What To Do If Tomato Seedlings Are Stretched Out, As Well As How To Feed The Plants So That This Does Not Happen

2024 Author: Bailey Albertson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 12:53

What to do if tomato seedlings are stretched

Many gardeners prefer to grow tomato seedlings on their own. And often they are faced with the problem of elongated seedlings. Our goal is to help avoid this problem, as well as teach how to save the seedlings if they do stretch out.

Why tomato seedlings are pulled

There are several reasons why tomato seedlings can be pulled out. Here are the main ones:

• Density of crops. If the plants grow too densely, then they do not have enough light and they are forced to reach for the sun, trying to outrun their neighbor.
• Excess moisture. Tomatoes do not like frequent watering and react to them with rapid growth in height with thin stems. It is enough to water the plants once every ten days. The main thing is that the soil does not dry out, but remains slightly moist.
• An overdose of nitrogen fertilizers leads to a similar effect.
• Insufficient lighting is the most common reason for pulling seedlings. The duration of daylight hours for tomatoes should be 14-16 hours.
• Sowing seeds too early for seedlings. Plants are already ready for planting, but favorable terms and conditions for this have not yet come.

How to prevent pulling seedlings

Knowing the listed reasons, you can easily prevent the problem. To do this, you just need to carefully follow the rules of agricultural culture:

• Observe the recommended planting intervals - the distance between rows should be 6-8 centimeters, and between plants in a row - 4-5 centimeters.
• Maintain optimal thermal and humidity conditions (temperature 20-25 ° C, air humidity 60-70%, soil moisture 70-80%).

• Ensure a balanced diet. To do this, you need to initially plant seedlings in a full-fledged nutritious soil, for example, a ready-made composition of the Agricola trademark. And also it is necessary to feed the plants after the appearance of two true leaves, two weeks after the dive, and two more feeding with an interval of 1.5-2 weeks. For these purposes, it is better to use complex mineral fertilizers such as nitroammofoska, guided by the attached instructions.

  

  Ready-made soils for tomato seedlings have a balanced nutritional composition

• Creation of the optimal duration of daylight hours by additional illumination of seedlings using special phytolamps or fluorescent lamps.
• Correctly calculate the timing of sowing seeds for seedlings. Usually, for late varieties of tomatoes, 45-50 days are enough from the moment of emergence to transplantation into the ground. For mid-season and early varieties, seedlings are used 60-70 days old. Usually, information about the timing of sowing for seedlings is placed on bags with tomato seeds. Plus, you need to add 3-7 days to this period, which will be needed for germination after sowing.

In addition, there are special preparations for regulating plant growth.

Growth Regulator Athlete

This drug has earned the greatest popularity among gardeners and gardeners. Its use leads to a thickening of the stem, rapid development of the root system, an increase in the size of leaves, an acceleration of the onset of flowering, an increase in the yield of tomatoes.

Treatment begins after the formation of three to four true leaves by watering at the root or by spraying on the leaves. In the first case, one ampoule of the Athlete is dissolved in 0.15-0.3 liters of water, and in the second - in 0.5-1 liters. To achieve the maximum effect, four treatments are carried out with an interval of one week.

Growth Regulator Athlete helps to get healthy and strong seedlings

Growth Regulator Chunky

Its action is similar to that of the Athlete. The number and frequency of treatments are also the same. Only the concentration of Chunky should be lower - for watering and spraying, dilute one ampoule in 1.5 liters of water.

Growth regulator Chunky prevents the seedlings from pulling out

Video: preventing seedlings from pulling out

What to do if tomato seedlings are strongly stretched

But of course, there are times when the gardener (especially the beginner) did not keep track of, and the seedlings began to stretch out. In this case, all is not lost and the problem can be solved by applying emergency measures. First of all, you need to determine the cause and eliminate it. For example, to install additional lighting, if it is insufficient, to adjust the norms of irrigation and nutrition, to carry out thinning, etc.

In addition, you can transplant elongated seedlings into a larger pot, while covering most of the stem with soil. It is convenient for these purposes to use tall plastic bottles with a cut-off neck. In this case, do not forget to make drainage holes in the bottom of the bottle. First, a small amount of earth is poured onto the bottom, a plant is lowered from above and the container is filled with soil to the top. After a while, additional roots form on the covered part, the plant will strengthen and become more powerful. In this case, the seedlings should be watered with a growth regulator or a root formation stimulator (Epin, Heteroauxin).

And there is also a "surgical" way to restore overgrown seedlings. It consists of the following:

1. The plant is cut at the level of the fifth to sixth leaf, counting from the root.

   

   If the tomato seedlings are stretched out, you can cut off the top and root

2. The top is placed in a container with water.
3. After about a week, roots will begin to appear on the underwater part. When they grow to one and a half centimeters, the plants are planted in pots or glasses.

4. At this time, stepchildren will begin to grow from the axils of the leaves of the lower part of the plant. You need to leave the top two, and remove the rest. The result is double the amount of healthy seedlings.

   

   The top of the seedlings is rooted in a container with water, and on the lower part, the two upper stepsons are used

I usually grow tomato seedlings on the windowsill and on a nearby table. First, I sow the seeds in one common container in rows with an interval of 6-8 centimeters. When 2-3 true leaves appear on the emerged plants, I dive them into plastic glasses, deepening to the level of the first true leaf. At the same time, I remove the cotyledons. Illumination is carried out using fluorescent lamps, which are switched on and off automatically by means of an electronic programmer. If, for some reason, the seedlings have outgrown by the time of planting in open ground, then I plant it obliquely, sprinkling most of the stem with soil … At the same time, I direct the plants with their roots to the east - as a result, they reach for the sun and quickly straighten. Practice has shown that seedlings planted in this way quickly catch up in growth with normal, not overgrown plants.

Video: what to do if tomato seedlings have outgrown

How to feed tomato seedlings so as not to stretch

Lack of nitrogen, like its excess, can cause the seedlings to be pulled out. This can be determined by the following signs - the plants stretch and change color. At first, it may turn light green and then yellow. In this case, you need to dissolve a tablespoon of urea in a bucket of water and pour this solution over the plants at a rate of 50-100 grams each. After that, the temperature is reduced to + 8-10 ° C, for which the boxes with seedlings can be taken out to the glazed balcony. As a result, the leaves and stems will turn green again, and their growth will slow down somewhat.

Of course, it is better to avoid overgrowing and stretching tomato seedlings. To do this, you just need to follow the simple rules of agricultural technology. But if the trouble has already occurred, this is not a cause for grief, since there are several simple ways to rehabilitate elongated plants.