Hi,
First time grower and I’m giving myself anxiety with not knowing if what I’m doing is correct as I still haven’t seen any true life.
I started to germinate two seeds, one amnesia haze auto and one northern lights auto. Both were put into a cup of tap water for about 30 hours, both sunk to the bottom. Neither had cracked yet. Transferred them to a wet paper towel between two plates and placed on top my CCTV box for heat. Both cracked after about 48 hours. Continued checking daily and one had begun to consistently grow its tap root to around half an inch whereas the other seemed to stop growing at around 2mm.
I planted both in coco, the one that was growing it’s tap root eventually sprouted after 7 days but only popped its cotyledon leaves and never grew more than half an inch tall then died. I dug up the other seed and discovered it had not changed at all since planting.
I’ve just started to germinate two more seeds, one more northern lights auto and a blueberry auto. I started these by putting in a glass of tap water with a PH of 6 and TDS of 100. After about 18 hours I transferred to jiffy peat pellets (expanded using water heated to 27 degrees celcius, same PH and TDS) and put in the supplied humidity enclosure and placed on a seed heat mat. Temp inside the enclosure is around 30 degrees with about 60% RH. It’s been about 4 days now and I’m still yet to see any sign of sprouting.
I should add it’s winter here so I’m heating my tent with an air heater on a timer and built in thermostat. Tent temperatures average around 23 degrees celcius. Tent humidity is around 50%.
Just wanting to know if I’m doing things correctly as it’s my first time so I don’t know what to expect. Should I just be more patient or am I doing something that’s killing the seeds?
Your current method is perfect, your previous method not so much.
Where did you get your seeds?
I’m seeing so many people have issues but I’ve never had a seed not germinate and grow to final harvest.
Keep doing what your doing call your seed bank ask for new seeds if they don’t send you some free then order fo a better source.
Bought the pack from ILGM. I’ve heard they have really good genes and customer support so that’s what won my purchase.
I’ll keep trying with this method but I’m just worried maybe the cold is affecting them too much or I’m drowning the seeds.
Thanks for the reply
No nutes just coco and perlite in about a 50/50 mix.
Maybe I used too much water in the wet paper towel and drowned them? Hoping the peat pellet seeds sprout in the next few days. Can’t tell if they’ve even popped because they’re covered. I buried them by poking a hole with the butt of my tweezers about 10mm and very gently covered them and didn’t pack them down.
How long should I wait before trying again with more seeds?
I see on YouTube and mates that grow have told me the seeds pop in 24hours then the tap root grows so fast you leave for work in the morning and by the time you get home it’s remarkably larger.
It is winter here with night temperatures dropping as low as 5 degrees celcius outside. I’m heating the tent with an air heater but don’t want it on 24/7 because of the power bill so there are fluctuations ranging between 15 degrees (lowest I’ve witnessed) to 38 degrees (rough limit I’ve set the heater to) in the tent. So it hits around 38 degrees then slowly drops. The seeds are on a heat mat that heats to 37 degrees and I’m getting a consistent 30 degrees inside the seed humidity enclosure and 50-60%RH.
I did put the water jug in the microwave to heat the water before expanding the peat pellets. Could that have a negative effect?
I use tweezers to handle the seeds with the only time I touch them is getting them out of the bag they came in. Once they’re wet I don’t touch them with exposed skin.
How long should I expect before I start to see them sprout? I was hoping for a few days from putting in towel or peat pellets as that’s what YouTube and my mates say but I’m thinking cause it’s winter it will take longer or I’m just sending the seeds to death every attempt. Maybe the microwaved water to expand the peat pellets is a death sentence?
Should I abandon my efforts until it starts to warm up in spring?
Thanks
No, both attempts the seeds did not pop in the water before moving to paper towel or peat pellets.
I have heard the seeds can drown if in water for too long so I pulled them out after 24 hours on the first attempt and about 18 hours on the second.
1 seed I didn’t soak at all and just planted in a peat pellet.
Leave it to me to be different but…
You need to keep in mind though that I am a beginner at this.
I had my first seeds ever this spring…15 seeds, 5 varieties. I did lots of reading before I started and have some experience with gardening, and ultimately was not comfortable with cup of water and paper towel. I used 2 inch peat pots filled with organic jiffy seed starter in yellow bag. I premoistened the medium using distilled bottled water from Walmart…the cheap brand and made seeds a small nest packing down medium in that spot so they wouldn’t sink down too far. I put seeds in nests and covered with small amount of moist medium. The containers were put in germination tray on heat mat for germination and covered with the dome. I made sure that the dome was cracked open so it wouldn’t get too humid by putting plant name markers in pots ( the plastic ones you write one) tall enough to keep lid open a small amount, maybe 1/4 inch. I spritzed the medium every 6 hours during the day and not at night. In 5 days I had 15 sprouts…the first came at 26 hours. At 8 weeks I have 15 3 foot beauties.
My hubby wanted some CBD plants so I ordered 6 more seeds…really wanted these plants and decided to try the soak and paper towel method. I tried 3 seeds…small taproot, plant…nothing! Tried 3 more the same way…same result…nothing. Ordered 6 more seeds…said screw it…went back to original method and in 3 days I had 6 sprouts. They are on day 7 and doing great. Will place jiffy pot directly in my larger container of promix organic and organic supersoil…cover pot with soil …no transplant shock and away I’ll go (fingers crossed lol)
Again. Just my experience as a newbie.
Also…just an aside…I used the jiffy pucks with my veggies this year…crap germination. I tried them because they came with a kit but had to redo most of my veggie seeds