Re: Germinating seeds?
- To: <propagation@mallorn.com>
- Subject: Re: Germinating seeds?
- From: "* S* <g*@swbell.net>
- Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 14:52:56 -0600
Your reply is incomplete: there is no nitrogen in sugars. But it does
encourage the growth of soil bacteria, some of which are nitrofixers, and so
leak nitrogen to the seedligs Geoff
-----Original Message-----
From: Meum71@aol.com <Meum71@aol.com>
To: propagation@mallorn.com <propagation@mallorn.com>
Date: Wednesday, February 24, 1999 6:51 PM
Subject: Re: Germinating seeds?
>In a message dated 2/24/99 4:29:39 PM Central Standard Time,
peggy@unicom.net
>writes:
>
><< I have always wondered whether using sugar for this purpose would
> promote the growth of unfriendly bacteria and fungal disease? Has
> anyone noticed any difference in this regard between using sand v/s
> sugar?
> >>
>If you start with clean medium the sugar will not introduce any pathogens,
>second most pathogens live on plant tissue not on what is in the soil.
>Sugar is also a good source of nitrogen for the plants, the down side might
be
>that it can be a food source for fruit flies.
>
>If I might respond to the vermiculite question here, Yes vermiculite would
be
>a good medium to START seeds on if you use a very fine grade. The problem
>comes in when you do not move the seedlings. Vermiculite has very little
ion
>holding capacity and as such does not release or store nutrients for the
>plants to use as they need them. But to start the seeds and grow the
plants
>out for a while -- it works very well. Plants are easily extracted from
the
>medium and it is light so that minimum damage is down to root structures.
>Just before you transplant out let the vermiculite dry out a little bit and
>you will find that the seedlings come out nice, make transplanting a lot
>easier.
>Paul
>
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