Germinating a seedling

So i have seen enough failed seedlings to warrant a small journal of how to pop and loc a seedling!

First off my small but sweet veg room hidden inside a small wadrobe in my bed room. It has a two foot 'T5 lightwave' unit hanging in there with four 22watt T5 flourescents-



At this point you might marvel at its simplicity and low cost, them t5's give off over 40watts per square foot and that fan keeps temps to below 22 degrees celsius with the door to the cupboard ajar. I can grow a plant up to 12 inches in here with little or no stretch and be ready for the flowering room in 4 weeks from seed with topping, lst'ing and pinching. Do not let its non reflective walls and minimal moving parts fool you as this will yeild me some strong veg plants all year long.

On the left next to the fan is where my seedlings sprout before moving on to bigger pots and a better real estate directly under the lights.

Ok so here is a pre prepared seedling, is a little stretchy and will be repotted two inches lower on the next transplant but please notice the vibrant green leaves and bright pale brown stem with no purpling or yellowing.



So a real nice seedling, this ones gona be a super skunk and get real dirty and smelly when its older but for now its just young and innocent, enjoying the ambient temperature of 21.1 degrees celcius. I bought that nice big white fan because my pc fan just wasnt cutting those temps of the flourescent lights and at over 22 degrees celcius my young plants start to stress, also the pc fan just wasnt giving me good air exchange either, maybe i could push the temps higher but for now i feel comfortable around the 22 mark.

So enough going on already lets start that seed! So im gona plant a 'Royal Dwarf Auto Fem', some freebie the guys and girls down at 'Attitude Seedbank' gave me for ordering some sensi super skunk, very nice of them and since i have never grown an auto fem what better time than straight away to learn and grow one. Also be popping some of my own strain, 'Kingrows Dud Bagseed', which aint that good but we'll germinate this and play about with it, try and see what we can do wrong.

So basically the pics show the two seeds, royal dwarf auto fem and my seeds, we place two jiffy cubes or peat pellets in water until they have expanded fully which may take up to five minutes and pop the seeds in the handy indentation in the middle before covering and setting back in the grow room-


I remember i placed the dwarf auto fem in the middle and the kingrow1 dud to the outside of the tray, next to it are some sensi superskunk and some sweet n neat cherry tomatos, not the smokable type unfortunatly.

So basically thats it for now, i'll update when they need re-watering and when they pop the surface. Were gona give thm their first transplant and do a basic seedling soil mix as well as try out some benificial funghi and bacteria, seaweed drenches, fulvic acid and try to burn a seedling with a hot grow room and lights, overfeed and eventually overwater. Basically most scenarios where we'll end up with a decent size veg plant.

I only soil grow and don't recomend the paper towel method of germination, i prefer just to germinate straight into soil and pots but find jiffy cubes easy to use and a real time saver if i dont wana make up a soil and pot straight away.

Please post pics of seedlings and seedling setups by all means but keep things informative as im just here to learn, i dont wana hear different germination methods as i have tried them all, for the beginner this way is by far the easiest and best in soil.
My next batch of seeds and grow cupboard.Peace

Thanks for positing this in here KG.

Looks nice! sub'd.

So a quick update and breif watering of jiffy cube. Today will be day two after we planted some seeds in jiffy cubes. Auto fem in the centre and my personal seeds on the outside of the saucer.

So i checked my veg room today and low and behold my jiffy cubes have dried out, quite obvious as the cubes have also turned from a wet dark brown to a lighter shade of brown as they lost most of their moisture. Also to double check when i pick them up they also are very lightweight. My grow room is warm and that big fan takes off moisture from the air so two days is about the norm for my cubes to need watering, if i had just left them in the kitchen or unlit i would expect them to take a watering every three to four days, suppose it all depends but this is my frequency.



So basically im going to pour some tap water that i have been letting sit24 hours in an empty water bottle i have handy. As you notice before i just used tap water, either or is good here and we'll look a bit more in depth at my particular tap water in a second.

