Germination problems in most cases its not the seeds it’s not your technique or methods. It’s what you can’t see in your soil that is causing all the problems.

We all buy soil, and it’s good soil for the most part. But is it?  Well here’s what we do know. The fugues gnats natural  habitat is in peat Bogs and most if not all potting soil mix’s are 70% plus peat moss. The soil we buy usually says it’s  sterile well here’s where it get tricky sterile. Sterile of what? Sterile if weeds and other seeds and some do say sterile of disease and fungus. But if they really gave us sterile soil it would not have other micro organisms that are needed. 

Here is some pictures of what your soil could be doing without you knowing. Does your trays look like this after 2 weeks

If you dig out a Seeds or two and look at them they likely look empty and if you look at the right time this is what you will see 

Picture is 20x zoom 

And they can clean out your seeds in days and then if there was not enough food for any of them to mature you will be unaware of them ever being there. But in most cases you will see at least one fly and you will think oh it’s ok there was only one and I can’t find anymore. But if you see one its to late there has been feeding on your seeds. There can’t be flys without larva and they need to eat so there eating your seeds. And if you don’t see flys then you will never know that that’s why your seeds didn’t grow or started to grow and then died. 

The fugues gnat are the most common seeds feeders. Now there is other fugues that can cause you problems and it’s known as damp and you may have heard the term damping off. This is a soil born virus really that stops seedling from developing. The good things about this fugues is that the potting mixes you buy have a additive that helps if not stops it from forming years ago using no damp was just another product you hand to use to stop lossing seedlings. This fugues needs wet conditions for a good week to start growing and for the most part you can’t see it. This fugues can stop seeds from sprout throw the soil by killing I’d before it can.

more to come 

thanks