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Tipp City, Ohio

My daughter did her science fair project on different chemicals to help germinate pumpkin seeds. She used Plain water, seaweed, fish, molasses, Roundup, 1% milk, water soluable 20-20-20 and Hydrogen Peroxide.

She soaked the seeds at intervals of 2,6,12 and 24 hours. Her final results were that Roundup did help germinate the seeds but only in the 6 and 12 hour soak. Hydrogen Peroxide had almost 100% success in germination except the 24 hour soak (50%). 1% milk had a higher germination than Seaweed, fish, water and 20-20-20. The seeds that did germinate from milk soaking had very vigorous roots.

Afterwords we placed the best two plants from each on pots. Roundup has yet to break thru the soil Hydrogen peroxide has small leaves and looks shriveled compared to the others. The "milk" plants are the largest and greenest compared to the others.

All seeds came from the same plant.

So we will plant these in the kids garden and see what happens.

5/17/2006 9:02:01 PM

Waquoit Mass

udderly rediculous

5/18/2006 8:22:22 AM

Phoenix, AZ

Milk was from of those "hormone infested" cows, eh?

5/18/2006 10:40:05 AM

Midwest

The lab I am working with told me to use 75/25 water/milk in the grow zone while pumpkins were on the vine. Everybody says it's a wives-tale except the agronomist. Thanks for posting the results and best wishes!

5/18/2006 1:49:35 PM

Menomonie, WI ([email protected])

You sure they are not telling you to spray it foliar?

5/18/2006 2:40:52 PM

Midwest

The agronomist told me to punch holes in a bucket, put water/milk in the bucket and let it drip near the crown of the plant. This would make an effective slow-delivery of nutrients to the grow zone. Partly, he saw anaerobic conditions forming in the soil and wanted me to really cut back on the watering. But, I don't know what the milk was for. I tried his approach but I believe whatever the plant benefited from the milk was insignificant because I couldn't use his drip method over the whole patch. And, I would have spent a hundred dollars on milk! I never really understood why he wanted to use the milk. I think it has something to do with the biology feeding on the fats, calcium, etc... Everyone says thats crazy.

5/19/2006 1:42:27 PM

Knopp, Germany

i wish this "agronomist" would post here as i may be old, but i am not a dog who is not to old to learn. now some of these other guys, well they are too old......lol

at least the agonomist didn't say to get a needle and feed direct.

5/19/2006 2:00:15 PM

Menomonie, WI ([email protected])

So let me get this straight...he saw anerobic conditions forming on the soil. So he wanted you to use milk diluted instead. I think the opposite would occur.Milk Which contains unsoluble fats, and at that ratio would in turn most likely increase your anerobic condition.

5/19/2006 3:15:04 PM

Roanoke Il

milk as a fungicide is proven but i would think skim milk is the way to go no fat. milk as a folar spray i used dehydrated milk last year had no pm om any of the plants first time ever...mark

5/19/2006 7:28:33 PM

[email protected]

Milk does control PM though what % milk fat works best I have no idea. The only data I've seen recommended unprocessed milk but this may be all that was available to the grower.

Tom,

I'm really surprised that no one here flipped out over the glyphosate treatment. I even waited to see who would go first! LOL But we ran off with the milk bait again.

This is a trick we've used for years to break grass seed faster. I am surprised that treatment didn't work better for her but I'll wager that seed size is the reason.

What percent glyphosate did she use?

5/19/2006 8:46:02 PM

Tipp City, Ohio

I was surprised also, but milk and pumpkins have a longer history together than Roundup and pumpkins lol.

The glyphosate that we used was a 41% active ingredient. We then diluted it down to 10 parts water to 1 part glyphosate (10:1 ratio). A little overkill(lol) heavy but I wanted to prove to my daughter that seeds can still germinate by soaking in weedkiller. The 1% milk was a 1:1 ratio. We used seeds that were four years old and the original germination % was at 95% so I figured that the current % would be between 69-74%.

What was interesting was that after the "Roundup" seeds germinated the root grew to about 1/2" and then stopped growing.

All the plants that were then potted were given to kids at school so now I will not know which plants will grow better so we may try it again sometime this summer.
Tom

5/20/2006 9:44:50 PM

[email protected]

Tom,

I suspect that there was just enough residual glyphosate left that when the cots began to "awaken" they felt the dose. I think a 1-2% Roundup might have been the winner. Another twist would be to get the seedlings right into soil. So long as some *mineral* soil was present, the glyphosate should have been nullified & the seedling unharmed. An organic soiless mix on the other hand would *not* negate the glyphosate.

Cool experiment.

5/21/2006 9:38:27 AM