So i pour my room temperature water into the saucer, just a little at a time till the jiffy cubes look wet and heavy again. I dont want to saturate them just wet them so the whole cube is moist. Once they look done i'll pour the excess water off the saucer and place them neatly back into my veg room-



So will it make a difference letting the water sit out apart from coming to room temp, basically not really, some like to believe letting the chlorine evaporate off will give their grows the edge but i never use to bother. Since its starting to get colder i like to allow my water to reach room temp which is why i do it.

Lets check its pH next-



8.1 dead on (thats a 'Trident' ppm/EC/temp meter from essentials by the way). Pretty alkaline for tapwater but still this is ok for your plants and seedlings. I have shown a picture of some pH down which is basically Phosphoric acid, id rather water at 8.1 than add phosphoric acid to my water but thats just me, i see no harm in doing this as i use to actually pH everything to pH7 but that just seemed a waste of time for no different results.

This is about growing a seedling though, i have just touched on a few issues like water and pH, go find the relevant threads if you want to know more. Notice my water dosent show a reading on the ppm digital display??? This is because it is 50ppm or lower so my meter dosent go below 100ppm. For my tap water regular cal/mag supplements are a must but the seedling is not even got a root so why add anything apart from fresh water at this stage, Keep It Simple Stupid.

Now providing the humidity and temps are good in your veg room all will be good and in a few days we would hope to see a lovely new seedling emerge from this peat pot.

I'm sorry popping a seed is so boring but it shows just how easy these first few stages are and how you need do little else but water it when needed, dont mess with it, dont even breath on it as your part is done, its all up to that seed to do the rest of the work now.

I leave you with a final pic of the seedling we saw from the last post, although growth is slow when small i think you might just be able to make out the second set of leaves above the first set, they are just forming now although very small at this stage. This one is almost out of the seedling stage and into the veg stage but not quite yet. It still hasnt had a drop of ferts and nothing much past tap water, is all thats needed so far. Peace

Whilst i'm here lets throw some pointless fact in about seedlings.

I prefer a depth of just over half a centimeter in depth when planting, slightly deeper will be ok to. The seed needs enough soil above it to give it some pressure to send its roots downwards before pushing its first leaves and stem upwards.

Some like to point the seed pointy end down and some like to plant it pointy end up, as you can see in the pictures i just throw them in and let mother nature sort out the rest. See the chart below but some will claim it is the other way round, i just let cover mine where they land-



The markings or tiger stripping on the seed casing as far as i know are down to when the seed ovule expands the casing ruptures as it stretches producing the markings but seem to mean nothing as to what and how the resulting plant will grow, some markings may be related to what strain it is but will not determine yeild, height or sex unfortunatly.

Mostly if i have seeds that have dark brown or black markings often as spots or stripes up the length of the seed i will assume it to be fully matured, green and soft seeds are often imature, they may sprout but may show poor growth as a very dark almost black seed may show that the inside seedling has died. There are lots of variations to the general rules though as a lot of my seeds seem very light with no markings and grow into great plants, sometimes its strain related, best test is to germinate them and that way you'll know for sure.

If i however had a seed like the one below i would expect some funky ass weed in some way shape or form, it would be dissapointing if this one turned out ordinary!-

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Peace

Hey fellow seedling, today is abouts day three by my reckoning and absolutly no germination from my dwarf auto fem or kinggrows dud seeds yet, patience is the key to the game here, still dont even freaking breath on those jiffy cubes cause mother nature is in there doing here thing and any interuptions by you will just seriously p!ss her off! All thats needed is just to reapply water as i have shown to the jiffy/peat cube when it looks like its getting dry again.

