Hey guys, I put my seeds in their respective cups and set them in my dark closet to germinate. It has been about 21 hours now and they still haven't sunk. Should I go ahead and put them in paper towels? or should I stick with it and hope for the best? This is my first time germing seeds, and I'm being cautious. Any help?
take your finger and push the seeds about a inch or 2 under water. if they sink there ready. sometimes they take in water but still have a lil air in them and still float, doing this will push the last lil air out of them.
okay, i'll give that a shot. I had read that this can help, but when i tried it i just kinda poked them. EDIT: worked like a charm. two of the seeds have the root tip exposed too! Grow journal to follow! I feel like a kid on christmas day.
that will work, poke the about half way or even to the bottom of the glass. if there not ready they will float up fast. if they are they will sink or float in the middle
i took my seeds out of the water after 18 hours even though they didnt sink, put them in the wet papertowel on a heating mat, and the taproot came out within 15 hours of papertowling them. I've also just put them right in the papertowel. both methods worked fine for me.
I'm a 40-year grower, and this put the seeds in a dark place is all wrong! Take a small bowel; put a couple of inches of vermiculate in it. Next; slowly add enough water until the water reaches the surface. It should appear wet! And if you poke it with your finger slightly, it should fill with water. Next take your seeds, lie them on a paper towel, and spray them with some Lysol spray disinfectant! Give them a couple of minutes! This will kill a lot of the mold, and fungus spores on them! Wash them off! Now sprinkle the seeds on top of the vermiculate. Stick the bowel in a plastic bag, and prop open the end of the bag with a toothpick! Now whatever you do; do not place them in a dark place. I have a 20x30 ft green house, and my work bench is smack in the middle of it, and that's where I put my seeds to germinate! I've put pot seeds on this table using this method at 6am, in August, and by sundown some seeds were sprouting. Within 48 hours, using fresh seeds I normally get a 95% germination rate. Rapping up seeds in a wet paper towel, and putting them in a dark warm place is an invitation for mold, and fungus. In nature seeds sprout in sunlight better then in the dark! If this sounds wrong to you; then do a test! Take an equal number of seeds, and using my method, put them in the light, artificial, or natural; and then put some in the dark, using that method, and see which method wins! My wife had some hard shell Morning Glory seeds that would be all covered with fungus before getting them to sprout; even after soaking them overnight and nicking the ends of them with a file like they said to do; they would still die, because she was wrapping them up an putting them in a dark warm place. Using the light method, almost all of them sprouted in 24-hours. Mold, and fungus simply do not like light!
I actually disagree that the water in dark can't work and have almost a 98% success rate with it.. All I do is take a shot glass of distilled water.. Scuff the seed a bit with a match box lined with sand paper. Not hard as to hurt the seed just enough so it will soak up some extra water.. Soak the seed 24 hours to make sure it sinks and soaks up some water.. Then just plant it in a solo cup of dirt using tweezers.. Water a bit and put a plastic baggy over top. Secure with rubber band and blow air into it.. Just put it in a warm place.. Light doesn't matter and it will come up.. As soon as she pops add light.. Just popped an lsd and the last batch I did this with I planted 12, 11 came up.. Quite a good turn out.. Never had trouble with mold, fungus, etc.. Everyone grows different though and there isn't just one clear cut way to do things.. Goodluck man and happy growing..
i guess everyone here that germs seeds in the dark is wrong huh? i guess hes a pro because he grew some morning glory seeds for his wife LOL. what a ...........
thats too funny.However everyone has their own way.I myself always put my seeds in a shotglass w/ water and put them in a dark place also.95% of the time the taproot appears in 24-36 hrs.I have recently germed 18 seeds and had 100% success. I dont think that mold is going to be present in the glass or paper towel in such a short time. I dont know about spraying seeds w/ lysol either unless those are some dirty lowdown little seeds.I just cant see spraying them w/ lysol.Probably cant hurt but I'm not doing it.
I ususally just crack the shell with tweezers or my teeth, and stick them in the damp ph'd paper towel to start with. I have tap roots in 18 hours from a dry seed this way, the first set of leaves in around 25-30 hours, and usually a %100 success rate.
This is incredibly inaccurate. Many of the molds and fungus that specifically attack our root systems thrive with light exposure, which is why it is crucial never to use clear pots that expose the root systems to light, it encourages particularly tough algae to flourish. Especially in hydroponics and even aquaponics, you will have more success and fewer complications, when the root system is completely enclosed in darkness. I agree in one respect, that germination under a light source is successful and could prevent -dark-thriving baddies-, which usually aren't an issue for us until bloom anyway, but that's all. It's just another way to germinate, and spraying them with lysol is not necessary, especially if you have the environment prepared correctly. This above method also takes 48 hours to work, when using a paper towel and cracking the seed you can have tap roots in 18 hours, thus giving light-thriving mold even less opportunity to take hold while the seedling is at its most vulnerable.
Scarification, or especially going so far as to crack the seed, should be practiced with worthless bagseed for a good long while, before you risk the possibility of crushing a precious breeder seed I've become pretty good at it, and could probably do it blindfolded and half asleep these days without destroying the delicate contents of the seed, but I remember it being a bit tough to get a hold of them securely at the very beginning. I'll either pinch them between my thumb and forefinger, and gently use tweezers, or bite the tip where it splits... not the end with the circular 'opening' where it was attached to the mother. Slowly put more pressure until it audibly pops, you'll feel it too, then stop.. I'd recommend using the tweezers, I just use my teeth because I'm a bit less clumsy with them, and often times the tweezers have this strange habit of going missing when I need them most (when I was younger, before the Internet of course, I used to swear my saliva was germinating them quicker, lol, of course it's not true, I forgot all about that little tidbit until just now... memories )