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Subject: Market Farming
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- From: "Christine & Marlin" <glenecofarm AT planetcomm.net>
- To: "'Market Farming'" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
- Subject: [Market-farming] Greenhouse ammonia toxicity?
- Date: Tue, 21 Feb 2006 14:37:12 -0500
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 |
-
[Market-farming] flower buckets,
Andrew R. King, 02/20/2006
-
Re: [Market-farming] flower buckets,
Beth Spaugh, 02/20/2006
-
Re: [Market-farming] flower buckets,
Shawnee Flowerfarmer, 02/20/2006
-
[Market-farming] Greenhouse ammonia toxicity?,
Christine & Marlin, 02/21/2006
-
Re: [Market-farming] Greenhouse ammonia toxicity?,
Beth Spaugh, 02/21/2006
- [Market-farming] One step forward, steve, 02/21/2006
- Re: [Market-farming] Greenhouse ammonia toxicity?, David Tannen, 02/21/2006
- Re: [Market-farming] Greenhouse ammonia toxicity?, Shelly Elliott, 02/22/2006
-
Re: [Market-farming] Greenhouse ammonia toxicity?,
Beth Spaugh, 02/21/2006
-
[Market-farming] Greenhouse ammonia toxicity?,
Christine & Marlin, 02/21/2006
-
Re: [Market-farming] flower buckets,
Shawnee Flowerfarmer, 02/20/2006
-
Re: [Market-farming] flower buckets,
Beth Spaugh, 02/20/2006
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