You can easily get confused, choose unsuitable or poor-quality soil for seedlings, since the market now has a lot of ready-made soil mixtures of domestic, foreign production. You can buy, alas, even an obvious fake - businessmen do not let up in search of quick money. Each of us at least once bought a substrate for growing seedlings of vegetable and flower crops. Therefore, knowledge, attentiveness when buying soil mixtures are very useful.
What is the soil for growing seedlings
Finished soils (soil mixtures) are divided into:
- professional - with various additives, moisture accumulators and other components important for facilitating labor;
- amateur - as a rule, the packaging is small so that it is convenient to transplant plants at home.
- substrates for rare and ornamental crops.
If you have more than one greenhouse, it is time to use professional forms of substrate for seedlings (packaging volume from 150 l).
For seedlings of flowers of one species, you can do with a specialized substrate for a particular culture.
If you intend to grow several types of flowers, it is better to choose a universal professional.
Well, if you like to simply decorate your house with plants, buy a substrate for lovers, packaged in 1-5 liters.
Soils for home plants are much cheaper than “pros” or seasoned “generalists”.
In addition, there is a category of soil mixtures and fillers, which are intended for professionals who know a lot about the formation of soil composition. This option is much cheaper, but such a product is often infected with harmful organisms or is not sustained by fraction. At a minimum, you will have to pour boiling water over the soil mixture (if it is plain sand) or treat it with a disinfecting solution.
High-quality ingredients that have undergone heat treatment or other cleaning operations, usually sold in large packs, are much more expensive. Therefore, lovers of taking them is unprofitable.
If you need very little soil mixture, it is advisable to take a ready-made substrate, seasoned with all the necessary components. Then you will save a lot of time: you just need to open the package and fill the desired capacity with the contents. It is even more beneficial to use a ready-made substrate if large volumes of soil mix are needed.
The composition of the soil for seedlings - what it consists of
Soil for seedlings - which one to choose? Qualitative substrates consist of two groups of components:
- serve to form the structure of the mixture, consist of peat, sand, bark, gravel, expanded clay, shavings and other products that are not of nutritional value for the plant;
- designed to create the plant’s nutritional base, include organic low-lying peat, mineral NPK supplements, trace elements, humic substances (humus), amino acids and other organics.
Some soil components have a dual purpose.
For example, coconut fiber, which can often be found. Manufacturers of imported or domestic products often use it. On the one hand, it is elastic, persists for a long time, forms favorable conditions for gas exchange in the soil mixture, and on the other hand, it is able to hold moisture well on its surface, since it has a tension effect.
For seedlings, the presence of such an element will be only a plus: the soil retains moisture longer, which reduces the number of irrigation, therefore, save labor costs.
As accumulators of moisture and structural component, substrates with the addition of hydrogel have been developed.
When choosing a soil substrate, the composition of which includes wood shavings, be especially careful: this is a very ambiguous element. Of course, it holds the structure well, but some tree species become very sap if the mixture is very wet, which leads to acidification of the soil. This happens especially quickly if the chip fraction is very small.
When choosing finished soils, carefully study its composition. It should be indicated on the label, as some substrates are good for orchids, but not at all suitable for tomatoes.
Another important group of soil composition for seedlings is regulatory substances. The most famous of them is lime. It is needed to regulate the acidity of artificial soil.
The best soils for seedlings - the criteria for choosing soil mixtures
Cheap substrates are not uniform, may contain wood, stones and even garbage.
High-quality substrate is fractionally aligned, thoroughly mixed. During its manufacture, the formulation was observed, the final product was controlled, both in quality and in weight.
Of great importance is the size of the soil fraction (substrate). If it is too small, it is fraught with acidification of the soil, and if it is too large - with ultra-fast evaporation of moisture, incomplete filling of the cassette when sowing seeds. Both cases can lead to cost overruns or even seedlings death.
It is necessary to choose a substrate with a fraction of 3-4 mm for the largest components. This will provide an air-permeable structure for oxygen access to the roots, while there will be enough space for the roots to “braid” the entire lump of soil mixture inside the container with seedlings.
Both imported and domestic soils, soil mixtures for seedlings are presented on the Russian market.
The main difference between imported - high cost, which is offset by quality. The price of Russian products is much lower, and with regard to quality, many domestic manufacturers have long learned how to produce a decent product. If we compare high-quality domestic and imported substrates, then the Russian will be cheaper than the imported counterpart.
R. Ivashchenko