Germinating

[UnlimitedGekko]

Whats the 100% most surefire way to germinate beans?
And after they pop, what should the soil be composed of? and how much sunlight for the newly emergents?
Much appreciated friends

 

[Ty Hayes]

I've started germinating in Root Riot cubes and love it. I soak the beans overnight then place them in the hole. I love being able to monitor their progress so closely. You can even help em out if they struggle to lose the shell or membrane.

 

[Coco_nuts]

Paper towel method works great for me.

 

[pinecone]

I've tried all of the popular methods and have settled on soaking the seeds in water overnight and planting straight away in my planting mix.

Pine

 

[pashi2004]

i got 5 from 5 using the paper towel method , try not to light-starve them as i did mine ' make sure u do some research into the amount of light they need once they have germinated and are poking there heads up ,

 

[budlover123]

put wet paper towels in a sealed ziplock container so nothing dries out, check them twice a day, plant them as soon as you see the first signs of the root popping out, the sooner the better as the further out it gets the more fragile the seed. Clear the middle of the pot a bit and put some big hand fulls of peat moss right in the middle.

Water the medium now before you plant the seed!!!

put a small indent in the peat about the size of a seed.A nice big pair of tweezers that you can grab the seed gently with is good, hold your hand underneath in case you drop it, or just use your hand to gently drop the seed into the indent, white root down, and grab a little peat from somewhere else and put it on top and spray a little with a spray bottle if you got one. You can use clear plastic cups with some holes cut in the bottom upside down as humidity domes to hold in moisture around the seed
that seed will likely have a good life!

 

[Big Eggy]

same a Pinecone... Simple and effective.

 

[exploziv]

me 3.
soak for 6 to 12 hours (maybe 12 hours more if using old seeds)
moisten the growing medium and put the seed 0.5 to 1.0 cm deep.
try to not water them after planting in a manner that can bury the seed. you should only use a mist sprayer or drip water around the edges if you need to keep the medium moist till they emerge.

happy planting!

 

[budlover123]

the problem with the cup method is that the root can come way out of the seed while in the water pretty quickly, which makes it more fragile and can cause complications, like the seed growing down into the dirt instead of up out of the dirt.

 

[exploziv]

I'm not sure if this is what you were saying, but if you were talking about the plant growing upside down, that's wrong. the plant has a mechanism for growing the right way based on gravity. It's called Gravitropism.

 

[FreezerBoy]

Pop them into what you grow in. Keep warm and moist. Paper towels have no magic powers of germination and provide no benefit other than increased chance of rot, mold, starvation root breakage and death.

Seedlings look for the full power of the sun in all it's blazing glory. Whatever lamp you have, it's a less than a puny penlight compared to what they're looking for. You can start under small wattage, many do but, plants will build themselves to handle weak light and will need to be acclimated to real light later.

 

[UnlimitedGekko]

I get what your saying OG.. but im cautious to dunk them for the fear of oversaturating.. for some reason the past few times ive done the paper towel method, the sucess rate was alright.. but I think im gonna try 3 of 6 in paper towels, and the other 3 the way freezer said.. K.I.S.S. Keep It Simple Stupid
at least till I get some good equipment like aerodomes and co2 and nutes... then its good to get tech \m/
thanks all! ill post the progress

 

[SOTF420]

101 ways to skin a cat, most surefire natural way is to germinate directly in the grow medium.



I also like to soak until they just show tips in some nice clean warm water with a few drops of maxicrop liquid seaweed in it and a tiny splash of grapefruit juice. The important thing about the soak is to make sure they get planted in your medium before the taproot starts to grow as some others above have already stated because it's very easy to damage it and they need to be able to orient themselves properly and anchor their tap root during germination while in contact with the grow medium. I used to use paper towels and that worked too but I prefer the soak method over it. Good luck & grow well!

 

[redneck shogun]

You can get away with just about any germination method with some seeds, but you don't know before hand if you have those kind of seeds or not. Soaking in water until they crack and putting them into a jiffy pellet is my most sure fire way of having success personally. I went straight into my medium for a couple years until I had bad germ rates because I think something was up with my starting soil. After that I went back to the pellets and they never fail for me. I think the fact that it keeps the medium moist for longer periods than the equivalent amount in a small cup was what helped me. The paper towel method I thought for some time was great but I realize now how quickly that tap root gets out of hand compared to the simple overnight soak.

 

[Big Eggy]

Old seeds or stubbun seeds can be lightly sanded with some sandpaper before the soak.. this has helped me germed some really old stock.

 

[Snook]

it may be called "Gravitropism", but the proper orientation of the seed in the media is important. I've had several seeds start to root and because I paid no attention to its' orientation in the media, the little tap root and the beginning leaflet tied themselves in a knot, killing itself. I run seeds only once a year to change up the strains, so I forget wether it's supposed to be seed point up or down ( I think it is 'up') so the root cangrow 'up' then turn down, causing the 'leaf' to go to the light. please correct me if I'm bass akwards.

 

[SOTF420]

It really does not matter that much although I used to think it did. If you point them upwards they will loop up and down most of the time which gives them some leverage to pop up the sprout head but if they are not deep enough the tap root doing the looping will make contact with the air above the soil surface and can dry out & stunt or die. If you want to point them upwards make sure they are at least 1/2" deep and know they may take longer to get above the surface. Recently on the advice of many and also just trying it myself several ways the tip pointing down planted about 1/4" under the soil works everytime and the sprout will grow upwards no problem works like a charm.

 

[RedOne]

root riots..straight in no cocking about with towels and the like

 

[rock solid]

Root Riot cubes i love em

 

[budman678]

this is all great ideas guys...thanks so much for all the insight. im going to soak overnight and then put in root riots. do i need to put the humidity dome on?