Good news is that both my superskunk and sweet n neat cherry tomato seeds have broken the surface or 'germinated'! Talk about patience, i planted that sweet n neat tom seed almost 12 days ago from today. Your quite lucky with marijuana seeds that they do sprout quickly, if your a new grower and your posting asking 'its been 4 days and my seed still hasnt germinated?' then you wana try some small cherry tomato or jalapeno seeds. You might not be able to make out the tom seedling yet but she is there if you look hard enough-



So i decide to pot up at least one of these seedling as i had a bit of time on my hands and would get a small job out the way at least. Both seedlings are way too small to need potting up yet but it wont make much difference as long as we dont disturb it much.

The peat cube will hold together normally so all we will have to do is unwrap the outer mesh layer and drop it into a hole in some new soil and pot then finally covering and watering in, real simple, no ferts, no special ingredients and certainly no magic!lol!

So here is a basic seedling soil mix for me and probably a lot of other gardeners out there, the percentages of each soil ingredient may vary from mix to mix and i dont really measure them out more just go by eye but i have a good handle on what my seedlings like for their particular environment, loose fast draining soil.

My seedling soil is from homebase at the moment, just cause it was the most convenient, it is not amended with perlite so i add about 20% to it as well and about 10 to 15% vermiculite, this is then mixed up in the pot although you can do this in a big container then add it to the pot (i am a lazy stoner dont forget) but my way is quick and easy for the single or small number of repots i do-



Now that isnt all but is the basic seedling soil mix, please notice how i use seedling soil for seedlings, anything else is most likely too high in nutrients and will cause your small seedling problems.

I go one step futher and sweeten the mix with roughly half a teaspoon of finegrade and powdered dolomite lime. Basically i buy the fine grade and with a pestle and mortar powder about half of it, this way i have some fast and slow acting lime that should and will keep my pH sweet the whole way through the grow-



Add the lime or dont add the lime, i dont have to and will get the same results but it dose give me peace of mind and mean i wont be worrying about pHing water and ferts.

So we give one final mix with the spoon to get the lime mixed in and evened out through the soil and were ready to plant in, you should not have compacted the soil in anyway and when pressed down on the top layer it should have some give and feel spongy and spring back some, this is what we want by loose and airy and enables the roots to penetrate well and will also keep this structure as they provide support in the soil. This is what i aim for when mixing the soil keeping the structure open and airy. Peace

-Note- Please either wear face mask or wet perlite and vermiculite first in the bag so no dust is inhaled. It is a lung irritant and in some previous cases was linked to asbestos and certain mines closing down forever, be carefull with this stuff.

Now its time to plant, make a peat cube sized hole and place peat cube in to check for size, we want the top of the peat cube to be just below the surface and even deeper if planting a stretched stem. In my case being flush with the soil level, as i have very little stem to work with, would be what i aim for-



Obviously you can see that i have gone ahead and unwrapped the mesh, showing the root poking out the bottom as well, and placed ready to be covered in the peat sized hole i made.

Next were gona cover the peat cube up with the soil from the sides of the pot and water it in with just plain water, when you give a small seedling water just water around the seedling and its base as there are very few roots in the soil yet, none in this case and watering the whole pot would cause the soil to take about ten days to dry, try and imagine the small seedling just needs a small drink and thats all its getting, apply the water so it soaks to where the roots are and then its had enough. We can water more when the roots develop more and eventually we will just be watering the whole pot and saturating the whole soil mass but this way we learn not to overwater from the beginning-



Then she goes back into the veg room but because she is still so small shes gona stay with the other jiffy cubes and out of the main light for a day or so.

You might have noticed that jiffy cube was practically dry, it was due a water but with the potting up i knew it was gona get one, when jiffy cubes loose their moisture they also loose their sticking together abilities hence why they have a mesh round the outside to keep them together. When this dry they get real crumbly and i would advise allowing them to soak up a small bit of water first so they dont break up so easily, i have had lot of practice though so for me its easy but i always have light hands as you have to be delicate when taking that mesh off, can be stubborn, a good surgical knife or small sharp pair of scissors will help you a lot too. Peace

Very nice information!

EaStW00d said:

Very nice information!

Click to expand...

