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Chimeras Seed Germination Technique

Zomboy

Well-known member
Veteran
Can someone please link me or paste Chimera's seed germination technique? I can't seem to find it. Maybe I just suck at using the search button :dunno:
 

knuckles

Active member
Veteran
5% bleach in autoclaved, distilled water with a couple of drops of Tween-20 per liter of solution. I sterilize the water in Duran jars (loose lids) in a pressure cooker @ 20 PSI for 20 minutes, and then allow the jars to cool under my flow hood and tighten the lids when the water has cooled. This is probably overkill for most purposes, but it's a variation of the protocol I use for sterilizing explants for tissue culture, and it seems to work with minimal contamination. You can get away with a drop of dish detergent instead of the Tween, I just have the tween-20 in the lab so I use it. If you are going to be doing a lot, you can order a few ml of Tween-20 on Amazon if you like.

First I rinse the seeds in a tight mesh strainer to remove any leaf debris that might be harboring bacteria or spores. These seeds were a little dirtier than most having been field grown, so you definitely want to wash away any superfluous materials. This can be up to a 5 minute rinse in lukewarm water. Cannabis achenes have a lot of little crevices where spores and bacteria can hide, so a thorough rinse is a wise step.

Then I take the seeds and drop them in maybe 100-200 mls of the bleach/Tween-20 solution in an Erlenmeyer flask, but any clean glass vessel will do -the seeds should be fully immersed, maybe 2x the volume of water as seed. You want to keep stirring and swishing the seeds around gently to ensure the current is washing away any contaminants. After a minute of swishing I remove the bleach and strain the seeds from the liquid and start again. No more than 3 minutes total, and if I see bleaching on the small test batch (always do a test batch to seed how the seeds react), sometimes I'll only do 2 minutes.

The next part is key. Immediately rinse 3-5 times (for 5 minutes per rinse) in the same sterilized distilled water (baby water / distilled water from Walmart or the local pharmacy is fine), again using a tight mesh strainer, or simply rinse the seeds in a different vessel with the same volume of water, at least 3 times to ensure the bleach is removed. I use a labratory orbita shaker, but you can do it by hand it's just a little tedious. Once the rinses are completed, soak the seeds in the distilled water as before, for 2-24 hours depending on the age of the seed and the medium you will be growing in. Sometimes I'll use agar plates, but most often I'll just sprout them in paper towels and transfer to a light dirt (like Light Warrior for you Americans) or surface sow on a .peat based planting substrate. You can use whatever medium you prefer, it's not that big of a deal as long as the seeds remain moist.
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CimbaKat

Member
5% bleach in autoclaved, distilled water with a couple of drops of Tween-20 per liter of solution. I sterilize the water in Duran jars (loose lids) in a pressure cooker @ 20 PSI for 20 minutes, and then allow the jars to cool under my flow hood and tighten the lids when the water has cooled. This is probably overkill for most purposes, but it's a variation of the protocol I use for sterilizing explants for tissue culture, and it seems to work with minimal contamination. You can get away with a drop of dish detergent instead of the Tween, I just have the tween-20 in the lab so I use it. If you are going to be doing a lot, you can order a few ml of Tween-20 on Amazon if you like.

First I rinse the seeds in a tight mesh strainer to remove any leaf debris that might be harboring bacteria or spores. These seeds were a little dirtier than most having been field grown, so you definitely want to wash away any superfluous materials. This can be up to a 5 minute rinse in lukewarm water. Cannabis achenes have a lot of little crevices where spores and bacteria can hide, so a thorough rinse is a wise step.

Then I take the seeds and drop them in maybe 100-200 mls of the bleach/Tween-20 solution in an Erlenmeyer flask, but any clean glass vessel will do -the seeds should be fully immersed, maybe 2x the volume of water as seed. You want to keep stirring and swishing the seeds around gently to ensure the current is washing away any contaminants. After a minute of swishing I remove the bleach and strain the seeds from the liquid and start again. No more than 3 minutes total, and if I see bleaching on the small test batch (always do a test batch to seed how the seeds react), sometimes I'll only do 2 minutes.

The next part is key. Immediately rinse 3-5 times (for 5 minutes per rinse) in the same sterilized distilled water (baby water / distilled water from Walmart or the local pharmacy is fine), again using a tight mesh strainer, or simply rinse the seeds in a different vessel with the same volume of water, at least 3 times to ensure the bleach is removed. I use a labratory orbita shaker, but you can do it by hand it's just a little tedious. Once the rinses are completed, soak the seeds in the distilled water as before, for 2-24 hours depending on the age of the seed and the medium you will be growing in. Sometimes I'll use agar plates, but most often I'll just sprout them in paper towels and transfer to a light dirt (like Light Warrior for you Americans) or surface sow on a .peat based planting substrate. You can use whatever medium you prefer, it's not that big of a deal as long as the seeds remain moist.
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That seems insane.... why not just 24 hr soak or paper towel..? A little overkill, no?
 

zif

Well-known member
Veteran
^ This isn't for everyday seed popping - it's for when you have seeds that won't pop any other way.

So mainly for old or mistreated seeds.

On those seeds, it works miracles.
 

I wood

Well-known member
^ This isn't for everyday seed popping - it's for when you have seeds that won't pop any other way.

So mainly for old or mistreated seeds.

On those seeds, it works miracles.

I respectfully disagree with this based on my own experience.
Side by side with h2o2 soak and on to paper towel wet with same solution yielded same germination in multiple tests over a two year period. The key it seemed was to keep seed clean and wet at constant temperature while waiting. Cracking shell after two or three days also upped germination rate by about 50% for both methods.

If the seeds were of questionable origin or thought to be “dirty”, then the bleaching process would help a lot, I suspect.
 

zif

Well-known member
Veteran
I respectfully disagree with this based on my own experience.

Not sure that/where we disagree!

Most well kept seeds will give 90+% germination if you follow *any* reasonable technique. I drop most seeds in a hole in moist soil, and am done. That works well enough that a seed not sprouting is always a surprise.

I like this for more recalcitrant seeds because it is comprehensive - and not far from what you would do for tissue culture from seed (e.g., embryo rescue). If you don't know what contaminants might attack weak seeds, it makes sense to get rid of as many as possible.
 

I wood

Well-known member
Ok then, we agree to agree. My point was that this is mostly a cleaning method and not an aid in germination except that clean sprouts will have better odds of making it.
 

Hammerhead

Disabled Farmer
ICMag Donor
Veteran
I respectfully disagree with this based on my own experience.
Side by side with h2o2 soak and on to paper towel wet with same solution yielded same germination in multiple tests over a two year period. The key it seemed was to keep seed clean and wet at constant temperature while waiting. Cracking shell after two or three days also upped germination rate by about 50% for both methods.

If the seeds were of questionable origin or thought to be “dirty”, then the bleaching process would help a lot, I suspect.




This has always been the best method to get seeds with tough Perianth to germ.. Most failures are from the shell not cracking to let moisture in. Seeds left in moisture to long will rot. I always recommend if your gonna pop seeds lend a hand when ever its needed. If your seeds are not cracked after a 36 hr soak you should intervene and crack them yourself. Many of those seeds you thought where no good will now germ fine.
 
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