Transplant Production

It was a frigid morning during last weeks agroecosystems class. The daily low was -2C, and bundles of snow were piling up outside. Normally, monitoring the outside temperatures is critical to a farmer’s success. However, February 8^th's class was spent seeding starters in Kwantlen’s trusty basement parking garage. Therefore, outdoor temperatures were not as important. The Richmond campus’ parking garage acts as both a storage room for cars and a barn for the sustainable agriculture students. Being spatially efficient, the Sustainable Agriculture Program has carved a small-enclosed space in one of the far corners of the parking garage. This space is mainly used for the storage of equipment and harvested produce. Furthermore, we’ve pirated the Environmental Protection Programs storage area and converted it into a seedling propagation room, fully outfitted with state of the art fluorescent lights and heat mats. The fragrant smell of peat was in the air and the students were amply ready to truly begin the growing season.

Seeding Area

Seed Packages

There are many benefits to producing transplants indoors-- it extends a producers growing season, allows for earlier harvest, avoids problems of seed emergence in rough variable soils, saves seed, and allows for more accuracy with regards to a plants spacing. The goal is to produce a semi-mature plant that is ready to be planted outdoors when seasonal conditions become optimal for outdoor cultivation.

There are five key components of successful transplant propagation:

• Using a soil-less growing medium can be less heavy than soil, and enables germinated plants to easily develop root mass due to the fluffy, airy characteristics of many soil-less growing mediums.
• Partitioned starter trays allow for plants to grow in their own space and develop their own root mass. This aids for future handling when planting outdoors.
• Heated mats that rest underneath the seeded trays promote root and vegetative development.
• A consistent water source promotes root and vegetative development.
• A consistent light source is often interrelated with heat and water. A lack of light can lead to cold temperatures. Furthermore, too little light can produce weak spindly plants. 

Snapshot of digital record keeping spreadsheet 

The spreadsheet above shows the plant varieties that were sowed. As you can see, the class planted lettuce, kale, arugula, chard, and spinach. Considering how early it still is in the year, these specific plants were chosen based on their hardiness. Once the transplants become developed they’ll be the first to be planted. They’ll be planted in March on the Terrace Gardens under row covers to protect them from the cold nights.

The potting mix used was a mixture of peat moss, vermiculite, vermicompost, Enterra Natural Fertilizer, dolomitic lime, alfalfa meal, kelp meal, bone meal, blood meal and guano. Peat moss acts as a base for the medium and contains a high water holding capacity. While peat moss does contain a high water holding capacity, it can be quite dense. Therefore, the addition of vermiculite into the growing medium provides pore space for air. Due to the acidic properties of peat moss, dolomitic lime was added to raise the pH. Alfalfa meal, kelp meal, bone meal, blood meal and guano act as organic nutrient sources in this particular growing medium.

Soil-less medium recipe

The class used 72 cell plug trays. The trays were filled with growing medium, allowing for a few millimeters of space before seeding. Seeds are tiny! And how people put tiny seeds into tiny squares is totally interesting! After observing Nick, I noticed that he preferred the classic method of placing a large amount of seed into his left hand, allowing him to pick up 2-4 seeds at a time. While this method is accurate, it forces you to use all of the seed in your hand because you’re saturating the seeds with moisture from your hands. I chose to seed my tray using a different method. I dumped a small amount of seed into a folded piece of cardboard and used a pencil to push 2-4 seeds at a time into the cells. This method was not very consistent and had the downside of sometimes sporadically dropping more than 3 seeds per cell. Furthermore, I had to refill the folded cardboard halfway through seeding and may have double seeded a row of cells. After seeding, the trays were labeled with the date of seeding, variety, and name of seeder.

Transplant trays, soil-less medium

Seeding is actually incredibly time consuming and can be physically stressful on your back and neck when done in a commercial setting. Through years of farm tours I’ve seen a ton of different seeding mechanisms. Some have been DIY using a vacuum and cardboard, while others have practically been small, mechanized assembly lines. Quality aside, every small-scale farmer that I’ve met has been incredibly proud of his or her seeding mechanism. Due to the scale that our class is currently working in, a mechanized seeder is probably not needed. However, as the program grows and as the transition to the Garden City lands continues, an investment towards some sort of mechanized seeder will make sense.

Small-scale, manual seeder

Assembly line seeder

After seeding our trays the class used a hand held garden sprayer to water the trays. Due to the nature of peat moss, it’s important to water the trays until a consistent amount of water is being released from underneath. This ensures that the tray is completely saturated. Once the trays were completely saturated, they were taken from the main storage area in the parking garage to the Environmental Protection storage area. The Environmental Protection storage area is warmer and therefore a better place to propagate plants. Seeded trays were placed on top of heated mats under fluorescent lights. At this point the plants will get constant heat from the mats and 14 hours of light per day.

Propagation room

Hand held garden sprayer

With the help of Dr. Michael Bomford, the Sustainable Agriculture program has developed an impressive digital record keeping system. Consistent record keeping allows us to understand annual consumer trends, evaluate production costs, and understand germination and plant development rates. Furthermore, as a certified organic farm, record keeping is integral to maintaining our certification.

The below photo shows what we recorded that day and what we’ll continue to record as germination and growth take place. Once our transplants develop and the weather becomes favourable, the transplants will be placed outdoors for short periods of time allowing the plants to produce more sugars and structural tissue, preparing them for their long awaited outdoor growing season.

Snapshot of digital record keeping spreadsheet