The beans arrived on the 27th of June, and were put into water on a heated surface and an opaque covering, along with a couple drops of good old H2O2.



Ambient temps in the room (my Veg) range from the mid 70s to the low 80s, leaving the warmed beans hovering in the low 90s.

From here they'll be placed into Root Riot plugs under a plastic dome, the taproot is inserted into the pre-cut holes atop the plug, with the seed itself resting just on top of the plug's surface. Once the seedlings spring up and begin to shed their casings the plugs will be transplanted into 2L containers of plain soil.

Seeds which sprout but have trouble shedding their seed cases will be given assistance with a fine pointed bamboo skewer, working on a video of this process, but suffice to say one should be very careful and gentle when doing this.

You may ask, why bother with the plugs? If you've read my posts before, you know I like to err on the side of caution, and an inconvenience i've experienced many times with placing beans directly into soil is keeping them properly moistened without the seed becoming buried too deeply to emerge, no matter how well I pack the soil beneath the seed or how gently I water (short of a spray bottle), I seem to have awful luck with this phenomena. This extra step completely prevents that, giving the seedling a solid "foundation" in which to root while small, as well as being rich in Mykos.

This method has served me well since its inception, nursing very old and fragile beans to life such as some Afropips (AK47 x FastBlast, calling it Blaster Rifle) and some lovely polyhybrids from a friend in the UK (Cheese x White Widow, calling it Queso Blanco ). The Afropips have been frozen for close to 10 years, and the seeds from my buddy around 7, so the procedure has definitely proven itself with some difficult beans.

As you can see, I have a penchant for fun strain names, in this case we needed to drop some S words to get Strawberry in there, so a silvery haze of diesel becomes Smog

I hope ya'll enjoy the test grow, and i'm sure the patients of Ganja Gourmet will love seeing Connoisseur's genetics grace our shelves

[GSPfan]

Cant wait to see the girls! And thanks for the germ tip. Ill have to try your methods on some hard to sprout beans.

All 6 beans cracked and sprouted taproots, these roots were gently lowered into the small pre-cut holes in the Root Riot plugs, with the seed cases resting gently at the top of said hole, I try not to push downwards much if at all because occasionally the elastic textured plugs will tightly grip a seed which has been submerged too far into the material, preventing it from sprouting.

Originally Posted by GSPfan

Cant wait to see the girls! And thanks for the germ tip. Ill have to try your methods on some hard to sprout beans.

I've been a bit of a seed whore for many years now, with hard to find and rare beans being a favorite project of mine, and often these beans are more delicate or aged than your average stock, leading me to experiment with many different germination methods until one was found which could nurse life out of seeming duds.

[Smokindogcujo]

Front row seat! Super Strawberry Smog....I have a feeling this is gonna be good!

Grow Safe

SDC

[ojd]

hey soopersmurph

nice one on germ rates
look forward to your show

peace

Here are the seedlings, first shot is of the group of 6 after they shed their seed cases, second shot of a overly stretched seedling whose taproot shriveled a bit (already recovered), third we have the seedlings post transplant, and fourth we see them the next day after they've settled into their new homes.

Some progress shots.

Day 3


Day 4


The initial stretch that had me worried has lessened somewhat, but will still require monitoring, here are some other hybrids being started in the same way, next to the Triple S group:



We'll leave the lights as close as possible and see if we can't control that stretch and generate some keepers!

[ojd]

looking good bro

peace

Subbed for sure. Nice genetics!

Day 5