Well, I had a heck of a time starting peppers this year. I lost most of two 72-cell trays in a row to fungus gnat larva. These evil things eat their way right into pepper seeds. I found multiple seeds with larva eating the emerging root tip, their squirming bodies poking halfway out the seeds. Ugh. The source was a bad bag of compost that I also used to top off a bunch of containers, and they must have laid eggs in my seed-starting mix as well. Needless to say, I have been using Bti with every watering.
My round one and two survivors total 29 pepper plants out of 144 expected. Interesting that every Doe Hill plant has developed a bifurcated stem, as if it were topped. I don't recall that happening last year. I did leave the seedlings in the small cell packs a week longer than I should have, because I didn't understand the low germination despite a heat mat.
Next year I will start all pepper and tomato seeds in 36 cell trays instead of 72, to have a longer window for transplant. It's late but I'm going to start more Aji Amarillo and Aji Chinche Amarillo, since not a single one survived the larva.
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