out of the Tula, whether they were mine or not, as they are decent tomatoes.

Carol

[lakelady]

Tanya, you could be right. I think I put them in the opened promix. Although, I have to say, I used the same starter mix for the rest of the little guys that have germinated and come up (a few more dwarfs), but not the microTom. I'm going to try again using some perlite or another bag of starter mix or peat pellets from Burpee that I had great success with in Spring 2011 and see if I can get them to pop there. If as Dar says, there could be seed starting issues with promix, that is likely why many of mine are suddenly not sprouting or if sprouted ,not growing. Just because I had a few that made it, it never occurred to me that could be the problem. But very likely it is. thanks!

[dice]

Initially watering the seed-starting mix with hydrogen peroxide solution
(1 part 3% drug store hydrogen peroxide to 10 parts water) can help
prevent damping off and other fungal/bacterial problems with
seed-starting mix. The fungi and bacteria often try to sprout as soon
as they become warm and moist, while the peroxide is still in sufficient
concentration in the watered seed-starting mix to kill them.

[ScottinAtlanta]

This was my first time from seed. Folks, You are a goldmine of support. NCTOMATOMAN is an angel - his videos should be in the Library of Congress.

Carol, don't worry, I didn't buy the Black from Tula from you, and in any case, I have germinated 3 of the Tula seeds.

Here is where I am today. After putting seeds in the Metromix on 30 December, on 20 January I have 100 tomato plants of 14 varieties. Black Krim is the most vigorous, now putting on its fourth set of leaves. But others are coming along very well.

After failing completely with Black from Tula on Metromix seed mix, I succeeded 100% with the Jiffy Pellets. 3 out of 3 germinated. Just goes to show you!

Thanks to all!

[erlyberd]

So what exactly is the soil temp? Too hot can be just as bad.

[ScottinAtlanta]

For me, I don't know the temperature of my soil. I put heating pads on low and sat the germination trays directly on the pads, and it seemed to work fine. Air temp was around 50 degrees.

By the way, I tried again with the Black from Tula on Metromix seed mix, and got 100% germination. So the original problem - was not really a seed problem. Perhaps an overheated spot on the heating pad.

[ScottinAtlanta]

Folks, After starting germination on 30 December and a second batch on 25 January, I started hardening them off today - 56 degrees in Atlanta. Here are some pictures of the 150 seedlings - tomatoes, ground cherries, eggplants, peppers, and artichoke. Some of these babies are 6 inches already.

I am delighted with this process - I watched nctomatoman's videos about 5 times, and did what he said, only less densely seeded. I used MetroMix, built a pvc pipe germination stand, and used T12 lights on a 16 hour timer. I potted up into 16 ounce Dixie cups with holes punched into the sides just above the bottom. I bottom watered the whole batch.

To all beginners, I heartily recommend nctomatoman's vids. Great asset for the new gardener.