It dosent stop there, gona follow one or two seedlings right up to the veg stage to help show what they need in terms of water and ferts if any of the latter, also got a spare seed to hopefully heat stress, over fert and overwater to show the different problems we might face.

Really growing a seedling takes less than a week and is this easy, no ferts, no additives and zero problems as long as you got the heat and humidity right. Peace

VERRRY nice will be following this 1.. thanks

This looks simple enough. I would contemplate doing this if it wasn't for the smell. What ever happened to 'everybody grow it in your backyard in protest', home of the slaves land of the cowards.. Not to mention ignorant.

Well since were on the subject.; I'd like to ask your opinon on a debated topic in the canna community. What do you think? Is plant sex determined genetically in the seed, or is it dependent on environment? And if it genetically written in the seed, then can you tell just by looking at a seed whether it will be male or female?
The guys from DNA genetics swear they can tell the sex of a plant simply by looking at the seed.
What do you think? I'd like to hear from the folks who did well in biology and O-chem to weigh in too.

shsn said:

This looks simple enough. I would contemplate doing this if it wasn't for the smell. What ever happened to 'everybody grow it in your backyard in protest', home of the slaves land of the cowards.. Not to mention ignorant.

Click to expand...

I'm with you there dude but unfortunatly i too am too enslaved by society to actually forego the legal ramifications my country has with growing weed so openly.

Well since were on the subject.; I'd like to ask your opinon on a debated topic in the canna community. What do you think? Is plant sex determined genetically in the seed, or is it dependent on environment? And if it genetically written in the seed, then can you tell just by looking at a seed whether it will be male or female?
The guys from DNA genetics swear they can tell the sex of a plant simply by looking at the seed.
What do you think? I'd like to hear from the folks who did well in biology and O-chem to weigh in too.

Click to expand...

I'm sure even if there was a way to determine sex of seeds it would not be somthing that was economical or viable for most growers to do plus the fruit and veg industry would already be using this technology before us stoners got in on the act, feminised and autos have been around for such a long time and the marijuana industry seems to be the last to catch on as per usual.

As for the biology and chem side i feel that because we have unlocked and sequenced every dna sequence in all of our chromosomes for the human body we are only then able to determine sex at a very early age of pregnancy, when they unlock every dna sequence to the marijuana chromosomes then we will be able to answer questions like this, as for now i know of nowhere that has done this, why not just buy feminised seeds like me...

So i make it day 6 since these i planted the two seeds in peat cubes, remember the one in the centre was the Dwarf auto fem and the one on the outside was my own seed from a previous grow.

Anyway they have both germinated more or less at the same time, not to be cocky but even with bad genetics my seed still bust the surface a few hours earlier than 'Attitudes' auto fem!

Looks like the auto fem escaped her seed casing in the soil and my seed seemed to keep hold of hers, should support the chart on 'page 1' of this thread where a seed planted pointy end up will emerge without its seed casing and visa versa, i prefer pointy end up if i had to choose but it makes no difference, my seed will pull out of the seed casing in a short space of time-



And a few pics of the three previous seeds, the youngest on the right was the seedling i potted up on the previous page, is doing good. As you move left each plant is one week older and all are super skunk. This gives me a continuous grow and a harvest every week or so, the oldest seedling (technically not a seedling anymore and in the vegetative phase) has two weeks before moving to the flowering room-



Ok this is not somthing to try at home or unless you got a few seedlings to waste but i always like to help my little girls out of the seed casing, the first picture shows how the bottom leaf pulls out first thus enabling the first cotyledon leaves to spring open.

The second picture is me stupidly pulling the seed casing of the seedling, seriously if the seedling is having trouble getting its casing off then a light spray of water directly on to the seed case and seedling leaves should loosen it up and would be the recomended procedure.

The thrid picture simply shows the two ineer halves of the seed casing and the inside of the casing, thats the green thing, not part of the seedling but merely a protective inner layer of the seed inside which the seedling grows and hibernates ready for germination-



If you rip the seedling in half or pull the cotyledon leaves off your seedling manually trying to remove the seed casing then remember i didn't tell you to use this method.

