Don't Pre-Germinate Your Seed: Do THIS Instead
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- Опубліковано 5 сер 2024
- One of the most well-known ways to get grass seed to grow as fast as possible is to pre-germinate your seed however the process of soaking seed and changing out the water a couple times every day for 3-5 days straight can be troublesome and once the seed germinates much of it can be lost before it ever gets to the ground.
For this reason, I prefer priming my grass seed which is a much shorter process and can yield results in only a few hours of warm water priming. To test it however, I wanted to compare the quick priming method of seed starting with the Soil Moist, seed coating method that some people believe works.
I believe Soil Moist might help for seed that can't be watered as regularly but for a seeding experiment that stays damp the way it should every day I don't think it helped speed things up at all. You can see Soil Moist here if you'd like: www.amazon.com/Soil-Moist-See...
► You can see my full rooting strategy right here: turfmechanic.com/how-to-stimu...
Here are a few of the products I used or referenced in this video:
Lawnbright Black Gold / Sea Green
turfmech.link/Lawnbright-Drou...
Granular Starter Fertilizers
turfmech.link/starter-fertili...
► ►►
Soil Mastery Fertilizer W/ Disbursable BioChar is no longer available for sale (unfortunately). There are few good all-in-one products out there to serve as a perfect alternative. One close alternative is this product from Anderson's company which has a lot of everything but is lacking in kelp and biochar: turfmech.link/Andersons-PGF-C...
Alternatively you could look into Soil Fit (8-0-3) which has a lot of the desirable bio-stimulants that Soil Mastery has but is lacking BioChar: turfmech.link/soil-fit-18-lb
► ► ►
Alfalfa Meal
www.amazon.com/Down-Earth-Nat...
Sea Kelp
Plain: www.amazon.com/Fertilizer-Sup...
Enhanced: turfmech.link/Sea-K
Silica (StrongORR)
ryanknorrlawncare.com/product...
The Benefits of Humic Acid Explained
turfmechanic.com/what-does-hu...
How I Made My Own Nearly-Perfect Starter Fertilizer
• The Best Starter Ferti...
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I believe you pre-germinated seeds wrong. It’s 3-4 days you need to keep them in water, not 6hrs. I got seeds grow even on river stone bed where i accidentally drop a bunch last year 😂 and if you do it right, you will see that seeds are growing within 24hrs
I just did a 60lb bag. Used a large jobsite b garbage can with a rock on it to keep it submerged and changed the water every 12 hrs. Took 7 days for the seeds to grow mini tails and I just blended it in with a sand/dirt mix. Worked great with my push broadcaster
The thing I like most about pregerminating is that it takes my windows from 5-7 days down to like 2-3 days. I'm in the northern VA area and I've had too many times when you spend all this time trying to prep the ground and disperse everything evenly just to get one hard rain in that first week and it pushes everything around. Pregerminating lets the seed anchor in place a lot faster so it won't get pushed around as easily.
I personally don't think it's that difficult. You dump the seed in a paint strainer. Put that in a bucket and change the water for a few days and then mix the seed with peat moss and use a peat moss spreader to spread the combination. A lot of us use peat moss anyway so its really not that much extra work. I find keeping the seed moist and in place for 10 days more work then changing the water in a 5 gallon bucket once a day. I guess if u live in an environment where you don't have to worry about rain and you can keep the seed moist then it may not be worth it.
THE fastest seed germination method that I’ve personally used is the Greenhouse Method. It’s practical only for small areas. After doing a customary seed application, you water only one time and then cover the area with a thin, clear painter’s tarp. The tarp traps heat and moisture. It’s amazing how many seed germinate in a few days.
I do this for spots. Get my gorilla cart. Fill it with soil, potting soil, or whatever mix you want. Throw seed in and mix. Hose it down until it's a hair away from being called mud. Flatten a garbage bag and cover. Leave it alone for a day. Uncover, water recover. Repeat for as many days it takes to either see seeds pop. If it sprouts it's not too late, just spread it immediately. Take to your bare spots and put the mix down. It technically has germinated so in hours you will see it coming up. Over the next few days that soil mixes in and you will be er know you did this. Best part is in spring you can put down preemergant and do this over it.
I have a few spots i need to cover.. THis is a great idea. Thanks!
I use frost row cover. Works great. I usually have little sprouts in a couple of days but I couldn't do it to large areas.
@@bencrawfodo you put it on bare soil or add anything to it? Thanks 😊
gonna try this
Will be looking forward to the development of the buffalo grass.
Lawn Patch job, May first. I'm going to do like 3 days, change the warm water every 12 hour like pre-soak.. call it a maybe a hybrid. This is the perfect application for the Garden Weazel! Been looking for an application for that tool. The only times I've ever got durable stand of grass is when I plant late fall. Even December here around DC area. Some say optimally just before the first snow! I like to use leaves as mulch after seeding, then delay any raking for a couple few months which puts me generally into November.
Looking good Brian.
