Poor germination

[Black Krim]

sigh. Ive tried several methods to start peppers over a few years. All poor results.

What has worked for you ?

[decherdt]

Not a chile head but I've had better luck with the media, heat and watering pepper growing tips at www.ecoseeds.com


Reduced peat media, 80-85 temps, reduced watering than is intuitive. I also like to pretreat the media with peroxide
the day before sowing seed

[clkeiper]

heat mats. very seldom do I have seeds germinate off the heat mat. I have a tray thats been sitting all winter in the greenhouse and I see a few more have popped just sitting on the bench. which just shocked me. but over watering white they are seeds often kills them from fungus or mold growing on the seed shells.

[MrBig46]

I'll put the pepper seeds in a cotton cloth and soak that one. I put it in a closed box and put it in the heat, 24 ° C for sweet peppers, 28 ° C for hot. I watch it and when most are sprouted, I drop them in cups.
Vladimír

[zipcode]

I was the same, until I decided to germinate them on my heater (so intermittent upto 40-50C I guess) in wet paper towels. Ideally you would put it on a heat mat but this also seems to work fine, I get germination in about 5-8 days now, and then I put them in the soil, where it takes like 3 days to emerge.
You just need to keep them wet, and that's it, now germination is clearly faster and also better rates.

[Black Krim]

So far I see two factors to change.

Treat seed with hydrogen peroxide for one minute. And..
Use distilled water, not well water.

Will try again.

Thank you everyone!!

[clkeiper]

You are using a sterile seed starting mix I hope? don't use soil. whatever medium you use it must be sterile.

[rxkeith]

best, and fastest results i have had was starting seeds on top of a cast iron steam radiator we had in the upstairs bedroom. there was a wood shelf on top of the radiator that i put a towel on top of before putting the cell pack with planted seeds. peppers were
usually up within 7 days.

second best is placing planted seeds on a tray over in floor heat vent elevated on each end with some books, so the room would still be heated.
variation is placing seeds in front of heat vent if the vent is at the base of a wall. i usually had the seed tray in a plastic bag to prevent drying out or would put a sheet of plastic wrap over the top of the seed tray.

what i do now, is start seeds underneath our wood stove that we heat with during the winter. its warm enough without cooking the seeds. germination is slower, but most everything sprouts thats going to sprout.
i use sterile seed mix kept moist, but not soaking wet.
lightly cover the seeds with seed starter.
on top of the hot water heater is often a good place to provide bottom heat.
our basement isn't heated however, and temps are only in the mid 40s during the winter
and early spring down there, so i am not confident in starting seeds downstairs.


every year i seem to have mixed results. some varieties, every seed will sprout, other varieties nothing, fresh seeds to boot. germination rates tend to decrease once pepper seeds are 4 to 5 yrs old.

oh, we have well water. thats all we use.



keith

[Black Krim]

question.

What to use for watering ?? The pepper experts mention do not use tap water because of chlorine and not use well water due to high minerals.....my well water is highly mineralized. Seems like some well water might work.

Its raining....is rain water best ??

I dont think getting to a store to buy a soiless mix is an option right now given the obvious. Have this:

Collected very aged compost, added perlite. Plan to cook it in oven to sterilize.

Anyone see a problem with this?

[volare71]

I've started tomato and peppers in a paper towell placed in a baggie and in a warm dark spot (behind wine bottles on the kitchen counter) in the kitchen. they seem to like 70-80 deg f.

[Black Krim]

My seeds get soggy and rot using papertowel method.

[NewWestGardener]

Use freshest seeds possible? Older seeds do not germinate as well.

[Black Krim]

/Given all the great sugestions, will try the following.

Well aged compost from my horses ( manure and shavings), add perlite about 25%by volume. Heat in oven and cool. Actually, soil and half of perlite heat treated. About 50% perlite for good drainage.

36 cell tray. new. Yes, used new tray and new inserts.

peroxide seed. Forgot this step.

soak seed in dilute miracle grow plant fertilizer. forgot this step.

put on cover

heating pad.....cooler nite temp??maybe too difficult to manage with current supplies and my personal time

allow longer time for germination.

find distilled water. Got a gallon. The
--Miracle-Gro® "Bloom Booster" 15-30-15 not available. Got Schultz Bloom Plus 10-54-10

Followed old methods and wetted soil with tap water. swutching to obe tabkespoon Schultz to one fal distilled water. Watering in the seed.

Planted about 1/4 inch with 50% perlite compost mix.

put on incubator.

[lexxluthor]

I use little salad dressing containers with a coffee filter, water, heating mat and a snap top.

[Notostraca]

I don't grow many chillies, but always have one or two plants every year, milder varieties like Early Green Jalapeno, Fish Peppers, Wax Peppers, etc...I've never had any issue just putting the seed straight into the media 0.5cm deep (usually John Innes soil or wormcasts) and germinating in plastic cups on the windowsill, with a wee bit of cling-film loosely draped over the top just to stop the top of the soil drying out as fast. I pretty sure I've always had 100% germination using seeds that are 1-4 years old. I actually get worse germinataion rates with my older tomato seeds lol, but the chillis do germinate more slowly.

I have a friend who likes to grow the super-hot varites like Komodo Dragon, Dragon's Breath and Moruga Scorpion - he seemed top have issues with the germination rate of these and went to the length of trying to get fresh chillis from the shops to remove seeds. I'd always check if my local Tescos had any of the super-hot chillis in stock lol (they sell out very fast!).


Makes me wonder if I've just been lucky with my seed sources, or if some chilli varieties are much harder to germinate?


Edit to add: I do sometimes spray seaweed extract om the surface of the soil of any seeds I'm waiting to germinate if I'm feeding any of my other plants at the same time, but I doubt this would make much difference and don't always do it.