Has anyone else used a cotton ball to germinate their beans? I just tried it out on my first seed and it broke in under 24 hours. I just made sure the seed was completely blanketed in fibers.
Screw cottonball germination, I just discovered the power of Jiffy Pellets. This gal only took 36 hours to germinate and this morning I saw her starting to break the surface. I gave her some nutes and ferts and she grew an entire inch over a several hours. I hope she doesn't grow too fast because the ground outside isn't ready yet...
Jiffy cubes are a great way to start. No nutes or fert for the first three weeks, though. It'll make your sprout shoot right out, but it also greatly increases the risk of turning your girls hermie right off the bat from stress as well as burning or damaging them to the point of death. Careful with all that.
A former member here in the city (cantharis) was a staunch supporter of directly sowing seeds in starter cubes. After all, he said, we don't pregerminate any of our other seeds, so why pregerm cannabis? His argument was that removing the pregermed seed from the germing medium is traumatic, and forcing the seed to germ in the soil it will be growing in, toughens them considerably. So I tried it last year and my germ ratio was every bit as good as the overnight presoak, followed by the papertowel method that i had always used. I now believe this is the way to go. Just my 2 cents.
I'd be cautious with the cottonball method. The roots can intertwine with the fibers, and if you're not careful enough, you might tear a root while removing them. I had a blue dream that grew in between the fibers of a paper towel just a week ago. I was careful enough to remove it properly, but it had me worried lol.