Thanks David! I feel like I'm really starting to get close to a final lawn over here. Just gotta get rid of that dead kikuyu brown which is an eyesore.
I just ordered the Root RX to try, felt it was affordable. There's a product called HumAmmend Max, which has both soluable humate & kelp extract + leonardite ore/kelp meal in a granule that this compares to well that I have used. It's handy to have a liquid form of something similar, and that it comes with a sprayer also.
Good work
Can't get more simple than that👌
Sometimes it just doesn't make sense to overcomplicate. Seeding in March then maybe yes, but in the fall it's just not necessary. 👊
Thanks for sharing. What irrigation system using on that parkway strip? My water pressure I don’t think would handle that many nozzles in one zone.
Could the pre-germinated seed be mixed with garden soil and spread with a Landsie peat moss spreader?
Nice experimentation, the Buffalo grass is coming in quickly.
I sure hope that area firms up by the end of the month, otherwise you may want to put up some caution tape or you are going to have lots of Trick or Treaters trampling the young turf.
Yikes! I didn't think about that! 😳
Does all this apply to zoysia grass as well?
The quick-prime method. Can this only be done with raw non coated seed?
I've had good results with using "Soil Moist Seed Coat" & "DeltAG Seed Coat" since trying to pre-germ/quick-prime 40+ lbs of seed can be annoying
I do wonder if adding all these additives are degrading our soil. When I grew up, grass just grew, nobody had ‘strategies’ or even sprinkler systems. Now the whole neighborhood struggles with growing grass. The only issues were with dandelions. Which we pulled by hand 3 times a year.
I watered my fescue 4x a day, I had 1 inch in 10 days.
I mostly get called out by my Wife whenever I use the kitchen stuff, so don't know how you get away with that when you can't even have a table(which I guess is mostly ok at our house....but then my cluttered outdoor project table is around back) and of course I take over the garage all summer, an issue she seldom says too much about anymore, as long as I charge her car
but yeah, I tried some of the "pre-germination" soaking seed bags in buckets of water that you have to change all the time for days, and did lose a lot of seed and made that weird smell, so I quit doing that - but just a quick soak might be worth while, as I've noticed that dry seed can move around a lot as it floats away on that first watering; so what I've been doing is a heavy watering the day(s) *before* putting the seed down after the soil is prepared, and then not watering in the dry seed until it has had a night to sit out and slowly absorb some moisture from the ground and air
Lol, yeah, I've started amassing a bunch of garage versions of kitchen stuff too. 😂 to her defense she wants me to have a smaller table that I keep tidy, behind the fence so we can put up a decorative table and seat set. I can't argue the goal, looks nice in my head 🤗
I struggled with the title and image for this one a bit because there is a time and place for pre-germinating seed but I think it's best for golf courses or seeding in extreme environment conditions. The extra work just doesn't seem worth it to save a day off germination for a primed seed in the fall. I agree with your deep watering plan too. Get that soil super wet before seed goes down and the seed just sticks to it better and won't dry out as easily, the ground actually dampens the seed. Good form!
@@TurfMechanic maybe in extreme conditions where there might only be a small window that you have to get that seed cracked open and showing those early sprouts right after you put it out .... but I found that "window" hard(er) to hit with pre-germinating seed, and more often I would get the tap roots poking thru my wet bag as I tried to dry it out a bit before then having to blend damp seed with something to spread it out(which never worked well at all, and just ended up hand spreading clumps) cause drop or rotary broadcast spreaders just never do well with moist anything in them
it is a pain to keep soil at just the right level of moisture to get germination asap with dry seed, but still(even if you have wetted or soaked seed, to do that to save on early outdoor watering, and you still spent just as many days babying it) you have to keep that up for the sprouts .... and that was kinda the last straw for me on doing a 'quick lawn' with pre-germ damp seed ready to pop right away, cause if I didn't have the soil all active in the same state too with moisture, those fast starts only got off the line quick, but then many just showed clumsy growth laying on the surface then died as they were over or under watered as I tried to get the soil up to speed
interesting topic, and yes, you can get it to work; but do you really have to, and is it worth all that horrible smelling water you have to change more than once a day then trying to disperse damp seed
Isn’t Buffalo grass a warm season grass, and should you seed in the summer because it’s a warm season grass?
Yes, it would be much better to have seeded this in May June July but I wasn't ready then. Because we never freeze where I live I figured I'd see what happened doing a late seeding in Sept. It's been thin and things are now starting to spread and grow much better but obviously it's strongest growing season is still a couple months away at least.
how to you apply alf alfa meal? to they make a big bag? 7 k sq ft
I just load into a granular spreader like anything else, bags in the 25 lb range usually run around 40. I've always bought mine from local garden supply store but Amazon carries it too. Down to earth brand is great, I've used them a lot. Just do the math to decide how much to buy. It's basically impossible to over apply.
So you sold me on the mycorrhizal fungi in another video (and you and I have spoken on the lawn forum before) but I’m struggling to find the best place to find this product online. I have 8000 ksqft and am looking to seriously build my soil up.
