Best seed germination method - cup of water or damp towels?

pot-heads.com and KANKS: Good observation about the root hairs sticking to paper towels. I've seen that also but I didn't think anything about it at the time.

So now the consenses seems to be moving away from paper towels toward just germinating the seeds in the medium they will grow in. Less effort, less stress. Makes sense.

So the question about paper towels remains. Why use paper towels at all?

 

pot-heads.com:
> "Not sure why, guess cause it does work most of the time. I don't know where this started but I did use it when I was a kid. Now I am a lot more serious about my grow and want my babies to have the best."

newgrowNY:
> "...I did the paper towel cause thats what every one said to do, but totally not needed..."

The same with me. I used it because everybody else used it. It's funny how people will just follow others without knowing why.

shafro:
> "I use the water method simply because I GET STONED AND FORGET TO ADD WATER TO THE PAPER TOWEL."

So THAT"S how the water-only method got started. Ha-ha.

 

Thanks everyone for your input. You have completely changed the way I viewed germination methods.

From all the input, here's my present thoughts and guesses about the various germination methods.

The water-only method and the paper-towel method does not necessarily guarantee better germination rates. I suspect it's value comes from being able to select faster germination seeds from the slower seeds. Some people think that the seeds that show its tap root sooner (and the ones with the longest tap root) are genetically superior and grow quicker (so the theory goes). So the water-only method and the paper-towel method allows one to see the taproot without affecting its growth. If you plant in soil, you can't see the taproots, and you don't want to go digging in soil to observe your taproots because that could very well destroy the seeds.

But in my case, I'm not looking to select the best seed from the others. Instead, I want to insure the best germination rate for all the seeds. Since the seeds I plan on using are very expensive (up to $20 a seed!), I would rather grow a slow seed from a genetically superior strand rather than fast seeds from a bagweed selection. So in my case, it appears that simply planting them in rockwool should provide them the best chance to germinate because there's less shock, no sticking to the paper towel and destroying root hairs, etc.

So here's my present plan:

1. Soak the seeds in a cup of water until they drop (and before the taproot shows). This should speed up the start of germination and insure that the seeds contain water.

2. Plant the seeds in damp 1" round GroDan (rockwool) plugs, 1/4" from the surface and leave them in the dark until they sprout, watering them every day to insure they are damp (and maybe adding a drop of SuperThrive per gallon of distilled water. It won't hurt, right?). I plan on the temperature being between 75-85 degrees F. Some people say germination is faster toward the warmer temperature.

3. Once they sprout, hit them with Florescent tubes (Grow-Lux with a blue spectrum).

4. After a week or two, and they develop leaves, hit them with a 400 watt HPS lamp along with the Grow-Lux lights. And on to veg...

What do you think?

The next question is about the kind of water and the pH of the water that are best for the seeds. (Perhaps this should go on a separate topic, but it is related to germination methods, so I'll keep it here unless someone says otherwise.)

I think most people use distilled water and most of the literature suggests to use distilled. Many people say the pH of the water should be between 5.5-6 pH, yet a lot of people just simply use plain distilled water without checking its pH.

So here's the thing: The pH of the distilled water I get from the grocery store is around 5 pH and about 8 ppm (@ .7 conversion). You'd think pure water should be neutral at around 7 pH, right? The bottled water I get has a pH of around 7 pH (which seems right) and about 18 ppm (@ .7 conversion).

So is pH important for seeds? I don't want to have to add pH down or pH up, but I can mix my bottled water with the distilled water to get it around 5.8 pH. Do you think this is a good idea?

 

The Grim Reefer, thanks so much for taking the time to post that information! That will help a lot.

Ok, so I won't use SuperThrive or any other additive, and I will pre-soak the rockwool once, making sure it's in a humid atmosphere. I'll also adjust the water pH to 5.8 by mixing my 5 pH distilled water with 7 pH bottled water until I hit my target.

I just went through your 2nd grow journal. Nice work man! Great White Shark is now on my list.

 

knr117, I'm not sure why you disagreed with the "good genetics" theory. It has been my experience (as well as biologists and farmers) that good genetics will cause certain seeds to crack before others. Of course old seeds (even with good genetics) will tend to degrade with time, but the conditions of the seed and genetics are certainly important here.

I am also not saying that the water-only method is the best. I'm just saying that I think some people use it to pick the first crackers from the slow crackers to save time. I now, personally, would not use the water-only method, but I might use it if I were wealthy

As far as planting the tap root straight or in an up or down direction, I am on the fence on this. I'm not sure why the root sometimes curls up but in my experience, in the long run, it doesn't make enough of a difference to matter to me. As long as it germinates and eventually sprouts to the surface, I'm happy.

