Pepper - plant heat and light-loving. The optimum temperature for planting and growing peppers for seedlings is from 23 to 25 ° C. The optimal time for planting seeds is mid-February. And by May, by the time of landing in open ground, the plant will be quite formed.
To grow good seedlings of pepper is not an easy task. This culture will take time and care. In order for the seedlings to sprout in unison, and the harvest of pepper pleased the gardener, you need to know a few rules.
Today we’ll find out after how much pepper grows on the seedlings, why cann’t the seedlings grow and why does the seedlings grow poorly?
Pre-planting and landing
Pepper seeds are sown in the prepared mixture, which should be light and not acidified. You can make a small amount of ash. Pepper seedlings hard and painful to pick. Damage to the root system, which inevitably occurs during a picking, slows the growth of the plant by 10–20 days, which does not allow for the subsequent early harvest.
Before sowing seeds can be soaked for 6-7 hours in a pink solution of potassium permanganate, better known as potassium permanganate. This will make future plants more resistant to diseases.
After that, you need to leave the seeds in a wet, but not wet napkin before pecking. Usually this period does not exceed 2-3 days. This will allow discarding spoiled and weak seeds. Read more about seed preparation before planting.
Soil before planting must be carefully watered, it is very convenient to do this with a spray gun or a medical pear. Planting seeds in the ground is made to a depth of 1.5-2 cm. After planting, the container or cups with future seedlings must be covered with a film to create the greenhouse effect and put in a warm place to germinate.
First shoots
Here we answer the following questions: how many days do the seeds of pepper sprout on the seedlings, what should not be done with young shoots?
If done correctly, then in 6-15 days, depending on the variety of pepper, the first shoots may please the gardener's eye. The earliest peeling seedlings at the earliest dates is a loop of a plant stalk. Cotyledon leaves appear a little later.
Very often, on a plant that has sprung up, there is a seed coat on the tips of the cotyledon leaves, which the not very experienced gardeners are trying to remove on their own. It is not necessary to do this, as the plant grows, it will cope on its own, but it is very easy to damage it during intervention.
Pepper shoots may be friendly, but this does not always happen. Usually 15 days is enough for all the seeds to come up..
Even if during the spitting of the seedlings she was not in a lighted place, it's time to move her there. Now the plant will need intensive lighting.
Caring for sprouted sprouts
Subsequent care of the seedlings consists in watering and adjusting the level of illumination. The importance of both cannot be overestimated; only the provision of these two factors will affect the quality of both seedlings and the yield of plants in the future.
When to remove the film from the seedlings of pepper? Immediately after the first seeds were hatched, the film that creates the greenhouse effect in our seedling container needs to be removed for a while so that the plant is ventilated. At first it will be a few minutes, and as the plant grows, this period should lengthen. So the plant will get used to normal growth conditions.
It is necessary to carefully control the soil moisture, pepper loves moisture, but waterlogging can be as destructive for it as drying the soil.
When growing seedlings of pepper it is necessary to take into account the peculiarity of the culture. It consists in the fact that pepper is a plant of a short daylight, and intensive illumination will be optimal for a culture, while its duration should be no more than 10-12 hours.
Why not growing seedlings of peppers?
It often happens that even with the visible observance of all the rules when planting seeds, the seedlings did not sprout. There are several reasons for this:
- Poor seed quality. Sowing material of this culture is poorly germinating. Do not buy seeds "in reserve", even if you really liked one of the varieties.
- Improper preparation of soil mixture. The soil is sour or too heavy for gentle shoots.
- Too abundant watering after planting the seeds of pepper, they can mechanically fall below the set level of planting and the plants will not be able to germinate.
- Drying the soil mixture, even sticking seeds can die with a lack of moisture.
- Non-observance of temperature. A common mistake of novice gardeners is placing a container with shoots on heating radiators. At the same time, the temperature in the soil mixture can reach 33-35 ° C, with high humidity and lack of ventilation the seeds are doomed to perish - the seedlings disappear.
Poor seedlings growing pepper? What to do?
The seeds hatch and grow, but something went wrong, the growth of the seedlings slowed down, the green color loses its intensity or the plant dies.
Unfortunately, it also happens. The reason lies in the mistakes made in the care of young plants.
Why pepper seedlings do not develop:
- Irrigation Disruption. The root system of pepper does not tolerate even a hint of drying. Waterlogging of the soil threatens with yet another danger - the blackleg, a disease to which practically any seedlings of vegetable crops and flowers are prone. The diseased plant will die.
- Insufficient light intensity may cause the seedlings to be pulled out. And, if there is a gloomy weather outside and the sun does not indulge in its appearance, a fitolamp will come to the rescue of the gardener, which will help to avoid a lack of lighting.
- Wrong plant nutrition. The situation can be remedied with the help of fertilizing with potassium humate or "Agricola-Forward", diluted in water according to the instructions.
Observing all the simple rules of planting seeds of pepper and caring for young plants, you can get great seedlings and, in due time, get a good harvest!
Useful materials
Read other articles on pepper seedlings:
- Proper cultivation of seeds and whether to soak them before planting?
- How to grow black pepper peas, chili, bitter or sweet at home?
- What are growth promoters and how to use them?
- The main reasons why the leaves are twisted at the shoots, the seedlings fall or stretch.
- Terms of planting in the regions of Russia and especially the cultivation in the Urals, Siberia and Moscow region.
- Learn yeast based fertilizer recipes.
