Park's Biodome: Anyone tried it?

I just guessing that you might need to vent it, especially on a sunny day.

Sun + clear plastic dome = a lot of "greenhouse" heating.

If you're gone all day, or can't check it, I would be afraid of 'cooking' seedlings. Giving it early morning sun ought to "chase away the chill". Late aternoon partial sun ought to warm it up to give it a better chance of making it through the night without too much chill.

But wouldn't direct noon sun cook it? A small dome like that doesn;t have the thrermal inertia of a greenhouse or a cold frmae, and it might have huge temperature swings.

But I'm just guessing. That's why I'm nervous about a low hoop tunnel / cold frame even in cloudy coastal WA. If the sun came out while I was at work, I'm thniking that any greens would be steamed before I came home to vent it.

Last year was my first to use the 60 cell bio Dome from Parks. This past summer I purchased the 18 cell block which is interchangeable with the 60 cell block and refills to use for large seed types. Yesterday I received my second Bio Dome 60 cell kit and a bag of refills. I will use this for seeds with different germination rates. Now I have three blocks to be used alternately between two Bio Domes.

I germinate on heat mats under grow lights. As soon as about 90% or so of the seeds have germinated the dome is removed during the day and the grow light is set about 1/2 to 1" above the plants. The dome goes back on at night on the heat mat as the temp in winter in the grow room runs between 50 -60 degrees.

I always had problems of over watering with Jiffy pellets, but never with the Bio Dome. The trick with starting seeds in a 60 cell block is to get all the seed in the cells being used to germinate at the time. I plant tomato seed and pepper seed separately because pepper usually take longer to germinate than tomato seed. Thats why I bought a second dome.

>> pepper usually take longer to germinate than tomato seed. Thats why I bought a second dome.

When I germinate in tearable inserts ("cells" or "6-packs") , I can remove one or two 6-packs at a time, from the dome, as the sprouts emerge. Each pack gets only one kind of seed, which also makes them easier to label and keep straight.

When I germinate in prop tarys, each ROW gets one kind of seed, or usually 2-4 adjacent rows. When that kind of seed has mostly emerged, I cut those rows apart from the rest of the tray and move it out from under the humidity dome.

I always fear damping off if I leave emerged seedlings under a humidity dome even for a few days.


>> I always had problems of over watering with Jiffy pellets, but never with the Bio Dome

That's why I gave up on Jiffy-Mix or other commercial seed mixes based on what looks to me like POWDERED peat. It held too much water. Maybe the trick is to never give peat as much water as it will hold, but I switched over to home-made screened pine bark mulch mix and became a happy germinator instead of a mass murderer of seeds.

I've been using my biodome over a heat mat to germinate all my 'warm' varieties, both annuals and perennials. For most I cluster sow in 2" pots, then transplant to cellpacks once they're up. Then I put the packs on a self-watering tray under lights. I like using this method better than the standard greenhouse covers that come with regular 1020trays. I can start just as many varieties at the same time in a smaller space, and 'duds' and slow starters take up very little room unless and until they germinate. Also, I can remove seedlings from the greenhouse as soon as they're ready, no matter what the next pot is doing.

Pam

>> I cluster sow in 2" pots,

Cool! Like micro-flats.

I bought, and keep thinking about using, a tray insert that has 20 very narrow rows. But I fear that once things sprout, I would have to prick them out RIGHT THAT DAY or the roots would grow out the slit at the botom of the row and break off when I tried to pull them.

But my theory was a litle like your practice: start 20 different varieties in one tray.

Instead I use a 128-cell prop tray (16 rows of 8 cells per row). I sow 1-3 rows in each variety, and can get 6-10 varieties per tray, even though I only get 8-24 plants of each variety.

The advantage is that, if I get busy for a week or two, they just get root-bound, not root-decapitated.

Someone pointed out that GHMS (greenhousemegastore) has a real bargain on 2.5" TLC Square Form / Black Form Pots. The great thing is that they are 3.5" deep!

http://www.greenhousemegastore.com/product/black-form-pots-hobby-pack/standard-plastic-pots
32 pots / $2.80 8.75 ¢ each

Yes, those are the ones I use. Once they sprout, I get them out of the Biodome and under lights, but I don't have to prick them out right away. As long as I move them before the roots get too tangled up together they are fine. I also use the 2" pots for perennials and larger annuals.

