A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Plants and Flowers Forum Plant Propagation Pelletizing petunia seeds?

Does anyone know how to make pellets for petunia seeds. It is so hard for me to seperate the little things come planting time so I only get one or two in each yogurt cup. Any help would be appreciated.

pelletized seeds are awesome. that's how my tomato seeds came this year and I loved planted them. every single one of them came up too.
I have NO idea how to pelletize. I can't even imagine how a machine would be able to do such a thing.
I have read where some people mix small seed with sand to make them easier to plant. I've never tried it, and don't really get how it would be all that much easier. to me, you still wouldn't know how many seeds you were sowing in a given spot.
good question though. now you have me interested.

i do know there are seed separators that are like a syringe with an insert that you push to drop one or two seeds at a time. i'm not sure about where to get them. they are spring loaded.

Long ago, when I had the nursery, I would fold a playing card into a modified "Y" or peace sign. cactus seeds are very fine so I'd put a pinch of the seeds in the ^ part of the fold, hold it at a slight angle and gently tap the card with my index finger and the seeds would flow down the slide. The harder you tap, the faster the seeds flow. Eventually I bought an inexpensive ($20), battery powered vibrator to replace the card trick.... I kept over 100,000 seedlings growing at times and the old way just wasn't fast enough.

Can you explain the use of the vibrator, Bill? An odd question, I know. But I really am serious. Did it replace the tapping of your finger?
Laugh all you want then answer me, please.

Apparently they don't sell them any more, but I scrounged a photo from my 1976 Park seed catalog. It was only $6 back then! The seeds were put into the trough and when you clicked ON a small vibrator (about like a cell phone I guess) jiggled the seeds down the funnel. By adjusting the down angle, you could get the seeds to separate down to single seeds as they dropped onto the trays...

Cool, I think I have seen something similar. And the thing Jiffy mentioned too. If I were into seeds as much as I was when I had greenhouse access at the school I would seriously look into these things. But most of my seeding is direct into the ground now and little bits at a time or surface sowing larger areas with seeds-by-the-pound.
I bet you could rig something similar up from some easy to get materials though.

Oh and thank you for answering.

Well I got out the flour and water and went to work. And it is a lot of work. But I now have about 40 pellets with seeds on them. I'll see how they work next year.

I plan to plant them along the fence line out front.