When and how to plant corn seedlings

Content

1 The timing of planting corn seedlings
2 Soil preparation and selection
3 Choice of capacity
4 Preparing corn seeds for planting
5 Planting corn seedlings in various ways
6 Care of corn seedlings
7 Diseases of corn seedlings
8 When and how to plant corn seedlings outdoors
9 Conclusion

Planting corn seedlings is a profitable and interesting activity. It is especially pleasant when the result pleases with the early harvest of juicy, young ears. Two and a half months are enough for the formation of milk heads from the seeds of hybrid varieties. And placing seeds in the cells early will give you the opportunity to enjoy the taste of boiled corn a month earlier.

The timing of planting corn seedlings

Growing corn in seedlings is practiced if you want to harvest an early harvest. Compared to planting with seeds, planting seedlings shortens the interval before harvesting the first ears.

Sowing for seedlings begins in specially selected containers in the last decade of April. It is worth noting that properly prepared seeds give good germination. They begin to plant corn seedlings in the ground when the temperature stabilizes and, in a thickness of 10 cm, will not be lower than +12 ^oC.

Sowing seeds in greenhouses under a film without additional heating is carried out in early April: the grains are planted 3 cm deep. You can speed up the harvest by soaking the seeds before planting.

Soil preparation and selection

The choice of soil must be taken seriously. In order for the plant to fully grow and develop, grains should be planted in a mixture of turf and humus.

Important! If the stationary place of corn growth is loamy soil, before sowing, up to 10% of sand should be added to the enriched composition of the soil, so that later the plant does not experience serious stress.

Before planting corn, it is important to carefully consider the place of sowing the seeds, so that transfer to a stationary place does not turn out to be detrimental to seedlings. When choosing a soil, acidity does not play a decisive role: the emphasis is on the looseness of the soil. You can improve the quality of the land yourself.

Humus is used as a baking powder. To ensure air circulation and the unhindered flow of water to the root system, it is recommended to add peat and coconut to the earthen mixture.

Choice of capacity

To plant corn seedlings, special purpose containers with many sections are used.

Important! Do not place containers with sown seeds on the ground, since the root system, which breaks through the drainage, is subsequently injured when planted in open ground.

Root damage does not have the best effect on the further growth of the plant, so the grains are planted in peat cups or humus-earth bags. Thus, a non-picking, non-traumatic method of planting seedlings is used.

It is important not to disturb the corn root, so planting is recommended in the most convenient containers. These can be small containers, divided into cells, cut plastic bottles, cardboard milk cartons, plastic cups.

Preparing corn seeds for planting

Before you start growing corn at home from seeds, you should pay attention to their size. To get an excellent harvest, large, ripe, whole grains are selected for sowing. If you plan to plant large plantations, the seed can be soaked in salt water. This test allows you to discard useless grains floating on the surface.

Care must also be taken to ensure that the plant is not exposed to fungal infection.Before planting seeds in the ground, pre-treatment with a saturated solution of manganese will be required, which will protect the seedlings (a quarter of an hour is enough).

Attention! Etching is a preventive method that protects the plant from attack by pests during the growing season.

The tested corn seeds are wrapped in burlap or fabric that allows air and moisture to pass through. If the volumes are small, then a layer of cotton wool or cosmetic cotton pads are quite suitable. In order for the seeds to swell, it is enough to keep them in a humid environment for up to 12 hours. You can improve the taste of the ears by soaking corn in a solution of ash (2 tablespoons per 1 liter).

It is worth noting that sowing corn for seedlings after warming up the grain for a couple of days in the sun guarantees good germination.

Planting corn seedlings in various ways

The choice of how to plant is made, depending on the volume and preferences.

Through trial and error, farmers came to the conclusion that growing corn seedlings should be carried out using one of the methods suggested in the video and in the descriptions:

Into nutritious soil

In order to plant the shoots in the nutrient soil, follow the steps:

Sprouted corn kernels (3 pcs.) Are laid in one pot, to a depth of 4 cm.
The surface of the earth is leveled.
The soil is irrigated with a sprayer.
It is recommended to thin out seedlings with the appearance of three true leaves.

Important! Water for irrigation should be at room temperature. To prevent infection with fungus and other parasites, a fungicide solution is used.

Into sawdust

If you plant seeds in the second way, then it is recommended to use a wide tray. Sawdust soaked in water is put into it.

Algorithm of actions, how to plant and grow corn:

Depressions are made in the tyrsa and seeds are laid to a depth of 3 - 4 cm.
When the first shoots appear, a layer of loose, saturated soil should be poured.
They are moved to a lighted room, where the temperature is maintained at 18 - 20 ^o
To maintain sufficient moisture, the sawdust is sprayed with a spray bottle after 3 to 4 days.
Important! Avoid waterlogging the sawdust, otherwise the seeds may rot.
After germination of seedlings within a week by 3 - 4 cm, they can be rearranged in good light conditions, for example, in a greenhouse without heating. Over the next 2 weeks, watering is carried out and fed with complex herbal preparations.
Seedlings are planted in open soil with a height of 10 - 13 cm.

