Brand new grower - Auto AK-47 - not growing after 4.5 days in soil, worried about it

Grow Cycle Seedling
1

This will be a long question. I got three autoflower AK-47 seeds from ILGM. My eventual plan is to grow them outdoors in Washington, DC where it is legal to grow and use for personal reasons.

I got my three seeds and put them in water for 2.5 days. Then I put them in a damp paper towel for another 12 hours. I read somewhere that you’re good to go if the tap root that comes out is 3 to 5 mm. However, in looking at a lot of other pictures, the tap root looks more like 3-4 cm.

Example of 3-4 cm tap roots:

Here are my tap roots for my 3 seeds when I planted them (note that one shell had cracked but had no visible tap root, but I planted it anyway:

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I planted the seeds in an organic seed starting mix in small jiffy pots:

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I planted the seeds about 3 mm deep (very shallow) as recommended. I planted them tap root down using tweezers.

I’m a little concerned that after 4.5 days in soil, I see no green stuff (sprouting). I did see that two of the seeds had found their way to the surface. In some of my readings, I saw that sometimes, the shell doesn’t come off and then shell stays attached as the plant goes toward the surface. Having not read that at the time, I gave the seeds a small push downward (still remaining shallow).

I’ve been keeping the soil mostly moist, but not wet. I have a 5700k CFL shining on them all night. This is in my garage, which has the same humidity as the outdoors. Temperature varies between high 60s and high 70s (Fahrenheit)

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During the day, it gets pretty hot in the garage, so I bring the plants inside where it’s mostly about 74 degrees in my house but drier because of the air conditioning (it can be 75 to 90 degrees during the day). No picture of this. I put them in a window sill where they can get natural light most of the day.

I’m nervous:

  1. I didn’t let the tap root get long enough before planting.
  2. that I don’t see any plants after 4.5 days.

Thank you

2

I’m not at all worried about the length of the tap roots having anything to do with your success or not. If they’ve cracked, they can go in the soil. The only thing I’d be worried about is having them drown from being over watered, this is the most common way new growers kill their plants. Give them time, maybe that is all they need, and of course don’t let the soil dry out too much. If their is any trick, that is it, keep the temps in the optimal range and keep the proper balance between being wet enough and not too wet and you should have a very high success rate with your germination.

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Following up on my earlier post, none of the three seeds made it. One of the seeds sprouted., and I’d say it got two days of growth, but there were never any leaves. It looked like the stem with the seed still on top. The growth above the soil was about 3/4 of an inch.

My amateur diagnosis is that the soil was too dry. I kept reading over and over about how rookie growers kept their soil too wet. I might have overcompensated by letting the soil get too dry. I definitely sprayed the soil with a water bottle a couple times a day.

ILGM offered me $30 off my next purchase (my original purchase was $35). In this case, instead of 3 auto AK-47 seeds, I decided to give myself more room for error and buy the 5+5 White Widow seeds (feminized, not autoflower) for $49.

This time, I’m going to try a variety of methods based on what I’ve seen and read:

  1. Jiffy greenhouse in a Jiffy pellet - Amazon.com
  2. self-made single greenhouse - The Two Methods of Germination - YouTube
  3. paper towel method - where I use two plates over and under the paper towel to keep the moisture in and put it in a warm, dark place
  4. soak in water and straight into seed starting soil

I’ll start a new grow journal with my White Widow seeds.