 

I finally got my expensive seeds last week. I used the suggestions per this thread for my germination method. I used 3 seeds and they all germinated. Thanks everyone for your help.

The following is the procedure I used:

I dropped 3 seeds into a glass of distilled water, pH 5.6, Temperature 76F.
The seeds sank after only 3 hours (with the help of a push-down from me)!

I soaked three GroDan 1.5" Dia macro-plugs with distilled water for about 30 min. I let them drain and then I put the seeds into them about 2cm from the surface.

I put the seeded GroDan cubes into an empty JiffyPot plastic container to keep the moisture in. I put the the container onto a blanket warmer set to low, to keep the seeds warm (between 80F and 85F). Observations from other people claim that the seeds germinate much faster at the higher temperatures. This makes sense because, after all, heat causes quicker chemical reactions.

Roots began showing the next day, only 24 hours since I dropped them in water! No doubt it's from the good genetics and the warm temperature. (I never had this kind of quick response with bag-weed seeds.)

One seed sprouted through the surface on the third day, only 36 hours since it was dropped into water. The second seed sprouted a day later, and the last seed sprouted a little later with a little help from me (the cotyledon was held up by some rockwool fibers).

As soon as they sprouted I put the plugs into larger 3" x 3" rockwool cubes (after soaking in distilled water) and put 2 GroLux fluorescent lights on them, about 2" from the tops of the plants.

Four days later, the sprouts are standing straight up with the cotyledons unfolded, approximately 1" tall. Success!

I am hand feeding them about 1 or 2 times a day. I didn't want to use my water pump & timer because I think 15 minutes (the shortest interval of my timer) of dripping water on them is too much for these young ones.

On the sixth day I started feeding them diluted nutrients (1/4 Tsp, FloraNova Bloom/ Gal).

They are on their way!

Although I know that using only 3 seeds isn't enough to establish a statistical framework to determine the best germination method, this is a good start, and I now feel confident to use this as a baseline.

Note, I'm using this procedure for a hydroponic grow only. If I were doing a soil grow, I would obviously use soil.

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Some observations about using rockwool macro-plugs for germination: There are some good things I like about it and some bad things I don't like.

The Pros. about rockwool macro-plugs:

1. I holds moisture very well, and it drains reasonably well.

2. It is relatively inert.

3. It is inexpensive.

4. The 1.5" dia. macro-plugs have a slit down the middle (this was designed to put in cuttings). The neat thing about the slit is that it allows you to put your seed right in the slit and you can check on the status of your seed root by simply opening it up like a little book (similar to the way you would check your seeds in a folded damp paper towel). It doesn't disturb the seed and you never have to transplant it! It always stays where it germinated. For these reasons, and others, using this method is far superior to using damp paper towels IMO.


The Cons about rockwool macro-plugs.


1. They increase the pH of the water. I don't know why that is but after measuring the run-off, it raised the pH from 5.5pH to 6.5pH. This is why you have to pre-soak it in distilled water for a half-an-hour (some people let it soak for 24 hrs.)

2. Rockwool has a grain to it. By that, I mean when you squeeze it, it is slightly harder to squeeze in one direction than another. This is not a particular problem, but it's just not something that I expected.

3. When you squeeze it to drain water, it has no spring-back. It does not retain its shape. When placing it into a larger 3" x 3" rockwool cube (which has a 1.5" diameter recess built into it) , it doesn't fit very well and it leaves gaps between the macro-plug and the cube. It could also cause problems because, a compressed rockwool cube forces the fibers closer together and it could prevent the sprout from reaching the surface. I noticed this problem on one of my seeds, and I had to do some "surgery" to prevent this.

4. Even without squeezing it, the rockwool fibers are certainly tougher for a sprout to break through than loose dirt. I'm not sure that this is a problem but it seems that a spout could die trying to get to the surface, especially if it is buried deep. Also, the roots probably have a tougher time weaving their way through the fibers.

A better material?

A hydroponics store had a product called Sure-To-Grow. They are cubes about the same size as the rockwool cubes, but it is made out of polyethylene terephthalate (PET). The cool thing about Sure-To-Grow is that it is completely inert and will not change the pH of the water. It also drains much faster than rockwool yet retains the moisture as well, if not better than rockwool. It is also much softer than rockwool (almost like cotton). And unlike rockwool, it retains its shape much better after squeezing it.

Unfortunately, Sure-To-Grow products are expensive but for a small time grower like me (2 or 3 plants per harvest), that won't be a problem. Also, if a seed fails to germinate, you can simply wash it out and reuse it. Next time, I think I will give it an experimental try.

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Again, thanks to everyone for your suggestions. I am now anti paper towels!

 

It's good for the seeds to sink, the quicker the better. That usually means they are filled with nutrients without an air gap.