Pam

>> As long as I move them before the roots get too tangled up together they are fine.

One of these years I'll get over my sqeaumishness about that and be more comfortable when sowing 3 seeds gives 2-3 vigorous seedlings.

Right now, when I have to yank tangled seedlings untimely from their overgrown cells, I really wince and flinch, but the seedlings usually don't seem to mind VERY much.

Or they die, end of problem.

I'm going to splurge on 64 or 96 of those little pots, maybe even 128 to save on shipping. The 3.5" depth sounds really good to me. The deepest prop cell I have is 2.5". Baby wants deeper roots.

I bought several Bio-Domes for the 2013-2014 winter season, planning for retirement and a MUCH larger garden. They were sale-priced at the end of the 2013 season, so I was trying all of the sizes and also the refill sponges. The trays and inserts are well-made and easy to move around. The system of watering from below and having the inserts float upward to keep the roots from getting overwatered seems quite logical. It works pretty well, except that some of the sponges are hard to get hydrated when first inserted.

So far, I'm impressed with how reliably seeds germinate in them -- and unimpressed with how many of them grow afterward.

Some plants, particularly nicotiana, have robust roots and just fight their way through the sponges. Others, like lisianthus and matthiola, want to give up and die. I've started most of my later seeds in regular plastic packs and have transplanted the lisianthus after prying open the sponges until I can see a root and then packing potting mix into the gap. (Not sure how that's going to work.)

The sponges are very resistant to breaking down, which is nice for getting them out of the holes, but looks as if it will be a problem in the garden.

Has anyone had success with using a different seed-starting medium in these?

I bought Park's Bio Dome Pro's this spring and am using Miracle Grow potting soil in them. I am just about ready to start potting up my broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts.

Today I felt the need to remove the domes as there seemed to be the start of a mold fuzz developing and suspicions of damping off make me uneasy. I put a fan on them too to strengthen their little stems. The mold appears to have started on the capillary mat which strikes me as peculiar as they are new.

I have fennel, basil, celery, parsley, cilantro planted in the domes too.

Tomorrow I will thin seedlings and I will post pix when I start transplanting, I am curious about the root formation.

My practice is the same as all the advice that I have read:

as soon as a seedling emerges from the soil, it does better with low-humidity air. Take off the humidity dome as soon as a few seedlings emerge. That will reduce mold and damping off. Your seedlings must be very healthy and vigorous to avoid damping off INSIDE a humidity dome!

Usually seedlings also like much cooler air than the warm soil that germinating seeds like best. And moving air (fan). And as much light as they can get (fluorescent tubes within 1-2 inches of the seedlings' leaves.)

The only purposes the humidity dome served were to keep the soil moist and hold more heat from the heating mats in the soil.

If some of the rows have emerged and some have not, you could gently mist the slow rows a few times per days to keep their surfaces moist. Or use some Saran Wrap to cover the slow rows.

P.S. I cut plastic mini-blind slats in half to make skinny labels for small cells. They also serve as "tent poles" to support plastic film humidity covers.

P.P.S.

I use plastic "insert" trays and "plug trays" also called propagation trays. I cut both of them up into "slices", each slice perhaps 1/4 of a 1020 tray.

I cut up a 200-cell tray into 10 blocks, each 5x4=20 cells.

I cut up 72-cell plug trays into 4 slices of 18 cells each (3x6), or 8 blocks of 9 cells each (3x3)

That way, I can make each slice or block of cells all one species or variety of vegetable. That way, they emerge close to the same time, and I can move that whole slice or block of cells to a tray with no humidity cover.

>> The mold appears to have started on the capillary mat which strikes me as peculiar as they are new.

I don't think that "old" favors mold, unless "old" means dirty. Mold will grow anywhere there is humidity and nutrients. Seedlings are probably better off unfertilized, or VERY lightly fertilized, for several weeks.

Maybe your seedling soil mix has some organic components, or some built-in fertilizer (especially organic fertilizer)?

