How to germinate cucumber seeds before planting

Cucumber cultivation begins with seed selection. After that, you need to know how to sprout the seeds of cucumbers.

When to start germination

Germination is fast enough: from 2 to 10 days. Continue Before planting, you must make sure that the air temperature at night does not drop below 7 ° C.

If you plan to plant cucumbers in a greenhouse or on a windowsill, you can start to germinate in the second half April or early May. The air temperature at this time will be optimal for planting the plant in the ground. If seedlings go directly to the open ground, it is important that the temperature does not fall below 15 ° C.

Seed Selection

The first rule for proper selection is to collect seeds of healthy plants, not affected by disease. If there are none, it is better to buy them in garden stores.

When selecting seeds, the following principles must be observed:

1. Pay attention to the stalk.It should not be green.
2. It is important to select grains from female type cucumbers (four-chamber). They will give a larger crop.
3. Dry the grains in the sun for 3 days. Before planting, they must be completely dry.

Seeds must be dense and full. Empty and flat grains will not germinate.

A 3-5% saline solution can be used for sorting. For 100 g of water, 3-5 g of salt will be needed. It is necessary to immerse the grains in saline. Those that pop up empty can be thrown away. Grains that remain at the bottom can be germinated. 5-year-old grains for planting are no longer suitable. There will be low productivity.

Sterilization

Usually all plant diseases are transmitted along with the seeds. Therefore, it is important to carry out the sterilization procedure.

Grains purchased at the store do not need sterilization. Producers have already taken all measures to prepare the seeds for germination. They can be planted safely.

But if the grains are harvested on their own, they may leave traces of pathogens and various diseases. Therefore, they must be sterilized and warmed if necessary.

Sterilization will be correct if you follow the following principles:

1. Take a 1% solution of potassium permanganate.
2. Submerge the seeds there .
3. The water in the solution should be warm enough at about 20-26 ° C.
4. Keep the grains in the solution for 15-20 minutes. Then rinse them with running water.
5. Sterilization is complete.

Another way to sterilize is warming up. To do this, immerse the grains in warm water. The temperature should be around 50 ° C. The duration of the dive is 20-30 minutes. This will be enough to get rid of viruses or fungus left on the seeds.

Quenching

It is needed if you plan to plant seedlings directly in open ground. Because the air temperature will be low, and the plant should be adapted to weather conditions. If it is already a fairly warm season or the plant grows in a greenhouse, hardening is not needed.

They begin to harden the cucumbers on the first day after placing them in a container for germination. The container is placed in a refrigerator with a temperature of 4-6 ° C for 12 hours, or at night, so that the plant gets used to the cold temperature. This is done for several days until the seeds germinate.

Before soaking, some gardeners spread the grains in the snow for 1-2 days. In this case, it is important that they do not hatch.

Seed spouting

Spouting is an additional procedure that helps to sprout seedlings. The essence of the procedure is the saturation of seeds with oxygen, which very well affects the overall germination.

For sparging, you must have a regular aquarium compressor and a capacity of 0.5-0.7 liters. It can be an ordinary glass jar.Procedure:

1. Pour water into a jar on a ¾ container.
2. Pour a small amount of grain into the water. They should float freely in the can.
3. The compressor tip must be lowered to the bottom of the can and turned on.
4. Processing cucumber grains in this way takes about 18 hours.
5. After sparging seeds are dried.

This procedure will increase germination to 100%. It guarantees quick germination of seeds within 3-7 days.

Methods of germination

Usually small containers with a height of 1 to 15 cm are used for germination. The choice depends on Under what conditions will the process of preparing seedlings for transplantation into the ground take place. There are several methods of seed germination.

Method No. 1

The main method of germinating cucumber seeds is in ordinary plates. You can also use pallets for indoor plants (height 1-2 cm.)

First you need to place the grains in plates or pallets between wet cotton pads. Keep until the seeds hatch. As containers, you can use plastic bottles cut across.

The required amount of water is a few drops per disk. It is important that the cotton pads are not dry.

The material is impregnated with a solution of nutrients. It can be branded growth stimulants. Another option is wood ash solutions. For 1 liter of water you need 1 teaspoon of ash.

Ready seedlings can be planted in the ground

After the seeds swell and germinate, they can be moved to plastic cups with earth. In them, the grains will germinate to the size of seedlings. After that, they can be planted in the ground or in the greenhouse before harvesting.

The main disadvantage of this method is inconvenient transportation. This is important if you need to transport grain to the country. Plates with sprouted grains are inconvenient for packaging, hatching sprouts can break. Plastic cups with earth are heavy and may wrinkle on the road.

Method No. 2

You can sprout cucumbers immediately in plastic cups. Another option is in glass jars with thick glass, if there is a fear of damaging the grown plant.

Cotton pads, gauze or napkins are also placed on the bottom of the glass or jar. The seeds are placed in them. Regardless of the material, it should also be moist, not dry and without excess water.

With this type of germination, seeds can grow 1-2 weeks faster. The dimensions of the cup or jar will not allow the plant to wrinkle during transportation.

Method No. 3

With large volumes, you can plant cucumbers in long boxes with sawdust. Sawdust should be taken small in the place where only the original wood is sawed. Sawdust mixtures will not work. Becausethey may contain glue, which is harmful not only to plants, but also to people.

Sawdust operation scheme:

1. Sterilize the sawdust by pouring boiling water over them 2-3 times.
2. Take the wooden crates and lay the drainage layer.
3. Lay the sawdust layer on the drainage. The width of the layer should be about 10 cm. Sawdust should be moist, but not float in water.
4. On the sawdust you need to lay out the pre-treated seeds. The optimum distance between them is 3-5 cm.
5. Lay another layer of sawdust and moisten them.
6. Cover with a film. The film will help maintain moisture and warmth.
7. After the appearance of the shoots, after a couple of days, the film can be removed.

In the future, when 3-4 leaves appear, the shoots need will be transplanted into the ground for further cultivation. Already being sprouted, plants are pulled out of sawdust more easily than from any other soil. The probability of their damage is much lower.

You can try to plant dry seeds directly into the ground. But this does not eliminate preparatory selection and sterilization procedures. Remember that when planting in the soil, you must wait for the appropriate temperature of the air (not lower than 14-15 ° C) and soil (not lower than 12 ° C).

Choose the method of germination

For the first time gardeners are advised to conduct an experiment. This will help you learn how to properly germinate the seeds of cucumber bushes in a particular case. The goal will be convinced of the effectiveness of one method or another.To do this, you need to try to germinate the same grains of cucumbers with all 3 options.

You need to determine in advance the amount of seeds for a particular method. You need to fix the start time of the procedure in a special summary. It is also necessary to record the beginning and results of other parameters.

To start this about there can be up to 10 seeds in each variant.For germination in a plate with cotton pads, in plastic cups with a napkin, you need up to 30 grains. Additionally, you can plant 10 dry seeds directly into the ground and the same amount into a plastic bottle with several layers of toilet paper folded.

Conclusion

Now you know how to sprout the seeds of cucumbers . This process is not particularly complicated. First, you can try different options and choose the most convenient, effective.

First of all, select high-quality grains. They should not be dry, empty and damaged.After that, sterilize and start germinating the seeds of the cucumbers.