Now recently we have had some really hot wether in the UK, some have been saying its a heatwave but after the lame summer we have had i'd just call it the 'Summer'. Anyhows one of my plants got slightly heat stressed and i have nursed it back to health but not before some obvious leaf damage i.e. the yellowing to tips and edges and also the slight cupping and discolouration of the end of the centre of the leaf, marginal damage but just goes to show how slightly high temps can cause some bad problems given time-



She is now all healthy but maybe you can see some of her top leaf edges are starting to curl-



I think i should back the lights off and turn the fan up a notch. Heat always seems to be a real problem in my indoor grow as i have such a small flat and am never there so windows being open and outside ventilation are a luxury. The benifits of some decent centrifugal fans will solve this when my veg tent is upgraded but i cannot justify it yet since it only ever holds five small plants at one time and my next veg tent is coming out of the wardrobe and into a budbox, guess i'll just work round the heat for now.

Please note and remember that none of these plants have recieved any fertilizers at any stage, water a touch of cal/mag and thats all.

Will update when these seedlings are transplanted, gona add the benificials and funghi on this first pot up, as always really intresting photos will acompany. Peace

Alright so what if you are using a humidity dome and rapid rooter tray with a heat mat to germ? Mine is currently set at 83 degrees and only 2 broccoli plants have sprouted after 4 -5 days. I plan on letting things keep going but wondering why the inconsistency in things. I have romaine and some form of head lettuce as well as broccoli planted.

Is there an optimum temp needed for germ that I am missing? Optimum humidity level?

Lastly, and most importantly IMO, when do you go from no light in germ to either CFL or MH for veg? Is it as soon as it is sprouted or do you simply keep them under not-so-strong light until a certain point? I can PM you if that would be easier.

Great thread. Should be a sticky.

Germination/seedling is the most vulnerable stage. It's where people seem to lose the most plants. I killed a lot of seedlings until I developed a reliable method which turns out to be very similar to Kingrow's.

+rep

Okay so your method is "somewhat" similar to mine except all of my seeds generally pop and sprout within 48 hours. I use peat moss pellets...but i keep them in a humidity dome in a warm dark place untill the first few seeds sprout. Then i take the dome and just open one corner and leave it open to let fresh air get in while the others pop. Once they all pop the humidity dome comes off and I let them continue growing for another day or two before transplanting them into something bigger. Although you can plant the peat moss pellets with the paper still around them i usually remove the paper before burrying them in FFOF. Also if the seedlings have long stretch stems you can usually bury part of the stem while its still this young.

this is 30 days from first day germinating. i filled a glass cup with tap water that i let sitting out for 24 hours before putting seeds in it. put 15 seeds that i got from some ok outdoor i grabbed, blueberry strain. got a hp for 1grand CAD. there was alot of seeds and it was decent tasty smoke?. seeds looked nice and mature, most anyway. so 48h after i put the seeds in the cup of water in a dark kitchen cubbert. all 15 were cracked open about 1/4inch to1/2 sprouts. i put them in jiffy cups same as u kinggrow1, but have them in a dome, ur little grow room is basically a dome so cool. in 48h after i put them in jiffy cups they started to sproud. april 27 2011. only 10/15 came up tho by the 30th. so once i saw roots threw the jiffy cups about one week after first sprout i trasfered them into the little pots u see in the pic. with generic potting soil with perlite and other good things inside that a younge little plant may need. to nutes! king ur little room need some kind of reflecting mateiral. black is not good for grow room walls titanic white is cheapest and best besides the expensive stiff made for reflecting light!

up to date picks of plants. all were female 2 died from too much light didint get to water in time. 2 sold to a friend. one i killed cause i thought it was gonna be male but now that i look at the others it prob wasnt male, lol. and one is in the bush by the creek, potential area for next year. wanna see how she does without my help over there. lol update pics of my garden


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