Park's Original Bio Dome 60 Cell Seed Starter

Just day 5 after I started 15 pepper plants and 10 have germinated. Also planted 10 Lemon cucumbers, they've all germinated well. Planted another 10 Jalapeno and 10 Sweet Peppers two days ago, this my first bio-dome system works very well. It's on my workbench in shop under 4' LED, on a 12 hour timer. I put a 14" x 18" Pet Warmer pad underneath, which I believe is helping. I highly recommend these bio-dome systems to anyone looking to start there seeds early.

I've used the Bio Dome system for 3 years, and up until this year I'd have recommended it to anyone. This year, I can't recommend it. I grow tomatoes for a nonprofit organization's plant sale, which is their major fund-raiser, so it's important that the plants look really good by the time of the sale. In 2020 and 2021, the tomatoes looked great right from the start. This year, the tomatoes germinated beautifully, then went into stasis, not even developing true leaf primordia for nearly 3 weeks. Once they started growing, they did fine, but losing those 3 weeks means they won't reach the size they should by the sale. This happened with 2 varieties of tomatoes (which I'd previously successfully grown in Bio Domes) and 2 sowing dates, so it was repeated. I also started both varieties both times in peat pellets -- plus an additional time to make up for the "hibernating" plants -- and they developed completely normally, so there was nothing wrong with the seed or my growing conditions. All seeds were grown under controlled conditions of light and temperature. There's something in the sponges this year that causes the seedlings to stall out. While this might not be a problem for someone growing plants for themselves, it's definitely something I can't risk in the future. This year's sponges also were not of the quality of past years. They were flimsy, squashed so the holes weren't obvious -- and soaking didn't help that -- tore easily, and some were in pieces in the package. I loved the system before -- I definitely don't love it now.

This is perfect for people just starting out working from seeds, or people who want to cut out some of the work. I spent maybe an hour soaking the plugs and dropping the seeds into the holes. In just days I got my first sprouts and so far, they all look happy. I don't mind having to transfer them into a bigger cups to later sow into the ground. I use a grow light with 5:1 red and blue light. Soon I'll be able to put them into direct sunlight!

Easy to plant and grow seedlings, however, the plugs themselves never break down. In addition, my plastic dome chipped when I set it down on my deck. I found that to be disappointing.

I am very pleased with the price, ease of use, and how it is working so far. My seedlings are working almost 100% compared to last year this is a much better return on my investment. Seeds are expensive but this system has so far worked great. Very happy with the results.