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  • From: "David Tannen" <david AT centerville.net>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Greenhouse ammonia toxicity?
  • Date: Tue, 21 Feb 2006 18:04:39 -0600

Marlin,
 
I feel for you.  I lost several transplants to a late freeze last year and was devastated.  Could it be your seed starting medium.  I have been using Pro Mix with great success.  In December I ran out of Pro Mix after seeding five 98 cell trays and used another brand of medium for one tray that I had purchased the previous season when I couldn't find Pro Mix. 
 
After 4 to 5 weeks I had healthy 4" to 5" transplants with several sets of leaves with the 5 trays in which I used Pro Mix.  The other tray with the other brand had what appeared to be healthy 1" tomato sprouts that never showed their first set of true leaves.  Two weeks later I threw them away as they showed no growth.  The seed, Celebrity, was from the same pack.   The only difference was the seed starting medium.  Have you changed your seed starting medium over the past two years?  I'm just taking a shot as this was my experience.
 
 
David
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2006 1:37 PM
Subject: [Market-farming] Greenhouse ammonia toxicity?

 

Last year’s luck with seed starting?  I didn’t think it could get any worse!  I was wrong!  This year I have totally lost 80 to 90 percent of all the material and work I have put into seed starting in January and February up to this point.  I currently have 8 flats of broccoli and cauliflower just coming up which is too soon to evaluate.  It’s the same old story!  Stuff either comes up and stalls for a week or two and then dies or it doesn’t come up at all!  Last year I blamed it on the Winstrip trays.  This year I planted in Winstrips, standard inserts, and open flats with no inserts.  Most of it was lettuce and onions and it all failed.  One evening over a week ago I had them setting in the still unheated greenhouse during the day and was delayed getting home soon enough to get them back inside before nightfall.  They were exposed to several hours of freezing temperatures but I don’t think this should have been enough to do them in.  They didn’t show significant freeze damage the next day but they all steadily deteriorated over the next week.  I tried sowing new lettuce seed over the dying plants and as far as I can tell most of it never germinated.

 

Now comes a possible explanation for the mystery.  I raised a flock of pullets inside the greenhouse during the winter and took them out around the first of February.  The following week I moved in the benches and to save time I decided not to remove the litter on the floor.  I noticed some ammonia odor several days later during the warm part of the day as I set my plants out to take advantage of the nice weather we were having.  If I thought anything it was that a little ammonia nitrogen in the air might stimulate plant growth.  At most the plants were exposed to the ammonia air for a few days and other wise spent their nights inside the house on the starting racks.  I never thought the ammonia inside the green house, though noticeable, was very intense.  Also many of the onions were not looking good even before they saw the greenhouse.  Anyway I spent much of yesterday taking all of the benches out of the greenhouse, thoroughly cleaning out all of the chicken poop, putting down a tarp on the floor, and setting it all back up.

 

Now begs the question.  Has anyone else had experience with ammonia doing bad things in a greenhouse environment?  Would I be safe to go ahead and reuse the plant starting medium or should I pitch it all?  I’m thinking of keeping some of it for potting up bigger plants later on if I am successful at getting anything started.  I’m still fearful that something pathological is involved.  I know for certain that I planted fresh seed and I started out with clean potting soil, and reasonably clean containers.  To say that I am thoroughly POed is an understatement.  The worst of it all is that this kind of s--- is still happening to someone who has 15 years of plant starting experience.

 

Marlin

Virginia


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