In the presence of sawdust, the process does not consume energy and gives excellent results.

Into a snail

Corn can be planted in snail seedlings. This is a creative method that has been tested by many summer residents and pleases with good shoots:

Spread a tea towel on a flat surface.
The second layer is a plastic bag, slightly smaller than the width of the fabric.
The third layer is toilet paper.
The paper tape is abundantly moistened with water from a spray bottle.
At a distance of 10 cm from each other, spread the corn grains.
Polyethylene is rolled up to form a snail.
The resulting structure is lowered into a container with water.
Corn sprouts can be planted outdoors.

You can learn more about the method of growing corn seedlings without land in the video:

Care of corn seedlings

To get strong shoots and in the future - an excellent harvest, it is worth a little work. Growing corn through seedlings at home requires compliance with some requirements.

Lighting

Corn seedlings are photosensitive. If you do not provide sufficient lighting, they will begin to stretch, lose their strength and subsequently lose the ability to resist the action of the wind. The fact that there is not enough light can be seen directly from the corn seedlings - the leaves turn yellow and lose their vitality. The lack of full-fledged light leads to the fact that the plant withers, becomes pale.To grow corn through seedlings at home, it is advisable to add lighting with a fluorescent lamp at the beginning of growth.

Airing

In order to avoid stress when growing corn seedlings, it should be gradually accustomed to the ambient temperature. Airing is carried out starting from 5 minutes, gradually increasing the time to 15 - 20 minutes.

Temperature

The most comfortable temperature for growing is considered to be 20 - 24 ^oC. Under these conditions, the trunk grows strong and tall. And this, in turn, will contribute to the full development of the root system.

Watering

Corn is classified as a drought-resistant crop. Consequently, it can do without moisture for a long time, but the full development of the plant to obtain a crop will provide watering at the stages of emergence, throwing out panicles, and forming ears.

How many times to water the seedlings, everyone must determine for himself. It depends on the temperature and humidity of the air.

Important! The soil should not be too wet and dry.

Top dressing

During the period of rapid growth of seedlings, seedlings are fertilized twice with Terraflex or Polyfid. Allow to use top dressing Kemira hydro or Master. How many times to saturate the soil depends on the state of the plant. Water-soluble fertilizers can be applied within a week after sowing. They should include up to 30% nitrogen. If corn seedlings are planted in conditions with an unstable temperature regime, periods of cold, then the plant should be fed with phosphorus, in order to prevent its suspension in growth.

Diseases of corn seedlings

If at some stage the technique of growing corn seedlings from grains is violated, you can create all the conditions for the appearance of common seedling diseases:

Fusarium: fungus affecting the stem, seedlings and ear. A grayish-ash bloom is detrimental to plants, therefore, it is worth paying serious attention to the pre-sowing treatment of planting material, to observe crop rotation.
Stem and rhizome rot: grows intensively throughout the plant and is explained by the creation of too humid conditions (large amount of precipitation, excessive watering, waterlogged soil). The outcome of the disease is the death of the culture. To solve the problem, the approach should be comprehensive (use of fungicides, compliance with crop rotation, limited watering).
Rust: practically not amenable to treatment. The fungus infects the plant and leaves no chance of saving the crop. Usually such seedlings are burned to prevent the spread of the disease.
Dust smut: is massive. It affects the plant completely, stopping the growth of the plant and ruining most of the crop.

Most diseases lead to irreversible processes, which is why you should seriously approach the issue of crop rotation and seed preparation. It is necessary to plant corn kernels only after preliminary processing.

When and how to plant corn seedlings outdoors

Corn seedlings are planted in open ground when the danger of return frosts has passed. The soil should be warm and the seedlings firm, with three good, strong leaves (25 days from sowing). At this stage, the root system of the seedlings is well developed and it has every chance of successfully taking root in its permanent place.

In the photo of the picking of corn seedlings when transferring to a permanent place of residence, you can see that they try to preserve the earthen feed and prevent it from scattering in order to protect the roots during transplantation.

Before planting corn at home, they carry out the last preparatory work: they determine a sunnier place with light soil, apply top dressing and prepare holes for planting. For full pollination, fruiting, it is recommended to plant seedlings in at least 5 - 6 rows, maintaining a distance between seedlings up to 40 cm, and between rows - up to 60 cm. Since there is more than enough free space, you can plant melon between plantings.

After the seedlings are planted, they must be well watered and covered with a layer of mulch. If we are not talking about hectares of planting, the plants can be covered with cut plastic bottles until the weather stabilizes.

Conclusion

Planting corn seedlings, following all the recommendations of experienced agronomists, is not difficult and the result will surely please with early cobs of flavored corn. You should not ignore all the preparatory measures, since the final result may depend on the little things.