Help With Germinating

I've been reading up on germinating seeds, but I have a question. Should the seeds be in a dark place or under light? I've read that seeds should be covered with a bowl, but also read that you can germinate them on your windowsill.

Thanks,
Jeremy

You should germinate in darkness. Once the tap root is about the size of the seed, you can plant (or throw it in the soil right away). The delicate root doesn't like any light

In the dark for sure.

Thanks a lot guys, I almost messed that up haha.

Hey man here's what I do and this works great:

Soak your seeds for 24 hrs in a cup of plain distilled water, Ph'd to 6.4ish. I use a double shotglass for this.

Take a tupperware container and put a folded in half (2 layers) paper towel down in it. You can trim it down to make it fit better if ya like. I use a little square container.

Put a little water down on it so it stays still.

Put your seeds on this.

Cover with another folded in half paper towel. Add a little more water until all paper towels are wet. Drain off the excess water. You want it damp but not wet.

Put the lid on the container very loosely, just enough to keep the towels from drying out too fast.

Pu in a dark place at about 72 degrees F.

They'll pop in a day or two.

When they do, plant them in your medium about 3 seeds deep (5 mm) with the taproot facing DOWN. Cover with soil very loosely. Water gently to seat the seed, and don't water too much. Just enough.

When they break the soil put em a foot under flouros and try to keep the temp at 72 - 74 degrees if possible. Higher temps (like from having the light too close to them at the beginning) will cause them to stretch.

You can put them under a more powerful light once they have about 3 -5 nodes.

I just stick a seed in the soil without any pre-germination, stick em under lights to keep the soil a bit warm and they pop up in 3-4 days. The seeds are already buried underneath soil, so they're already in the dark. I see no reason to put them in a dark cupboard, etc.

Just keep it simple, and they'll pop out.

DCBeard you seriously got something wrong with the end of your post. You dont put flouros a foot away from the plant. It isn't heat that causes seedlings to stretch. Its the light being too far away.

My seedlings are under a 400w MH from the moment they pop the soil. Typically 14-18 inches away in a cool-tube and I move it down to 12 inches as they get bigger, and theres no stretching.

I just did my first germination. I got 10/12 with paper towel germination and 0/2 just putting seeds into soil.

Here's what I did with some schwag bag seed for experimentation purposes. I poured some Brita filtered water on a paper towel folded in half lengthwise and squeezed it out. I put 12 seeds in, folded it in half two more times, and then stuck it in a ziplock with another folded up and moist paper towel for humidity. I stuck it in my sock drawer and left it for three days. I came back to find that most had.5-1" taproots and some were full sprouts, so I put them into soil deep enough to cover them with about .25". Two didn't germinate so I replaced them with fresh seeds from the tray stuck straight into the soil. It's been nine days and neither of those has germinated either. In my newbie opinion, pre-germinating is more effecient.

You may think its more efficient, but you gained maybe a day at most by pre-germing them. Then you take into account damaging the taproot if you're not careful. Im 10/10 with nirvana ww seeds stuck straight in soil. And 5/6 with crappy semi-immature bagseeds. Perhaps you're not keeping the soil moist enough for them to germinate. I like to give the soil a misting each day so it remains moist, and it all works out good.

But go with whatever works best for you. I just dont want OP thinking that its absolutely necessary to pre-germ for success.

DaveCoulier said:

You may think its more efficient, but you gained maybe a day at most by pre-germing them. Then you take into account damaging the taproot if you're not careful. Im 10/10 with nirvana ww seeds stuck straight in soil. And 5/6 with crappy semi-immature bagseeds. Perhaps you're not keeping the soil moist enough for them to germinate. I like to give the soil a misting each day so it remains moist, and it all works out good.

But go with whatever works best for you. I just dont want OP thinking that its absolutely necessary to pre-germ for success.

Click to expand...

I put all 12 of my seeds into soil on the night of 11/22. They're in small peat pots and I have to water all of them each morning, until there's just a little bit of water under the pots. Four were sprouted by the time the lights went out on the 23rd. I felt my tweezers snap shut on the stem of one as I was transplanting and it's the most robust of the ten with the largest leaves. Only of the two seeds put straight into the soil is starting to show here on the 1st.

I'm not trying to argue with you because you very likely have more experience than I do but, it seems like I gained about a week with pre-germinating. It's not necessary, it just seems more efficient in my opinion. All of the grow videos I've seen show some variation of pre-germinating, too.

Yessir, most everyone pre-germinates somehow.

And DaveC - heat makes plants stretch. I agree with you that poor lighting makes plants stretch as well, but seedlings are much more susceptible to heat issues than clones or plants, and with their little bitty single-fingered leaves they don't need that much light and couldn't possibly make efficient use of it all anyway.

Can you direct me to a link that discusses heat making seedlings stretch. I havent had much luck finding any info about it when googling it so far.