Any economic suggestions which will show my to get the Endomycorrhizal fungi into my yard without leading me to bankruptcy lol
Buy a small jar of it, and then grow the fungi yourself as if you are making a bread starter. Once you grow the desired amount of fungi, dehydrate it to a powdered form to spread it around.
The other thing that happens when you soak the seed and then rinse it, is that germination inhiboors are released aND RINSED AWAY
Of course, the pre soaked seed germinated before the soil moist coated product. My professor at University of Delaware investigated many priming and gel seeding metyhods. In all cases the seed is water soaked to imbibe, then some of the seed is mixed into a starch gel or a poly acrilymide gel, then usually a gel seeder is used to deposit the seed. In the case of turf or wildflowers., on would probably use a hydroseeder to apply. the deal is that the plump water imbied seed now has a gel coat that will hold water to the already wet seed. Othersie, when you water dry seed that is coated, much of the dust will just rinse off and even if it did not, the seed still needs to fully imbebe tyhe water. If it takes 6 hours sitting in a bucket of water, gpolymer coateing can not speed this up and in fact, will be slower
Can I do this in florida with Bermuda grass seed
I feel like a lot of yard folk don’t make content for us souther/Florida folk :(
Okay, at what point in history did growing grass get so involved and complicated?? Did you see the close-up of the Soil Moist product he showed us - "Please wear gloves during application because this is some seriously weird sh*t".
Can u a nitrogen 20 days after the first mow or 20 days after germination
you can apply N any time, most starter fert blends have it included meaning it gets applied at time of seeding. If you applied a lot of starter fert then I'd probably wait until after first mow but if starter fert was a light app or didn't include Nitrogen then go for it closer to sprout stage just after germination. No matter what not a lot of N is needed; you don't want to push overgrowth in grass that hasn't rooted down well enough to support that top-growth.
Nitrogen blitz ... Where by u can apply ammonia sulfate every week before ur first frost date... For tall fescue reseeding how long do i have to wait to do a nitrogen blitz... Why i asked is that i have a variety of lateral spreading tall fescue
How much alfalfa meal per 1000 ft.²?
I put 80 lb on 2500 before seeding, but spread scotts topsoil over that, then the seed on there, then peat moss, but that's just me. It will hot compost if left moistened in a pile for a few days, avoid clumps when spreading a thin\uniform layer to prevent this. Mine has to be damp because I make meal from pellets that I get at a farm store by making them wet then crumbling them through a screen. It's like $25 for 40 lbs of dry pellets, but I spend hours hand working that into a meal so I can spread it uniformly. Have also just spread pellets on mature lawn areas, then go back later and break them apart with a push broom after they've moistened and swelled up ready to crumble apart easily.
I take the time to do some work by hand because it's like $25 for only 5lb of meal shipped to me, so I can get 8 times as much for my money with pellets that I can go fetch locally myself, but there is some minor fuel cost there though.
Thanks for the reply, i will make sure to spread the meal evenly, I will spend a little extra to save the time because i will use what I can order online, I dont think i have local access to the alfalfa meal pellets as you have @@justinbailey2806
Buffalo took 9 days to sprout for me.
I'm guessing that was without priming it? For me the main sprouts started coming in on day 6, only a couple showed up day 5. For the next section of that strip I may try a "no prime" section to compare germination time differences. It would be nice to see what 6 hour soak in warm water does to speed the seed up over just sowing and sprinkling.
Your wife's gonna yell at you for using her mixing bowls 😂
and you think my wife watches my channel :) LOL
😂😂
Why is the other grass brown?
Glyphosate, getting rid of Bermuda and kikuyu and over seeded new kbg over the brown
@@TurfMechanicthat's why I went with Scott's provista kbg. Bermuda will take vengeance on you if you try and kil it. If it lives, it's coming back to haunt you for the rest of your life.
So yall going let him do the pregermination wrong i thought you had to strain it not drown it in a bowl of water ive seen the videos where they had it sit in a paint straining bag and left it for awhile.
so basically... PRE GERMINATE and dont follow this method. GOT IT!
lol, if you want to that will be the fastest but I believe that pre-germinated seed will also initially be more shallow rooted compared to seed germinating in place. I like my quick soak method. :)
That's a lot of products. I use dirt and water. 🙃
Me too, takes a lil longer but much cheaper, same end result
That seed coat looks like moon dust..
It's crazy stuff, nearly a month later I'm starting to think the seed coat section is thicker too so I may have to change my tune on the product. 🤔
That is not how you pregerminate seeds
Correct, this not what I did, I soaked the seeds for a few hours instead of pre-germinating them. That's the point of this video, a quick water bath is way simpler than a full pre-germ. I also wanted to compare the soak to the seed coat method. Perhaps I'll do a full pre-germ experiment for the channel in the future. 👌
Jay the Florida pool pump motor repair guy. When Service Calls Longwood approved ! that was good info 2 see & know👨🔧good job !! Turf Mechanic