[Iamnumber]

Greetings to each and all! Apologies for posting a bit OT for forum section. I did not find 'proper/ accurate' section for germination and seedling phase techniques.

I have read the basic damp paper towel in tuperware box / plastic bag; direct to soil; to jiffy pellet techniques.

While my experience is limited, I have tried different method. Still my success rate kinda sucks. While part might be due to old seeds .. too many failures indicate that it is me/ my techniques/ execution of techniques.

Issues I have:
1) Seed dose not open/ opens only slightly but dose not push tap root out.
2) cotyledons pushing out/ opening/ opened and stem gets thin and wastes away.
3) between cotyledons pushing out and first leaf pair pushing out . stem gets a brown spot (last time was where stem and cotyledons join) forms and rots the plant.

I would like to open up discussion for steps one can incorporate to germination inorder to improve success rate. Also looking into dialing in on specifics of each step. By this I mean I try to nail down flexible terminology like 'moist'.

I suspect that my seeds have been in too humid condition as 2) and 3) have been issues.

I do have a bag of cheap non-thc seed I can use on testing different techniques.

Looking forward to hearing about your techniques and trying to get my own house in order.

Just now testing how short/long soaking in tap water / tap water + chlorine affects germination rates.

Current understanding:
Temp: from 21C or 70F to 27C or 80F is good.

Seed likes to be in (moist to very moist) conditions before germination and moist but not very moist when cotyledons push out. (yes.. dialing these down is tricky). What would be good air humidity level for seeds and for cotyledons ?

I guess some airflow is better than non/ limited airflow.

Light .. I do not think that light makes that much difference in germination phase one way or another. On many techniques the seed is in fact more or less 'in dark' due to mechanics of technique. Once cotyledon leaves are present - light should be provided.

On wards and up wards .. step by step!

[yts farmer]

This is my method for germing seeds.

Soak seeds for 24 hours in water with a 5 or 6 drops of liquid oxygen somewhere dark and warm, this will help sterilize the outer shell of any dormant pathogens.

Remove seeds from water and use the paper towel
Method. Use fresh ph 5.5 water(left to stand 24 hours) with some liquid oxygen added to moisten your paper towels, dont have the towels too wet where water seeps out of the towels but the should not be too dry either. Put inside a zip lock bag or airtight Tupperware box somewhere dark and warm. Temp should ideally be 75-80oc.

I would normally check them every 12 hours or so, and dont like transplanting into rw cubes til the tap root is at least 10mm long.

My preferred medium for seedlings in 1 inch rockwool, soak rockwool cubes in ph 5.5 water with added liquid oxygen for a min of 2 hours and let the drain off for half hour or so, then ready to go.

When seeds open and just a tiny bit of tap root comes out and stops is because of damping off, thats why i use liquid oxygen.

Almost forgot, when your seeds pop up above ground but the stem gets thin and they fall in on themselves means your light is too far away. Your seedling is racing for the light but hasnt had a chance to strengthen its stem

[Philmore Jars]

Scuffing up the seeds with a matchbox strike strip prior to soaking I found was a great tip & it might help your first issue

[Iamnumber]

Originally Posted by yts farmer

This is my method for germing seeds.

Soak seeds for 24 hours in water with a 5 or 6 drops of liquid oxygen somewhere dark and warm, this will help sterilize the outer shell of any dormant pathogens.

Remove seeds from water and use the paper towel
Method. Use fresh ph 5.5 water(left to stand 24 hours) with some liquid oxygen added to moisten your paper towels, dont have the towels too wet where water seeps out of the towels but the should not be too dry either. Put inside a zip lock bag or airtight Tupperware box somewhere dark and warm. Temp should ideally be 75-80oc.

I would normally check them every 12 hours or so, and dont like transplanting into rw cubes til the tap root is at least 10mm long.

My preferred medium for seedlings in 1 inch rockwool, soak rockwool cubes in ph 5.5 water with added liquid oxygen for a min of 2 hours and let the drain off for half hour or so, then ready to go.

When seeds open and just a tiny bit of tap root comes out and stops is because of damping off, thats why i use liquid oxygen.

Almost forgot, when your seeds pop up above ground but the stem gets thin and they fall in on themselves means your light is too far away. Your seedling is racing for the light but hasnt had a chance to strengthen its stem

Thank you!!

Soaking seed in water (how much?) with 5 or 6 drop of liquid oxygen. Shot glass? small/large drinking glass? something between these?

How many layers are you using below/on top of seeds?

[Iamnumber]

Originally Posted by Philmore Jars

Scuffing up the seeds with a matchbox strike strip prior to soaking I found was a great tip & it might help your first issue

Thank you, your success noted!
I did try to line a box with fine grain sanding paper and shaked seed within for a while. That run was 0/13 seeds germinated. Failure likely due to something else going wrong on my run.

Do you target specific area of the seed with scuffing?

[Iamnumber]

Originally Posted by yts farmer

I would normally check them every 12 hours or so, and dont like transplanting into rw cubes til the tap root is at least 10mm long.

What position do you prefer as you transplant? root down? side ways? root up?

[yts farmer]

Originally Posted by Iamnumber

Thank you!!

Soaking seed in water (how much?) with 5 or 6 drop of liquid oxygen. Shot glass? small/large drinking glass? something between these?

How many layers are you using below/on top of seeds?

