Flats, Cells and Medium

Flats, Cells and Medium

Starting Your First Set of Seeds
Lesson: 1.7
Level:
Beginner
Station: Seed Starting
Format: Essential Skill
Rating:
1.7-Flats-and-Cells

Lesson Overview

Good farm planning includes knowing when to start seeds to replace the upcoming harvest. This lesson allows students to develop their seed starting skills by sowing seeds in flats to develop seedlings for future transplant.

Goals

  • Describe how to start seeds in a soilless medium
  • Identify the equipment needed to start seeds indoors

Outcomes

Students will sow seeds in cells and flats with a soilless starting medium in order to establish a supply of young plants for the raised planters and hydroponics towers.

Teaching Primer

seed startingAgriculture has a long and storied history.

The domestication of food crops began more than 11,000 years ago in what is now Iran. But the technological advances are younger than that. Artificial lighting, germination mats, and certainly hydroponics have made the process more predictable by offering control over some of the variables. But technology doesn’t change the essence of the process. A seed must be coaxed out of dormancy, under the perfect conditions of temperature, moisture, and sometimes light.

Those early days are a challenge that technology helps to overcome, but there is no replacement for good old-fashioned know-how.

Teach the Teacher

Tools & Materials

  • Flats, cell trays, planting medium
  • Bowl, water, strainer, paper towels
  • Seeds

Vocabulary

  • Propagation mats
  • Cells
  • Flats
  • Soilless medium
  • T5 lights

Method

Introduction (10 minutes)

Begin the lesson by explaining the steps of the seed starting process. Highlight the stage when germination takes place. Describe the role that each piece of equipment plays in promoting the process.

Activity (20 minutes)

Gather the Students around the Planting Table with all the materials needed. Prepare two flats (or sets of flats) with cells trays inserted. Fill each cell with the medium. Select the seeds that you’d like to start. Label each flat and place them on the germination mat and turn the lights on for ambient heat. Monitor the sets to see which one germinates first.

Discussion (10 minutes)

What do the germination mats do? How do they help seeds to germinate? Which of the two sets of seeds that we have just sown will germinate first? How long will it take?

Assessment (5 minutes)

Use the following questions to assess the Students before and after the lesson. Tally the responses of the group for comparison:

  • By a show of hands, how many of you have grown plants from seed before?
  • Now that you’ve started seeds in the Lab, do you think you could do this yourself?

Related Lessons

Give the Intermediate or Advanced lessons a try now that you’ve completed the Beginner Lesson!

This lesson, and all other lessons on this website, are intended for use by teachers in the classroom. These lessons are protected by US and International copyright laws. Reproduction or distribution of lesson content, supporting materials, or digital creative is prohibited with written permission from Modern Steader LLC.