9 year old seeds - 6 for 6

[VapingBuddha]

These are in the neighborhood of 9 years old, purchased from the old Heaven's Stairway. I'm trying not to buy new stuff for now, going thru my stock and getting rid of the oldest first. All 6 cracked in 24 hours. These were kept in a mason jar with some silica packs in a black bag in my refrigerator.

The 4 on the left are Dutch Passion Oasis (NL#2) Fems and the 2 on the right are Dutch Passion Masterkush Fem. As I recall, the Masterkush hermed up pretty good, but I think the Oasis might have been okay. Can't really expect much from DP, but I figure I either need to grow 'em out or toss them. At the moment my cloning efforts have been failing, so I need some females to flower soon. I'm not going to try and clone these, this will be a reveg experiment for me if there is anything worthwhile.

 

[hampy]

Yeah, back in the Overgrow days I heard reports from oldtimers that claimed close to 30 year old seeds still viable with a sprouting rate of 30-40%... Good luck with them.

Why do your clones fail btw?

 

[VapingBuddha]

Why do your clones fail btw?

Well, that is the question. It was a bit of a mystery for a while, but I'm getting pretty sure that it's the temperature. I had always grown from seed before, so no problems with cloning there. But with my new setup this is the first winter I've grown through. I had cloned okay thru the summer and fall, but then things started failing. Finally, after checking the temps it was colder than I thought in that room, around 65F.

I've now got the temps up to a whopping 69F, hoping that little bit will make a big difference.

 

[FoCo(No.Co)]

Well, that is the question. It was a bit of a mystery for a while, but I'm getting pretty sure that it's the temperature. I had always grown from seed before, so no problems with cloning there. But with my new setup this is the first winter I've grown through. I had cloned okay thru the summer and fall, but then things started failing. Finally, after checking the temps it was colder than I thought in that room, around 65F.

I've now got the temps up to a whopping 69F, hoping that little bit will make a big difference.

Congrats on the germ rates, nice job man.

If your ambient temps are 65-69 a cheap seedling heat mat w/ humidity dome would create the perfect environment for clones. Those seedlings will be toppable in a week or less and you can use the tops as clones... peat pellets are really easy.

Good luck.

 

[chuckyoufarley]

VapingBuddha the 1st seeds i ever bought were from heavens stairway also about 9 yrs ago
had a few of each left over and the germed after 6-7 yrs in a mason jar w/silica packets too
i had northernlights and peak 19 ,crossed them and made northernpeaks for me and my friends.good luck with your grow they look great

 

[hampy]

Yes, the correct temperature, underwarmth, and correct levels of humidity both in the dome and media, and cloning is real easy. A good cloning gel help speed things up a lot too btw.

Here's a copied post of mine from a thread at rollitup, I hope it may be of some help, and good luck with both seeds and clones!


"Ok here's my experience.

Use soft fast-growing shoots for clones and not lignified slow growing tips. The soft shoots root more easily, and also grows faster and yields more as mature plants. And do not leave too much foliage on them, it'll only demand too much from the unrooted stem.

Clonex rooting gel are good stuff. Just dip the cuts prior to potting.

Ever studied the underside of the mature branches at the nodes from the main stem on your plants, and seen the white pinhead size "knobs" there? They're root precursors; every branch is infact a complete plant, they grow as fractals... So, cut the clone at a 45 degree angle right under a node, roots sprout easiest from the nodes.

Use a heating mat for reptilians wired through a dimmer, a thermostate-controlled seedling-mat or what have you under your dome/aquarium or whatever you use. Put a good aquarium thermometer in a moistened pot/cube with only media in it, and adjust to 24-25C on the dimmer/thermostat. This temperature and the underwarmth works wonders for the speed of rooting.

And buy a digital thermometer/hygrometer and keep it in the dome, start out with misting twice a day and shoot for about 80-90% RH for the first 2-3 days. Then, reduce the mistings to one time a day and lower the humidity a bit, and after 5-6 days you can stop misting, shoot for 50-60% RH, and let the media dry out a bit. It'll encourage roots.

Timing for the above is of course strain and system/experience dependent, but I get worried if I don't see roots on the fastest cuttings within 7-8 days...

And NEVER keep the media too wet, oxygen/aeration of the stems are vital. I never scrape stems cause it opens for and encourages infections, and I also like to give them 4 hours of darkness.

I've seen roots in 3 days from an easy-rooting plant, with fast growing cuts taken at the right time.

Good luck!"

 

[hampy]

And yeah, revegging in my experience sucks, it takes forever for them to switch back - especially for the Indica-dom varieties. And it left my plants kinda weird afterwards... airier buds and a bit stretchier on the whole than the originals, I thought they were...

But by all means do it, it's a worthwhile experience.

 

[B. Friendly]

I sucked at cloning so I made an Air Stone Cloner and it shot my rates to 90'ish%, it cost like 50 bucks to make and it's idiot proof, don't cover em. just have a heat mat under the tub of water and bingo...

anyways just a thought. http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=159680 build it thread

 

[designer]

In my experience clones prefer more heat, not a lot more, and more humidity. Not like growing normal marijuana. Thus, I have actually had better luck cloning with Less Ventilation. No expert, that is just what has (finally) worked for me after many failures. Never give up I say. I use home made bubble cloners. The rooting hormones didn't work as well for me.

 

[VapingBuddha]

I think I'll figure out a way, it's just taking a while. Took me half the winter to realize there was a temperature problem. I had checked temps in the fall once the heating season began, but I guess it wasn't cold enough yet.

My new setup is a microgrow and I'm trying to keep everything in the cabinet for reasons of stealth, so I really don't want to set up a separate cloning area. The way I raised the temperature 4 degrees (F) was to take a small heating mat (12" x 24" I think) and, after bending it a little, fit it into my cab in the intake area below the veg area, where my timers and stuff are.

I'm thinking I might be able to make a little clone shelf or box or something that could go higher in the veg area near the lights or something and pick up more heat that way, but there's really not much space in there. It's like Dr BudGreengenes sized (or less).

I have cloned (at least once each) in dirt, coco, plain water, and media, it's just a matter of coming up with something workable for my new setup. I plan on documenting my new cab soon.

Might be able to take clones in the first couple weeks of flowering or something, but at the moment I don't have any room in veg. I have revegged before, but yeah that's weird too.

 

[hampy]

Just a word of warning regarding taking clones in early flower.

Even though the plants are just stretching and growing vegetatively in the first 10-14 days of 12/12, they immidiately switches their hormonal and signalling systems for flower-mode as soon as they detect a couple of long nights...

Strain-dependant as with most other things of course, but you will probably have to see the clones go through a re-vegging process after getting just a few long nights.

 

[VapingBuddha]

@hampy, yeah, that sucks, thought I could get away with something there.

With no extra room in veg, I tried to water clone a few shoots in the flowering area. They actually produced pistils before they produced any roots. I put a couple of those in small containers to try and reveg, but it's a slow process.