Help with Heat Mats 101.

I hear lots of people talking about heat mats. I never seem to have luck using them. I start all of my seeds in the house, actually in my bedroom at 65-70 degrees. I posted a while back about starting yucca. Someone posted that I should use a heat mat. I went out and bought 4. I started 2 trays of yucca on heat mats and two trays not on heat mats. the two trays on heat mats have yet to have a yucca seedling come up. The other two have number of seedlings up. BTW they all came from the same jar of seeds so that's not the problems and they were all planted on the same day. I had 50 viable Twisty Baby Black Locust seeds. I started out without them on a heating pad. Nine came up. I moved the rest to a heating pad 10 days ago and nothing has come up since. Last year I tried rudbeckia almost 0 came up on the heat pad. The tray off the heat pad had 100% cell sucess (3 seeds to a cell).

I'm failing Heat Mats 101? I need a tutor!

Sari: Do your heat mats have a thermostat that you can set. If they do set it at 65 to 70 degrees, no higher. I set mine at 80 degrees one year, because it was cold in my greenhouse, thought that would help. Well, it didn't, it killed almost all the seeds, had very poor germination. The next batch of seed trays, I did at 65 to 70 degrees and they did fine. Debby

It look like the mats get 75-85%. My house is 65-68 degrees and the mats are very warm. there is no thermostat.

Sari: Try setting something under your seed trays. Like a cake rack, or rocks to help keep the trays a little off the heat mats, so they don't get all the heat. Maybe that would help. Debby

I wonder if I should just forget the heat mats? Until last year I never used them and I never had any problems.

Sari,

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Sounds like you're doing just fine without the mats.

Are you sure those seeds need extra heat?

Not all seeds need extra heat.

Example: in veggies, the tropicals are the only ones you put on a heat mat. Like tomatoes, peppers and eggplant.

Cole crops and lettuce etc do better without.

Byron

Is there a list somewhere of Vegetables and Herbs that tells you which ones to put on a heat mat and which ones not to? I'm going to be starting seeds for quite a few varieties of both, and I need to be figuring this out soon. Thanks in advance!

AuntyB

Stokes Seed catalog gives a recommended seed starting temp for almost every seed that they sell.


www.stokeseeds.com

Brook,
I think you are 100% correct. Last year I tried mats twice failed both times this year I have failed 4 times. The one failure is just really hard to take. The seeds I am so upset about are "Twisty Baby Black Locust" according to Dirr and other sources the tree very very rarely produce seeds. I found a tree that had 52 good and viable seeds. And well the rest of the story I explained above. I am TOTALLY bummed out! Luckly the 8 seedling that did come up are doing good.
Before heating mats I had great success starting trays in the house. For me I think was a case of trying to make something good better. I don't want to end on doom and gloom so I'll tell you the other 30+ trays I started are doing great!