I grow chunky tomato seedlings every year, which then yield a crop without fail. "Doesn't it work for me"? 4 rules will help
Flaming fireworks, fellow gardeners!
Today on the agenda are the covenants of stockiness of seedlings. Do you want to get "heroic" tomatoes? Grow them like this from the very beginning, when the seed is thrown into the ground. It is at a tender age that the plant's potential for the season is laid. I consider it my duty to warn that no one has canceled genetics either: therefore, it is better to overpay 30 rubles for a bag of seeds than to miss it, but "cheaper".
Heat is a thin seedling. Low temperature - "heroic"
Let's go from the very beginning. One of the main conditions that turns a potentially powerful plant into a worm is high temperature. Heat at the first stage is needed ONLY for seed germination. Therefore, as soon as the first sprouts appeared, remove the film or glass from the containers / jars / bottles! Inside the greenhouse there is a bathhouse that leaves no chance to get a strong stem, but invites a godless black leg to visit.
If possible, move the container / jar / bottle to a cooler place: 14-17 ° C or just closer to the window glass. A young tomato will stop growing tops and switch to the roots. In a cool link, tomato seedlings are kept for about 10 days. Then they are allowed to enter the room.
Bright light is the key to success
The second "destroyer" of seedlings, pulling its thin trunk upwards, is a lack of light. Even on the March window sills in the Middle Lane, it is not that very little, but not enough. Tomatoes are very fond of bright light. In addition, a tomato is not a pepper that prefers short daylight hours. Strong seedlings grow with 16 hours of bright rays.
I highly recommend getting a backlight lamp, comrades. The more power, the better. But even a weak LED lamp will do its bit by increasing at least the duration of daylight hours. An extreme case is the sunniest window sill and sowing in the second half of March (choose early varieties to catch up).
Proper nutrition
Yes, the tomato is definitely that gluttonous plant that loves to eat. But do not overwhelm him with nitrogen and organic fertilizing: there is nothing worse than fattening seedlings. It will be difficult to set her on the right path. Having set a course for growing a stem, a tomato seedling is unlikely to want to return to the right path and begin to grow up. And with a lack of light and high temperatures by summer, the careless gardener gets weak overgrowths, not quite ready for transplanting and not thinking for some reason to bear fruit.
The only nitrogen fertilizer that the seedlings will be happy with is calcium nitrate 10 days after the pick. Then comes the turn of complex mineral fertilizers, in which nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium were put in the same (well, at least approximately!) Amounts.
If tomato seedlings are still stretched out ...
It happens! Comrade, do not leave the stretched tomatoes to their fate. You can now try targeting the seedlings for root growth and stem thickening.
Transplant the unfortunate man into a large container so that the senor of the tomato has a place to grow roots. Treat with "Athlete" - a growth regulator that makes the seedlings stocky. With a high degree of probability, the stretching of the stem will stop, and the plant will get stronger.
Growing your own tomatoes and was this article helpful? Put "Thumbs up" in response, comrade! I also recommend reading:
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