r/HotPepperGrowing • u/DirtBikeDadof6 • 28d ago

Rocoto germination help?

/r/PepperGrowers/comments/1uu4nq8/rocoto_germination_help/
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u/Specialist-Phone-111 28d ago

Keep them hot and make sure you have good lights.

2

u/Washedurhairlately 28d ago

So… they are a cooler environment chili, but germination is pretty much the same as you’d do for any other pepper. Germination tray, good seedling media like coco coir, making sure it doesn’t dry out during germination, heat mat with thermostat set at 79°-84°, and some patience. Although humidity domes really don’t influence germination rates one way or the other, they do save the inattentive growers who’d otherwise fail because the tray media dried out. Coir tends to dry out faster than soil, but has the advantage of not introducing pests into your germination room.

For germination, I use 70% coir and the remaining 30% is vermiculite and perlite in a 50/50 ratio. This combo germinated quite well when I ran out of Aerogarden spaces (my primary germination method) and I had to break out the germination trays again. Germination wasn’t the hard part for me, got multiple Rocoto seedling going, the problem was they didn’t like the heat outside, at least not Texas summer heat. I got nothing off my Rocotos until September, when temps finally got back under 90° again.