germination / seedling issues

Hello everyone,
After 4 failures, I am trying to get 3 new seedlings going, with little luck so far. I'll bullet list for brevity. I followed Uncle Ben's germination method somewhat closely

- germinated all 3 in ph neutral water that had set out for about a week. With 2 of them, a tiny white root barely showed (24hrs,36hrs), and the third got the root out about 1/16 - 1/8 inch (shot out pretty quick on me at about 3 days)
- sowed each of them 1/8" - 1/4" into a fine (not coarse) potting humus soil. (I had another soil, but already went through 4 seeds trying to get them to sprout in that)
- Soil Description: "Fertilized fertile humus, is sieved to eliminate debris and weeds, contains dolomite lime. Earthworm humus is the result of micro-machining of the manure made by the digestive tract of the red californian earthworm.
5x more Nitrogen, 7x more Phosphorous, 11x more Potassium
contains: chicken manure
contains: vermiculite
"natural product"

- sowed the seeds 1 and 2 days ago, covering with finer parts of the humus (which I did not sterilize in any way)
- after 1 day, I put the seeds under a 105w 6500k light to give them a little light and heat (18on/6off). The cabinet is holding 82 degrees F and 49% humidity
- the humus settled much more than expected, only giving about a 3" depth this morning, so I slid the soil mass out of the pot (easy), filled in some more humus, watered, and slid the mass back in. Something tells me this may have been unwise, but it seemed to be an un-disturbing process
- I'm giving each one a water spray (1x) about 4 times a day

I guess my main question is if I am doing anything terribly wrong. I know I need to give them a few more days, but I'm also worried that the soil is too thick, not enough vermiculite to let the seedlings sprout (also worried about the lime content). Any help is very much appreciated!

That shit looks like mud. Get yourself some Jiffy mix seed starter. Or I recommend peat pellets to start seeds in. The first pic looks like a potted cowpie.

Blah blah blah on germination. You want to germinate seeds....? Put them in soil and let them go. Forget about paper towels, forget about soaking....I use black gold for seed germination and have never failed any of the seeds i have bought or got from plants. Seeds needs 3 things, moisture, areation and good temps. I have popped many seeds by just putting them in soil and letting them do there thing. I find it frustrating to see all this bull shit crap to presoak them to do this to do that. Put the god damn things in a nice areated medium and let them do what they are programed to do. Fuck all the difficult crap you read. I dont fail with seeds. So here is my regimen...:
I use black gold soil. I pre mix the soil to a good water consistancy(say squeeze a handful of the soil and water it until it drips just a bit put it in a cup or whatever you have, place a cover over it to get some humidity generated and keep the moisture content up and let it do its magic. I am no pro but i have popped every seed I have ever tried. Now I just use a mixture of happy frog and ocean forest for the soil for life. Still no failures. Damn things look beautiful right now in my mix. Sorry for the drunken rant but germination is to simple to do all this crap that you read about. It s simple and I rely on the fact of (KISS)keep it simple stupid for seeds and clones.

I guess I dont see why you took all the trouble to get a seed going. It is such a simple thing. If you take into account how any seed in the "wild" sprouts you will see that it only takes a moist environment...thats it. No ph'd water nothing just moisture. I use my tap water from my well to water my soil mix prior to germination. I have tried soaking in water, I have layered them in paper towels. Nothing beats good aeration and moisture.

Oh ya! use some perelite. That looks like solid mud. say take 10 cups of that mix and add 5-6 cups of perelite or so. That shit you have going will rot your seeds and roots. With seeds I keep my moisture content to where it may require watering daily, you want to build a root structure. In that crap you have you will have a ton of trouble. Think of it this way..if you where snorkeling and you could breath just good enough to stay submergered you could look at shit but if you had a scuba tank you could stay down there all day long...Your seeds and roots need oxygen.

fourrings said:

Oh ya! use some perelite. That looks like solid mud. say take 10 cups of that mix and add 5-6 cups of perelite or so. That shit you have going will rot your seeds and roots. With seeds I keep my moisture content to where it may require watering daily, you want to build a root structure. In that crap you have you will have a ton of trouble. Think of it this way..if you where snorkeling and you could breath just good enough to stay submergered you could look at shit but if you had a scuba tank you could stay down there all day long...Your seeds and roots need oxygen.

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He needs to add more than just perlite. Thats straight humus. Way too hot for a plant, especially a young one. I would say 65% peat moss/20% humus/15% perlite would make a decent mix. But I would still start my seeds in a pellet to start. I agree with you the best way to germ is plant the seed and let nature do its thing.

thanks for the replies. Thats pretty much exactly what I was worried about. Is there any way to salvage these seedlings, or are they pretty much fugged?

well, sifting through that mud was terrible. I recovered one seed, which hadn't yet opened, rinsed it off lightly, and dropped it in a new mix I made of 1/3 humus 1/3 topsoil & a "heaping" 1/3 Vermiculite. I can't find peat moss anywhere, and I had to take two long busses to get the vermiculite, so I'm going to try and live with this.

That mix sounds alright?

germinate using the paper towel method, as soon as they sprout put them in a root riot cube, stick in propagator and keep the root riot cube slightly moist. When they are appearing more, transfer to small pot/cup. Simple.

its a celebration!

Finally, after about 3-4 days, I have 2 sprouts! So far, I am 2/11 of 20 seeds I ordered, but I'm still waiting on 2 more seedlings to pop up.

The first 2 pics are 2 seedlings of Atomic Haze, and I took the 3rd pic to get a little feedback on my light proximity, stretching, etc. (which is looking good to a 'noob' like me). I have another atomic haze and a sativa diablo still waiting to emerge.

I'm using one 105w 6500k cfl as of now, to keep my temps low, which are holding 75˚F 55% H - - I want to keep the stress low to hopefully keep it feminine. The soil on these 2 seedlings is pretty dry and light, but i'm afraid to water, as I don't want to make the most common newbie mistake. Opinions on watering?

I'll be starting a journal, so I'll post a link here, or in my signature, when its up. I'm working on a cfl-cooltube-box-contraption, which, in theory, should work wonders, so check out my upcoming journal for that as well.

Thanks to everyone for the help in this thread, it was the addition of vermiculite that made all things possible. I want to try coco in my next grow...

you said you found one of the seeds in the mud... what happened to the other two?

I think I got the same problem where the soil just stays wet and I doesn't dry up.... I do have shoots that are about 1 inch tall after 8 days in the pots but I'm afraid these are growing too slow for some reason.... Is there a way to carefully transplant them to a different medium or are they pretty much screwed ??

TommyHobby said:

you said you found one of the seeds in the mud... what happened to the other two?

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Maybe I was a little impatient, but I never recovered the other 2. Even knowing the location pretty well, it was a nightmare going through that mud, and i wanted to recover them by slowly breaking the mud apart, as opposed to digging, so I would preserve any tap root that may have emerged. I chalked up the loss to experience...

if you have 1 inch sprouts (ie: something green and living), i think you're fine, but maybe someone with more experience wants to answer that...