Germination for Hydroponic growth

[spike spiegel]

i purchased peat pellets to start the seeds off, and I'm beggining to wonder if they will be able to even be used for the medium i am using , clay balls if you will.. lol. so my question is, what is the best way to start seeds off if im going to need to plant them in this specific medium? have i wasted time or money with these ferry-morse.co peat pellets?

[PharmaPharmer]

i purchased peat pellets to start the seeds off, and I'm beggining to wonder if they will be able to even be used for the medium i am using , clay balls if you will.. lol. so my question is, what is the best way to start seeds off if im going to need to plant them in this specific medium? have i wasted time or money with these ferry-morse.co peat pellets?


I'd go with rock wool or rapid rooter plugs. Peat pellets tend to break down and clog up the works.

[spike spiegel]

thank you pharma!! :)

[salmayo]

Pete (Peat sp?) Pellets tend to be acidic and after having less and less success with them over time, I now just use what's left of mine for less critical seed sprouting, just to use them up.

I think Rapid Rooter plugs are the safest choice off the shelf and people all seem to have good results with them. But, I haven't gotten any to try myself, since I have sort of a self sufficiency what you can do with what available thing.

Which hasn't stopped me from using RockWool for 20 years doing hydro. I had hoped I could just use Peat Pellets, but they just don't work for me and I highly suspect they are more acidic than the original "Jiffy 7" pellets that first came out. So I'm hooked on RockWool.

RockWool should be pre-soaked in 5.0 to 5.5 pH solution overnight, because the raw material is alkalin. Once pre-soaked and rinced in fresh solution, they are compatable with all media. I've started seeds and cuttings in RockWool cubes and grown them out in everything from soil, gravel, expanded clay hydro pellets and various soilless mixtures. I even grew a plant from a RockWool cube put in a pot of styrofoam, just to see if I could, and harvested a decent plant. I'd have to say prepped RockWool will work with anykind of soil/media, just make sure to pre-soak treat it first.

Many of the better grades of RockWool are pretreated to pH adjust them, but since the pre-soak is easy and can't hurt, I alwasy do it, just to be safe.

[spike spiegel]

thank you both for the help, this has proven to be a very informative site and im glad to be here!! :)