Anyone have some advice on sprouting very old seeds? I have some Alaskan thunder fuck seeds that a old timer gave to me but im having a hard time getting one to sprout. I have gone through about 4 of them with no success. I just soak in water for 24 hours and place in soil with saran wrap over the top. I have 90% success rate using this but these seeds i have had no luck at all.
I like to use kelp to help promote older seeds to pop. Kelp extracts make a great seed soak for older seeds, as kelp is loaded with natural growth hormones and contains many beneficial trace elements. One of the hormones found in seaweed extracts is called gibberillic acid. In nature, gibberillic acid triggers the release of enzymes in the seeds that begin the germination process. Soaking seeds overnight in seaweed extracts may improve germination rates by up to 30%. Just something for you to try on the next group of seeds. Mix some kelp extract with the water you soak the seeds in.
Just my 2¢, but I've found it useful to expand my germination process to a handful of steps. 1) Scarification: I line a matchbox with some fine grain sandpaper, drop the seeds into the matchbox (not mixing up strains), and shake the matchbox back and forth, gently. The goal is to gently score the surface of the shells to allow water to penetrate them more easily. I'd continue this for a few minutes, maybe less than five. 2) Drowning: Like you said you currently do, I gently plop my girls into a glass of room temperature tap water, keeping like strains in the same glass. I place the glasses on a seedling heat mat and cover them with something to give the seeds some darkness. 24 hours later, I'd hope to see a teeny, tiny taproot making an appearance. 3) Paper towel trick: I take my seeds with the baby taproots, place them inside of a damp paper towel (again, keeping different strains separate) which was inside of a plastic bag and resting on the same seedling heat mat. I keep my heat mat set to 78-82°F, and I'd estimate that my paper towel is actually maybe 5°F cooler than that. I'd place something over the bag to give the seeds some darkness -trying to replicate being in soil, in that regard. 4) Planting: After seeing a, roughly, 1cm long taproot, I'd use a spoon to pick the seed up and place her -taproot pointing downwards- into soil, about 1/3"-1/2" deep (ballpark it). Gently pad the medium down, and say 'goodnight'. Obviously, it's preferred that seeds be stored properly, but these steps have helped me. For my seeds, I store them in a light-proof container, with desiccant packets, in my refrigerator.