i need help AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!

dSTDENIZ

Well-Known Member
okay.. my other 5 plants are growing good~

i found a seed in my bag i let it soak in water
for 6-8 hours..then i put it in the soil. but the thing is
i dont have a heater thing anymore
so i dont know what to use?
what can i use to make the seedling warm?

can i put it in the bathroom ( theirs a closet in there )
thats the only warm area of the house.
so when someone takes a shower, it will get humid and hot.

or can i use a halogen lamp?
 

n00bGrower

Well-Known Member
If you're trying to germinate a seed, it's gonna take a lot more than an 8 hour soak and then into the dirt...

1) Take the seed out of the soil, rinse it off and go get yourself a few sheets of paper towel.
2) Find a small dish or a bottom from a plastic storage container (I prefer the container because you can sort of suspend the germination packet).
3)Fold the paper towels a few times so you have a smallish square that will fit suspended in the container or the size of your dish.
4)Get the whole thing soaked with water and then ring it out so it's slightly damp.
5)Unfold the paper towel a single fold to make a "book".
6)Place the seed dead center of the paper towel and close the "book".
7) You now have a seed germination packet. Place it in your chosen container.

Put it somewhere warm (top of the fridge works best for me) and check it once a day. Make sure the towel is always damp but not soaked. You don't want the packet to be swimming in water, but just barely damp. After a weeks time, sometimes less sometimes more, the good seeds will have sprouted. Plant them shoot down and don't mess with the seed casing. The plant will cast the casing off on its own.

Good luck!
 

Nocturn3

Well-Known Member
If you're trying to germinate a seed, it's gonna take a lot more than an 8 hour soak and then into the dirt...
I disagree. Plenty of people germinate straight into the soil with no problems, and this is, after all, how seeds turn into plants in the wild. They were doing fine themselves, long before we came along with paper towels. :leaf:

The only advantage to the paper towel method is that you can check on the seed's progress, and you don't have to waste a small pot worth of soil on a non-viable seed. The disadvantage to the paper towel method is that it is quite easy to damage the tap root during transplant.
 

n00bGrower

Well-Known Member
I do agree that planting a seed directly works... However, why plant directly when you can greatly increase your odds of success by separating the viable seeds from the duds?
 

Defcon9

Well-Known Member
I do agree that planting a seed directly works... However, why plant directly when you can greatly increase your odds of success by separating the viable seeds from the duds?

I've tried both methods. So far with the paper towel method I"ve had a 0% success rate, not one out of about 30 seeds too. I might get the tap root but the minute it went into sil it died.

Using a $5 jiffy seed starter kit, the try with dome, I've had a 99% success rate germinating seeds. I don't even soak the seeds, the soaking is actually meant for older seeds to kick start them. for bag seed it might be a good idea, although I have germinated about 50 - 60 bag seeds that are well over 3 - 4 years old with 99% success with no soak.
 

Defcon9

Well-Known Member
okay.. my other 5 plants are growing good~

i found a seed in my bag i let it soak in water
for 6-8 hours..then i put it in the soil. but the thing is
i dont have a heater thing anymore
so i dont know what to use?
what can i use to make the seedling warm?

can i put it in the bathroom ( theirs a closet in there )
thats the only warm area of the house.
so when someone takes a shower, it will get humid and hot.

or can i use a halogen lamp?

If you keep them in a tray and dome set up, you can even put them in a drawer, the bathroom closet is fine. Don't you have heat in your place? you can keep them in a kitchen cupboard. Usually people soak for 24 hours, but 8 is enough. Did the seed float or sink? if after about three hours the seed is still floating you can touch it to see if it sinks if it does you have a higher chance of it germinating than if it floats, but that's not to say a floating seed will not germinate.
 
i put 7 in a pot and left it on my windowsill with the windows closed the the door cloed because it gets the mornin sun and sum of the afternoon so it gets really humid, and all 7 have come up,maybe try and find a window like mine?
 

n00bGrower

Well-Known Member
I've tried both methods. So far with the paper towel method I"ve had a 0% success rate, not one out of about 30 seeds too. I might get the tap root but the minute it went into sil it died.

...
That's weird... Out of the 8 seeds I used the paper towel method for this time around, 6 sprouted a tap root and all 6 turned into plants when put into soil (100% success rate for planting PT germinated seeds). I've germinated many seeds in this way in the past and have yet to be disappointed. Although I'm currently doing my first indoor grow as we speak, I've had a few semi-successful outdoor grows in the past (plants vegged but had to kill them before flowering due to snoopy neighbors and family members).

But, hey... Whatever works, right?? :bigjoint:
 

Night Claptoman

Well-Known Member
the paper towel thing worked for me, but I dislike it.
got taproots on 80% of my seeds last run, but even the ones that didn't sprout I've put in soil and they grew.
If your using bagseeds you probably have quite a few. I'd recommand to use em the same way you sprout chillies \ tomatoes - put a lot of em in a cup full of dirt and flip the top 1\2 inch of the dirt and mix the seeds in.
Keep the soil moist but not soaked and put cling foil over the cup as a humidity dome.
When you see a sprout popping GENTLY pull it out and re-plant it in a pot.

IF YOUR LOW ON SEEDS DON'T DO THIS. JUST PUT EM IN DIFFERENT SMALL POTS.

Usually a good place to keep the seeds warm is a modem of some kind, the top of the fridge, over the TV if you tend to use it a lot etc.
Just put your thermo-meter where you think is a good place and look for about 25-28 C.
 

Calijuana

Well-Known Member
just wanted to say that you do NOT need heat for the seeds to germ. the ground isnt cold. if you can keep the seeds mildly warm then i would, but I ended up leaving them too long without watering the paper towel and it dried out... caused more problems then good. don't worry. I find once seeds have taproots they will live 100% if you let em grow.
 

Defcon9

Well-Known Member
That's weird... Out of the 8 seeds I used the paper towel method for this time around, 6 sprouted a tap root and all 6 turned into plants when put into soil (100% success rate for planting PT germinated seeds). I've germinated many seeds in this way in the past and have yet to be disappointed. Although I'm currently doing my first indoor grow as we speak, I've had a few semi-successful outdoor grows in the past (plants vegged but had to kill them before flowering due to snoopy neighbors and family members).

But, hey... Whatever works, right?? :bigjoint:

I know the paper towel method is extremelly popular. My buddy uses it with great success. find that putting th paper towel inside a ziplock bad stops it from drying out. I don't know why but for my I just can't make it work.

What I do when I soak my jiffy pucks is to ass about 10 drops of DNF Hydro-Thrive and a little bit of bloom nutes. I got that trick from my guy at my local hydroponics shop. He told me to add no more that 1/4 strength bloom nutes and as the high p rating helps to start a seed. I add about 1/8 strength blooms nutes and that really seems to have helped.

It's nice to talk to the guys at the hyfroponics shop, he's been growing over 20 years (no weed. well some, but all sorts of shit) and he has a few good tricks up his sleeves. He's always there to help me figure out what went wrong. I used to grow all out doors, drop seed in ground, 100% success every time, just lucky I guess. I spent about 15 years groing outside, moving indoors I had a huge learning curve. The hardest part was getting seeds to germinate, I followed what everyone recomends and it never worked for me. I went to my old reliable jiffy green house starter kit and boom things changed. Everything else was easy for me. I knew what to do from years of growing, but that damn germination stage killed a few seeds for me.

Like you say, what ever works for you. Everyone has there little differences, but once you find what works for you, stick to it and do you thing.
 
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