Germination & Seedling problems

Feisty1UR said:

maybe the temps were a little too cold?

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az2000 said:

How cold was it? It's hard to say without details. 60's would be pretty cold for germination. Like to be in the 78-82 range.

How deep did you bury the seeds? It should only be about the length of the seed. Did you tamp it down? I don't think you should do that too much. Just lightly cover.

Since it's soilless, you could water them in with 1% hydrogen peroxide (1 part common 3% peroxide with 2 part2 water). That would disinfect the medium. (I wouldn't do that to soil, except around the seed's location because you want microbial activity.).

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az2000 said:

3/4 inch sounds too deep to me. I try not to go deeper than 1/4 covering the seed.

When I said tamp down, I meant, after covering the seed, do you press that medium down, like to make it firm and tight? I wouldn't do that. Not much.

You might try soil instead of soilless.

Personally, I would let the tap root grow out so far. When I soaked until they cracked, I tried to get them into the soil before 2mm was extending. I was happy to put them in the soil when the soil cracked and I could see the white flesh.

I always stress during the germination and first 3-5 days of seedling. That's the only time of the grow where I feel things can go bad.

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qwizoking said:

this is what i say to people asking that.....you have several questions in there, i normally cover
ya its long

this has given me the best results
the cup of water thing will lower rates, is bad for the seed which is actually still completing gas exchange and is living. can also increase the chances of old stock molding.



sorry long and choppy,


i combined copy paste of my older posts.
Wet paper towel in an open ziploc between 82-84°„ you wanna see beads on the bag. It should be ready in 24 hours, another 12-24 may be necessary. I fill a cup with my moistened soil mix. I either wet the soil the night before and till it first or moisten untill it will hold its shape and compact at the time I'm doing it (forgot the word for this) ..so as to avoid any rot. Then placed In solo cup, gets a ziploc over the top and in the dark until I have my first set of leaves (still 82-84°)
Bags come off and they goto the sides of my light until the first set of leaves (true set). And temps are brought down to low 70's high 60's to promote female ratios
..use ph'd water, dont use distilled, promotes bacteria and mold growth. Theres also nothing wrong with the chlorine in your tap

This gives me best results. Out of 40 cheese seeds I just germed, all sprouted and only one died as a seedling (my fault)...i have several grow houses, and germ a couple thousand every year....not new at this

As long as they aren't crushed or white they will sprout...and even crushed seeds give me about a 50% rate

The bigger it is when put in soil the faster it seems to sprout. I've let the shell fall off with a set of leaves and all before while still in the paper towel (not recommending this though, but can happen in less than 48hrs), if planted at the same time, putting a seed with a smaller taproot will take longer to sprout than if you had just left it in the bag a bit longer.or germed in straight soil for that matter. I use an open gallon bag with wet paper towel at 82-84°. And i use multiple if running alot of seeds, i normally am. they cant be closer than an inch to one another. 2 is beat
(Ive experimented in 2° increments and found this to be optimimum and the biggest factor)

When you put the seed in the soil, you don't need to bury it, you don't even need dirt to cover it so long as you have high humidity, i use solo cups with a ziploc bag over
, which should have water beads. You don't want to bury the seed to far or compact the dirt when you do. This will drastically increase the time ittakes. Ive had seedlings pop up weeks into veg even flower because they were buried in the soil

the dark helps prevent mold and damaging exposed roots.

I've never had seed take longer than 36hour's to open and maybe 2 and a half days till it was ready totransplant. this is on very old seed as well

4 days is the longest i expect it to take my seeds to be ready for light

fresh seeds wont pop, give about 3 months or longer . on a side note, breeders that give out batches with bad rates and people complaining they are old, is usually because they are too fresh. most of my seeds are very old. cannabis seeds do not need to be frozen or anything special before germing.
you should keep the seeds while waiting at room temp and in an open container, rh between 30-40 is best.

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Feisty1UR said:

I recently tried attempting a grow, however the seeds I planted never even sprouted!!

I used the paper towel method for about 4 days until all the seeds shown a little taproot - 3 Northern light seeds from sensi seeds (Feminised) I should mention though, the seeds were sitting under a little plastic dome packaging thing on a cupboard in my living room for about 10 months prior to being used...

I germinated them in a little dark cupboard next to my fridge, maybe the temps were a little too cold? idk
The taproots didn't grow too long, maybe about 5-6mm each?

I put them all the seeds taproot down into a mix of coco coir professional plus + perlite in little plastic cups.

I gave them a good watering about 100ml each - I then put them under a 400w metal halide light about 60cm away from the pots for roughly 4 days on a 18/6 schedule, and they never had signs of growth. I ended up digging them up and they looked as if they rotted. I watered them twice in a day period. Seeing as they were newly planted seeds I didn't want them to dry out and die.

Can you advise me on what I should do next time to get them to grow, thanks

They could have simply just been old seeds, or I haven't got the greenfinger for this...

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