[Market-farming] starting pepper plants

Angela Hemwall Angela at PierpontFarms.com
Thu May 7 21:45:54 EDT 2009


> Interesting.
> Ange
> 
> Agreed on heat being the key to quick germination with peppers.  After getting
> no germination on some peppers planted earlier in cooler conditions, at the
> last possible moment for pepper planting I presprouted mine  -- presoaked and
> then downloaded into a coffee filter.  I write the seed name and date on the
> filter before adding the seeds.  Folded the moist coffee filter and seeds, and
> put them into a ziplock.
> 
> Now not everyone will be able to be as high tech as I am.  I then placed the
> seeds in a cabinet on top of the blueray disc player, under the TIVO unit and
> closed the cabinet door.  The seeds were sprouted in no more than 4-5 days  I
> planted shallowly and the green parts came up within about 3 or less days,
> 100%.
> 
> To quantify what I had just done, I placed a thermometer in the cabinet with
> the door closed and it hit 100 degrees. Open, it was only about 70.
> 
> I also tried to presprout some old candlelight peppers that had not been
> stored properly.  I presoaked, heated,  soaked again  in 1 tsp fish
> hydrolysate and 1 cup water (they got white as if about to sprout), TIVO'd
> some more, and finally  put the baggie on a heating mat that I knew was "hot".
> Well,  came back the next day and the water in the bag with the seeds was
> steaming.  Uh Oh.  Got out the thermometer.  I can't tell you how hot it was
> -- the thermometer pegged at 120 degrees.
> 
> Not willing to assume they'd been steamed or parboiled, I put the seeds into a
> container of moist seedling mix, lightly covered, and left them to their own
> devices.  Several have now sprouted, in spite of the hot water treatment.  It
> is not recommended to emulate this second method - It's not a high germination
> rate - maybe 25 per cent - but it was an experiment anyhow (and then some...).
> 
> I would definitely presprout again -- it is space efficient to presprout the
> peppers and uses less energy to sprout the seeds and plant than to heat dozens
> of trays.
> 
> Chris Reid
> Stamford, CT
> 
> 
> 
>  
> 
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