Every novice gardener who decided to grow their own seedlings, at first faces difficulties. Among these “seedlings” of common problems that beginners worried about excessive stretching. An unpleasant picture when seedlings form excessively long internodes on an abnormally thin stem. What is the reason for this and how to improve the health of the elongated seedlings?
The reasons for pulling
If you see this phenomenon, it’s time to sound the alarm – the plants do not like your home! And if you do not take any action, green guests are unlikely to want to thank you in the future a good harvest or lush flowering (when it comes to flower crops). But before you rush to please green Pets, let’s see what exactly is the cause of their discontent.
Failure to meet boarding deadlines
“Scientists minds” not for nothing impose us a certain age of seedlings, in which it should be planted in the open ground or greenhouse. And no matter how much we would like to serve fresh cucumbers and tomatoes of our own production to the table early, the biological rhythms of plants can not be fooled. With this often do not want to be considered novice gardeners and sow seeds for seedlings too early.
But when the seedlings reach the same age and begin to ask for “freedom”, outside the window still continue to pour cold rains and blowing a piercing wind. As a result, the seedlings continue to suffer in a close container on the windowsill and stretch out strongly. A cottager is the earlier crop gets exhausted goners, after that kind of hospitality normally refuse to bloom and bear fruit.
Lack of light
The most common cause of pulling seedlings — their lack of illumination. The right amount of sunlight in the first place receives less seedlings planted before the due date. But those plants that were planted in the appropriate period, may face with light deficiency.
After all, even in April, not to mention February and March, daylight is not long enough, and the window is often set cloudy weather.
Unsuitable temperature conditions
Inexperienced summer residents – for the most part Terry selfish, forgetting that green guests living on the windowsill, it is necessary to provide very different temperature conditions than those in which it is pleasant to be the owners of the house. Therefore, if you decide to grow seedlings yourself, you will have to or with it freeze in one room (comfortable for seedlings temperature +15…+18°C), or provide her with a separate room with a permanently (or periodically) open window.
And if you think that this seedling should adjust to you and tolerate the heat from the flaming radiator, then you are very wrong – the plants in an excessively warm room will inevitably stretch out.
Overwetting
Naturally, at elevated air temperature, the soil in the seedling container dries much faster, and the owner, often without realizing it, provides another service to the seedlings – watering them almost every day. In such tropical conditions, the plants become like vines: without bothering to build up the root system and the search for moisture in the soil substrate, direct incoming “on a silver platter” moisture and nutrients to the formation of absurdly long land shoots.
Wrong feeding mode
And if such a complex is added to the wrong mode of feeding, then it is not necessary to talk about stocky seedlings. Often an inexperienced gardener, guided exclusively by good intentions, too often and inappropriately treats his green guests with various “delicacies”, increasing the optimal multiplicity of feedings and not observing their sequence. After all, for example, at the initial stage of seedling growth, emphasis should be placed on phosphorus and potassium, which contribute to the formation of the root system. Overfed seedlings, as well as stuffed with inappropriate fertilizers, form long and thin shoots.
Close planting
Seedlings can be stretched not only from an overabundance of nutrients, but also from their lack. Most often, this problem lies in wait for seedlings growing in a close box-they simply do not have enough “building material” to form strong stocky stems.
Excessively thickened planting makes plants literally fight for a place under the sun – seedlings do not have enough not only food, but also light. In such conditions, the plants are formed unnecessarily thin stems and long internodes to break out of the “crowd” and grab his crown missing sunlight.
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