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Soaking seeds in Saltpeter

10 years ago

Has anyone used Saltpeter... Kno3 for soaking seeds and if so did you notice any improvement with germination rate? I am wondering if its worth a try for those seeds that take forever to germinate like the Wild variety?

TY.

Comments (9)

  • 10 years ago

    Thanks for letting me know.Did you find it on line ?I was reading up on G3 .I acquired quite a few pepper seeds that take forever to germinate," the wild "varieties.I was able to germinate some with soaking in h2o2 (hyd peroxide dilute) ,but these new ones are harder to crack:)

    I may buy some,won't hurt to give it a try.

    Thanks again.

  • 10 years ago

    Actually I was informed about the product from a customer who buys started plants from me. He called to request additional hot pepper plants that were available from a seed supplier, Seeds n Such . I told him my concern about poor germination and he agreed to pay for the seed starter mix packets. This is a new challenge for me since I normally expect 90% or higher germination with tomatoes and sweet peppers. Some of these hot peppers are labeled to only have 50-60% germ. so this is a weird feeling.

  • 10 years ago

    Do you mind sharing the name of the product you are using?

    I would love to try it if you don't mind! Thanks.

  • 10 years ago
    last modified: 10 years ago

    If the germ rate is only 50%, a vendor prices the resulting plants accordingly. That is, they cost a bit more than "easy" kinds.

  • 10 years ago

    The product is called "Super-hot pepper seed starter" from Seeds 'n Such, Graniteville, S.C. You can order online as I did.

    Jean, I guess I could charge more due to poor germination but this customer has ordered almost 2000 tomato and pepper plants for this spring and prepaid for 10 packs of the starter mix when I really only needed one so I'm willing to put a little more into extra seeds and a lot of effort into planting. Even if the mix helps with germination planting wet seeds is my biggest complaint. I used a sprayer to seperately wash them off a tapered tray as well as I could and then still used a tweezer to separate clusters of seeds. The planting routine took 10 times as long as my normal dry seeding routine. I'm curious what method others use for seeding presoaked seeds?

    User thanked Barrie, (Central PA, zone 6a)
  • 10 years ago

    Thanks Barrie2m for the info.,I will look into it.

    Appreciate !

  • 10 years ago

    As of today, 18 days after seeing soaked seeds, I'm not ready to endorse this method. For Trinidad Moruga Scorpion and Golden Ghost peppers my % plants up is about 10 (very very poor). I sewed a few Choc. and reg. Habanero seeds with and w/o soaking and germination rates are about equal for those. Soaking does not seem to have done any harm but my suspicion is that if normal germination is bad then soaking in this mix won't really do much.

  • 10 years ago
    last modified: 10 years ago

    I have only one time had any real trouble germinating seeds simply by putting them in damp potting soil. The only time I had a problem was with some Black Pearl seeds. I planted about a dozen and NONE sprouted. My other varieties sprouted fine but none of the BPs. I have to attribute that to bad seed but I got the seed from a trusted source who said they successfully sprouted several plants from the same seed batch. So, unless something happened to the seed in transit, I have no idea what the problem was there. But in 5 plus years of starting peppers from seed, putting them straight into a decent potting soil 1/8" to 1/4" deep and keeping it moist (not soaked), between 80 and 85 degrees and covered until they sprout, gets me 9/10 or better rate in seed germination across all varieties. And for the most part, if a pepper seed doesn't germinate with 9 or 10 days, I move on unless they are a variety that is known to be slow to germinate.

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