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It is currently difficult to imagine a flowerbed or backyard without blooming petunia. In recent years, a real petunia boom has begun - everyone is growing it, even those who previously treated them with distrust. After all, modern varieties, in addition to alluring beauty, also have unpretentiousness in cultivation. And grow petunia seedlings independently is also no longer some kind of super task, which was previously scary to even dream about. And it’s good if everything worked out right from the very first time. And the seeds sprouted easily and quickly, and the sprouts were strong and healthy, and the leaves opened one after another.
But if the seedlings are barely visible, and have been sitting in the ground for several weeks, they have stretched out, but there is no or almost no progress. Then the thought gradually comes to mind about how to feed the petunia so that it finally begins to grow and develop. This is where it turns out that not everything is as simple as we would like. Before you grab the first fertilizer that comes to hand and pour it on the unfortunate plants, you first need to find out what is happening to the petunias.
Basic requirements of petunia at the time of germination
Perhaps in first place among all petunia care requirements is light.Illumination should be as high as possible and around the clock, from the moment the first shoots of petunia appear. It is thanks to this that the sprouts do not stretch out and grow strong and squat. Two weeks after emergence, the lights can be turned off at night, but petunia seedlings need 14 hours of daylight for another one to two months until they bloom.
The second, important factor that must be taken into account in order for the seedlings, on the one hand, not to stretch out, and on the other hand, to develop quickly and well, is the temperature, which should be slightly lowered after germination, but to certain limits.
In third place is sufficient moisture content of both soil and air, which is easily achieved not by watering (it’s so easy to get a surprise in the form of a “black leg”), but by creating mini-greenhouse conditions at the first stage of growth, when seedlings grow and develop under a transparent cover or a plastic bag. At the same time, regular daily ventilation of this mini-greenhouse is mandatory.
At the first stage of development, before the real leaves appear, which takes about two weeks, petunia seedlings do not need anything else. Failure to comply with any of the above requirements for care leads to the fact that petunia plants either freeze in growth, or, stretched into threads from lack of light, try to fall in different directions.
This procedure may look like feeding petunia seedlings and will help the plants overcome involuntary stress caused by less than ideal growing conditions.
It should also be taken into account that petunias are characterized by very, very slow growth of the above-ground part in the first month of life, as is the case with many plants with small seeds. It seems that they are not growing at all, but they are simply growing a root system that is not visible to the eye.
Why petunia seedlings may not grow
Before answering the question of how to feed petunia seedlings, you need to understand for what other reasons it may slow down its growth.
soil mixture
Often, when using unsuitable soil, various problems with growing petunia occur.
- For example, in acidic soil (pH 3-5.5) or alkaline soil (pH 7.5 and above), petunia roots will not be able to develop and the plants will soon die. For successful growing Petunia seedlings require a neutral or slightly acidic reaction of the soil mixture (pH from 5.5 - 7.5).
- In addition, loose, breathable, light soil is vital for petunia, especially in the initial stages of growth. Unfortunately, on sale there are often soils of very low quality, with a large amount of plant debris, heavy, and poorly permeable to water. They are completely unsuitable for petunias at the seedling stage; the roots in them will not be able to develop, and the seedlings will stop growing. When preparing an earthen mixture, it is better to guarantee that you take half of the standard store-bought soil, add ¼ of vermiculite to it for loosening, a little fine coconut fiber and vermicompost. If Earth dries out, turns to stone, and when watering the water stagnates on the surface, petunia seedlings urgently need to be transplanted into another soil.
- Another problem associated with unsatisfactory soil quality is its possible contamination with various pathogens, which can also cause a delay in the development of seedlings. To eliminate this point, it is necessary to spray both the soil and the seedlings themselves twice with a solution of phytosporin or gliocladin with an interval between treatments of 5-7 days.
Picking seedlings
The answer to the question of what you can feed petunia seedlings with before picking may turn out to be very simple - nothing. The best option would be to simply transplant it into a fresh, more nutritious mixture, or even better, into separate cups or pots and wait for its further development. When the roots have nowhere else to grow, this is the simplest reason for delayed seedling growth and fertilizer for petunias, of course, can help, but not for long. In a separate container, in fresh soil, the seedlings should quickly begin to grow.
Miracle - elixir
If you have ensured that all of the above conditions are met and have performed all possible operations, but the state of the petunia seedlings still causes you concern, you can try feeding it with ordinary “human” B vitamins.
Oddly enough, they often work better than many specialized herbal preparations.
To do this, dissolve one ampoule of each of these vitamins in one liter of warm water.If the sprouts are not yet two or three weeks old and they are very tiny, it is better to carefully apply a few drops to each seedling using a syringe or pipette. It is better to carefully spray older seedlings with the resulting solution from a spray bottle.
Try using these treatments once a week and soon you will definitely see results that will delight you.
The main period for feeding seedlings
Petunia is indeed a very insatiable plant, and for good growth and flowering it must be fertilized.
When choosing from the many fertilizers available today, what is the best way to feed petunia seedlings for good growth, you must first of all focus on the so-called liquid complex organic-mineral fertilizers. In stores, especially specialized ones, there is a very large selection of such fertilizers, the most popular of which are: Uniflor Rost, Agricola, Ideal, Effecton, Gumi Kuznetsova. They are very convenient for use at home, because a certain amount of them, according to the instructions, is simply dissolved in water and the petunia seedlings are watered with this solution.
You can also use water-soluble powder fertilizers, the choice of which is very large at present, but among professionals the most popular brands are: Kemira, Kristallon, Plantafol. Among the products of these companies, you can select fertilizers with very different percentages of basic macro and microelements.
For the very first feeding of petunia, it is necessary to choose fertilizers in which nitrogen would predominate in content, although phosphorus, which is responsible for the formation of a dense root system, will also not be superfluous at this stage. The third main macronutrient - potassium - is not yet in great demand, since its area of responsibility is the formation of buds, flowers and ovaries, and it will be needed in large quantities a little later. At the initial stage, there may be little of it in the composition. So, the approximate ratio of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium in the fertilizer should be 50% -40% -10%. The presence of mesonutrients such as calcium and iron in petunia fertilizer is highly desirable. And, of course, there should also be certain microelements.
What is the main feature when feeding petunia? The fact is that she really needs a lot of “food” for good growth and abundant flowering. But at the same time, she will like it much more often, but little by little, than rarely, and a lot. This means that it is necessary to make the concentration of the nutrient solution 3-4 times less than indicated in the instructions from the fertilizer manufacturer, but water the petunia with this solution almost every other day, that is, instead of water. It is this feeding regime that petunia will appreciate best.
From about two months of age, when petunia seedlings are significantly stronger and have enough leaves, you can switch to using fertilizer with an NPK composition of 30% -40% -30%.
That is, you dilute the fertilizer in a lower concentration than for watering, and carefully spray the entire above-ground part of the seedlings with this solution. In this case, the effect of fertilizers is almost instantaneous, and this method of feeding is especially good if you no longer like something about the growth or development of seedlings.
At the last stage of growing seedlings - in May - both root and foliar fertilizing with organic fertilizers will be very good: potassium humate, vermicompost. They can be alternated with mineral supplements.
All the described methods of feeding petunia seedlings will allow you to grow plants that will delight you with their beauty and abundant flowering until the fall. You just need to remember to feed adult petunia bushes throughout the summer.
