Damping off: Pretreating germination mix with hydrogen peroxide
 

Folks, I set up a tray using Black Gold germination mix for the first time, and my kale and collards were eaten up with damping off. I watered with an ounce of hydrogen peroxide in a quart of water, and that saved about half of the seedlings.



Before I try again, I wanted to ask if it would be useful to pre-treat the germination mix with the hydrogen peroxide mix BEFORE I plant the seeds to discourage damping off. What do you think?

Pre-treating potting mix to reduce Damping Off works very well for my tomatoes.
The condition has been reduced to almost zero for many years.
Other growers here on Tomatoville recommend a ratio of:
10 parts water to 1 part hydrogen peroxide (3% USP).

Norval

I pre treat a 72 cell flat with 3% Sat. the day before starting the seeds Sun.

I just use DE for germinating all seeds that are prone to damping off. Since it has no fertilizer value adding fertilizer soon after sprouting is a must. Even with DE if I allow the DE to remain too damp for too long I can still have damping off problems but they are the exception now rather than the norm. Down here damping off is just in the air and almost impossible to avoid totally but using a sterile starting medium that is not kept too wet is the most important step in avoiding it. Keeping the air moving and plenty of light are also factors that help.

Bill

By pretreating, do you mean misting the top with the solution, or soaking the whole trayful of germination mix? Thanks!

I just squirted some in each cell after soaking the tray in water and draining, not scientific or measured or anything.Probably 1/2 to 3/4 cup total over 72x 1 inch cells Planted seeds the next day. Used to dust with cinnamon after planting seeds but like this better, less mess, no crust at the top of the mix like with cinnamon, and it seems to work as well or better.


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I apologize for my ignorance, but what's DE? I tried to look it up on the thread "A glossary to commonly used tomato culture abbreviations" but to no avail. Mischka and Carolyn have recommended the straightforward approach: asking directly. And that's what I am doing.

Milan HP

[I]Diatomaceous earth[/I]

Thanks. I apologize. I am a foreign language native speaker. It should have occurred to me.
Milan HP

I don't know what the term in Czech is, either!

Daylily breeders use the Deno method with hydrogen peroxide water to add oxygen to the germination bag. I've done it booth ways with no notice of any difference in growth.
I've been growing out some hosta babies from seed and watered once with dilute H2O2 to kill fungus gnats (I also have mosquito bits in my arsenal) and the tray I repotted look great. Not sure of it was beneficial to the growing of the plant but the fungus gnats are a constant battle this year. It can't hurt from my experiments. Not the magic pill though.

- Lisa

The method I use is similar to Decherdt's above. A 72 cell 1020 tray is filled with potting mix.
The P-mix is heavily sprayed with the Water/HP solution so the entire cell is quite moist.
One tomato seed is dropped in the center of each P-mix cell immediately and pushed down
to a depth of about 1/8 inch. Another light spray fills the seed hole. This works well for me.
Damping Off is almost zero.

Norval