Often in the literature, you can see the recommendation to treat the seeds before planting with any growth stimulant. According to the producers, these solutions are simply magical - the seeds hatch quickly, the plants bloom earlier, the harvest will be the same as it has never been before. In this article, I propose to discuss the effectiveness of stimulants and their benefits for plants.
In stores for summer residents and gardeners, a wide range of various growth stimulants, both Russian and imported, is presented. If you look at the composition, you can see that some preparations are completely natural, while others consist of phytohormones - chemical substitutes. I decided to take a few sachets and test them in practice. I'll tell you what came of it.
The essence of the experiment
I brought 10 bags home from the store: eight of them are well-known and often used by gardeners and two folk remedies - aloe juice and flower honey. I decided to process tomato seeds with them. It seems to me that it is the easiest way to check the germination rate on them. For the purity of the experiment, I took seeds of different varieties and different manufacturers. I poured the grains into one container and mixed. He divided the whole mass into 11 parts, one of which he did not process with anything. So it will be possible to understand how much stimulants have actively influenced the seeds.
Step 1 - Soaking the Seeds
Before processing with stimulants, it is imperative to soak the seeds in warm water for an hour and a half. During this time, they will swell and will not absorb the excess amount of the stimulant. I soaked the eleventh batch, then drained the water and wrapped the seeds in a damp cloth (you can use a napkin) to keep them from drying out while the others are being processed.
Step 2 - Preparation of solutions with different growth stimulants
I scattered all the other seeds in 10 cups, on which I had previously pasted pieces of paper with the name of the drug. We prepared our own solution in each glass. They did everything as indicated by the manufacturer on the package. As a result, the seeds were processed from 2 hours to a day.
To prepare a stimulant from aloe leaf, you need to cut off a part of the plant in advance and put it in the refrigerator for 7-10 days. After this time, growth hormone will appear in the leaf. Squeeze the juice and dilute one to one with water. A solution of honey is made in the same proportion. We keep the seeds in natural stimulants for about 120 hours.
Which stimulant is more convenient to use?
The most convenient is water. Joke. In fact, some solutions were not easy to make in the required concentration. For example, the "Immunocytofit" tablet is designed to process five grams, which is 300 seeds. Naturally, such an amount is hardly necessary for an ordinary gardener. I had to break off a crumb from a rather hard tablet and dissolve it in water. It turned out to be much more pleasant to work with liquid stimulants. Here you can drop a drop and remove the bottle until the next use. As a result, the most convenient preparations are Ecosil and Energen.
Step 3 - sowing seeds
We sowed the treated seeds in separate containers of 10 pieces to monitor their germination. Then all the cups were placed on a stand by the battery and covered with cling film.
Step 4 - Result and Conclusions
After about three days, the first shoots appeared in the cups. It is surprising that seeds soaked in ordinary water sprout at the same time. On average, from 5 to 9 seeds hatched in all cups. It turns out that only a few drugs gave the 80% germination rate promised by the manufacturer. However, the same was also with the seeds from the water. Perhaps this is an accident. But this is my experience. And you decide for yourself - you need to spend money on such drugs or you can get by with high-quality seeds and water.
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