Viewing post #1914017 by ZenMan

You are viewing a single post made by ZenMan in the thread called Seed Starting.
Avatar for ZenMan
Feb 21, 2019 5:08 PM CST
Name: ZenMan
Kansas (Zone 5b)
Kansas 5b
Annuals Enjoys or suffers cold winters Region: United States of America Seed Starter Keeper of Poultry Hybridizer
Hummingbirder Dragonflies Garden Photography Butterflies Zinnias Garden Ideas: Level 2
Hi Mary,

" Had a bad time with a brand of seeds last year. Any seeds that are large enough to see (ha), I sometimes give a quick soak in peroxide water before planting. Seems to work well even in older seeds. "

I don't know about all seeds, but I think most, if not all, commercial zinnia seeds have been heat treated to kill diseases on the seeds. It's tricky doing a heat treatment without killing the seed, but they carefully control the temperature and the duration of the treatment to get the job done. These are some of my current indoor zinnia seedlings.
Thumb of 2019-02-21/ZenMan/49c4cc
I planted some more zinnia seeds today. I have been told that you should, as a rule of thumb, consider all seeds that you save yourself as contaminated with disease. And that you should treat your saved seeds to disinfect them. I would never attempt the heat treatment -- I would just end up cooking my special breeder zinnia seeds. But I do use either Peroxide or Physan 20 on my zinnia seeds, in the planting medium, to treat my own seeds. If I forget, usually a quick seedling death from Damping Off reminds me that I forgot.

ZM
I tip my hat to you.

« Return to the thread "Seed Starting"
« Return to Seeds forum
« Return to the Garden.org homepage

Member Login:

( No account? Join now! )

Today's site banner is by Murky and is called "Cardinal Climber"

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.