Well, I didn't lose even one seedling to damping off or anything else for that matter. It was peculiar though, when I went to transplant the seedlings, I found two toadstools growing on the capillary mat. Just plain weird. My brassicas are now ready to go out to the cold frame, yeah!.

I have never had issues with Miracle Grow potting soil and yes, sometimes I cut it with peat as I think it has too much fertilizer in it.

I have decided to be more discriminatory about what seeds I plant in the Park's Bio domes, they really need to have about the same growth rates. Brassicas should be kept in separate domes from slower sprouting plants as in celery and parsley. And Lisianthus will always get it's own from here on in!

My celery sprouting was pretty lacking in uniformity (different brands?) and I will use an icing spatula instead of the little prongs shove up from the bottom as their root systems seem to be finer.

I always use capillary mats for self-watering, which means I grow my seedlings on the wet side. I've had to use Miracle Grow, as that's all the local places carry. A sprinkle of cinnamon on top of the soil keeps things smelling fresh and keeps the gnats away, and a little peroxide in the water seems to prevent problems too. I also make sure I have adequate heat and light. With these precautions, I never, ever have damping off any more.

I've also learned to keep each variety that I plant in separate containers. When I get large multi-celled trays, I cut them into smaller sections. Even within one packet of seeds, germination doesn't happen all at the same time. With different varieties, it becomes impossible to give each type the conditions it needs.

Also, about the Park Start sponges... I used them one year, and thought they were great for annuals. The second year I had some left over and used them... Apparently you can't do that. The few things that germinated grew poorly. When I moved them to regular cells, their roots were miniscule, almost looked burned. Maybe a fungus got in there? I don't know, but never again. On top of that, a couple of years later I'm still finding the sponges in my garden, hard little dried up things.

The biggest problem, and that's only with certain tricky perennials, is that the mix gets soggy. For germination, I add lots more vermiculite to lighten the MG Seed Starting mix. And this year for the first time I've mail-ordered a special Self-Watering Container Mix from Gardener's Supply, which is working very well for Lupines, Dianthus, Campanulas and others which require better drainage.

I'm still using MG for all the annuals and veggies, in my experience it's just fine for that.

I hope all this helps...

Good luck!

Pam

I have used Park's Biodomes for many years. When the trays and domes were newer they worked well for larger seeds like tomatoes and peppers and fairly well for basil, salvia and other easy to manage seed. As they aged, sterilization became more critical. I let my domes and trays soak in a Clorox solution for quite a while, rinsed them then added fresh plugs. Alas, they were still prone to some damping off that had not happened to my seed starts when the domes were newer. The plastic yellowed over time and UV exposure.
I also was trying more difficult plants to germinate: columbine and bell flower come to mind. They take so long to germinate that I needed to leave the domes on too long, which promoted damping off. It was a experiment with mixed results.
The plugs really work well-I find them scattered throughout the garden years later, as they don't break down. Air gets to the roots of seedlings because the holes are round and the plugs are elongated trapezoidal solids. All in all I think they are a pretty good system for starting annual plants but perhaps not so great for perennials or slow-starting seed.
On another slightly different topic, this spring I tried starting some scarlet gillia. I had good luck using a coarse cactus mix placed in a small plastic tub. The tub came from a packaged spring mix from the grocery store. I punched holes in the bottom & the lid, planted the seeds, including some penstemon seed, placed the box in a cold frame, lightly watered them and waited. The penstemon seeds never sprouted but I have a dozen very small but healthy gillia seedlings now. The lid was removed when the first sprout appeared. I am going to be very careful about keeping them just damp and not too wet. This variety is pink and called Fairy Trumpet.

Is it possible to use the Biodome with a heating pad and regular seedling mix?

I'm thinking about buying it to use indoors. I've had absolutely no luck with seed germination indoors. I did tackle the damping off problem for seeds sown outdoors by watering them with water mixed with copper fungicide.

I use mine all the time for germinating, but sow in regular cell packs, or cluster sow in 4" pots, with seed starting mix. As soon as I see sprouts, I take them out. If it starts smelling musty in there, I sprinkle a little cinnamon around to freshen it up. I've had no damping off problems.

Pfg Thanks so much! The picture is great.

I'm going to order one today.