Hey there,

When i soak my seeds i'll just use a coffee mug plastic cup or small plastic kitchen jug. Disposable plastic cups are recommended if you're germing multiple strains at once.

I normally use 4 sheets of kitchen towel and fold it twice, half then quarter.

Then when kitchen towel is sufficiently wet i'll put the seeds between the 2 folded quarter's and then into tupperware somewhere dark and warm.

Once the pips have popped and have 10mm of taproot showing then i'll transplant into my rockwool cube taproot down and cover the hole with a small piece of rockwool that i would pinch of a corner.

Hope this helps buddy.

Peace.

[WilliametteWilly]

It does seem like you may have to much moisture for your seedlings. Ive planted 100s of seeds over the years and have always had good success rates. 90% and above. Jiffys work well and allow you to observe your seeds process a bit more. Mostly I have just planted straight into a heavy perlite soil in a one gallon pot. Bury the seed about as deep as the tip of my pinky finger and put loose soil on top. *Do not pack the soil above the seed*. Then I pore a small amout of water(1/4 cup) onto the soil area above the seed. Everyday I pore about the same amount on depending if the soil had dried out on top. This method takes about a week for the stem to pop out of the soil. Your seedling can then stay in the gallon pot until its time to sex it. IMO the less amount of transplanting early on, the less stress on the plant. The faster and healthier it grows.
Good Luck with your germination process.

[Iamnumber]

Originally Posted by WilliametteWilly

It does seem like you may have to much moisture for your seedlings. Ive planted 100s of seeds over the years and have always had good success rates. 90% and above. Jiffys work well and allow you to observe your seeds process a bit more. Mostly I have just planted straight into a heavy perlite soil in a one gallon pot. Bury the seed about as deep as the tip of my pinky finger and put loose soil on top. *Do not pack the soil above the seed*. Then I pore a small amout of water(1/4 cup) onto the soil area above the seed. Everyday I pore about the same amount on depending if the soil had dried out on top. This method takes about a week for the stem to pop out of the soil. Your seedling can then stay in the gallon pot until its time to sex it. IMO the less amount of transplanting early on, the less stress on the plant. The faster and healthier it grows.
Good Luck with your germination process.

Thank you kindly, I guess ideal would be to find the perfect mix of medium to provide enough and not too much moisture as constantly as possible. There is my first try at this reported below (medical seed) that aims at this. I added coco to perlite to increase wick action and to provide more moist setting for seed sprout.

report on how things are moving along...

Trouble in paradise .. I had seeds germinating on 'too wet' paper towels (two different methods to reach same effect). One patch dried as I left it to dry out a bit (and went to sleep forgetting them - Chronic pain leads to decline of cognitive capabilities - including memory )

Ten seeds (another patch) was moved (with root showing from just a peek to 9mm ( ~ 1/3 of an inch) ) and put between plates (tiny gap between). To provide moisture I used sponge cloth (fairly thick 2mm and 3 mm; 2/32" and 3"32" ). Today 10/10 were showing a nice tail. Today is booked so they must stay there - I will have to figure out if I am happy with this or if I must test the transplant phase too.

One (medical) seed was put to hempy bucket like of a pot with holed dome. Seed was rinsed in water and put to a thin layer of coco (~3mm or 3/32"). Today stem was above ground. I opened up (removed) dome - waiting for cotyledons to open up. Stem is darker but not brown - standard I guess?

After soaking (12 to 16 hours) direct to substrate was not as good. To Fytocell resulted only few sprouts (~2 / 10) and they were manky looking. I guess this is due to high water retention properties of fytocell. To soil resulted a bit better but poor still (~3-4 /10) sprouts - sprouts were good looking. (some might still be coming) . These experiments were done as afterthought so margin of (user)error is big.

Soaking and then directly to Bottom hydrated fytocell with coco layer on top is sprouting seeds.. this was also an afterthought experiment. We shall see how this turns out.


I have been bit afraid of soaking as people have warned about drowning the seeds. I guess the 'too wet' paper towels functioned as additional soak hydrating seeds. Good thing is that seeds do get air so the risk of drowning the seeds is greatly reduced. Comments or views on this line of reasoning ??

I guess I will try out some form of bottom feeding with upwards wick in transplant pot. Fairly heavy on perlite (allow air and prevent over watering / damping off) with moisture holding and wick characters to prevent drying out of the plant. coco seems very good so some of that. I guess some soil as I am aiming for soil grown ( as soil gives more leeway to ph levels and nutrition feeding)

[Stan G.]

Originally Posted by WilliametteWilly

It does seem like you may have to much moisture for your seedlings. Ive planted 100s of seeds over the years and have always had good success rates. 90% and above. Jiffys work well and allow you to observe your seeds process a bit more. Mostly I have just planted straight into a heavy perlite soil in a one gallon pot. Bury the seed about as deep as the tip of my pinky finger and put loose soil on top. *Do not pack the soil above the seed*. Then I pore a small amout of water(1/4 cup) onto the soil area above the seed. Everyday I pore about the same amount on depending if the soil had dried out on top. This method takes about a week for the stem to pop out of the soil. Your seedling can then stay in the gallon pot until its time to sex it. IMO the less amount of transplanting early on, the less stress on the plant. The faster and healthier it grows.
Good Luck with your germination process.

My money is on too much water as well. I use rock wool or root riot to start, no need for paper towel.