Newbie's please do not germinate you seeds in paper towles. Better Way..

39 years here lol. PT works great for me as well. Had way more succes with it than any other method for some reason. But I do see the logic in dropping it in soil, just seemed to get more duds that way.

plant seeds directly into a starter plug or medium- no soaking(which can kill seeds and is unnessasary)anything else isa waste of time and effort. i have sprouts in less then 5 days just sticking them in root riots and into heated prop. again, doing anything other than planting your seeds only wastes time and could end up in damaging the seed

mj growers still cling to wacky techniques and methods that are pointless and counter productive. if you want the fastest method for sprouting seeds- plant in medium of your choice and use a heatmat....HEATMAT IS THE TRICK! SHAVES DAYS OFF SPROUT AND ROOT TIME(if doing clones). i would never grow.without one

dont fix what isnt broken, i used paper towels for year- but i learned you get sprouts much faster and germination rates increase when your not handling.the seeds in their most fragile state

All i do is flush my plugs with ph'd water for a couple minutes drop in the bean put a cfl under my raised tray and they have sprouted, so far 100% using plugs, not so high when i was growing outdoors

seriously, paper towels and soaking just add time and increase rate of failure for new growers. seeds dont want to be suffocated- they want water, heat, AND LIGHT- NO LEAVING IN THE DARK- MJ HAS EVOLVEDFOR MILLENIA TO RESPOND TO.THOSE THINGS, not paper towel and darkness or submerged in water

just my two pennies- when i realized all of.that i felt like an idiot for wasting so much time in the past.

easy there squidbilly getting a little excited there lol

screediu said:

All i do is flush my plugs with ph'd water for a couple minutes drop in the bean put a cfl under my raised tray and they have sprouted, so far 100% using plugs, not so high when i was growing outdoors

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Thats the best way to do it, imo. i freakin love those root riot cubes

i personally like rapid rooter's but plugs are personal preference as long as they have a good water to air ratio, like jiffy i hear they hold too much water

i soak for 12 hrs. n plant....usually 3-4 days for seedlings to pop.

hope that didnt come off push/opinionated, lol. i just hate seeing other people make the same mistakes i did when i was learning! any other method wrlked for me, but direcrly into a medium or plug, and using heat, shaveddays off my sprout time and increased my success rate to almost 100%. i wont even grow out a bean if it doesnt sprout in less than 5 d

something like soaking for 12hrs is cool, but no need to leave it untill it sprouts or leave in darkness ina moist paper towel, imo

Squidbilly said:

dont fix what isnt broken, i used paper towels for year- but i learned you get sprouts much faster and germination rates increase when your not handling.the seeds in their most fragile state

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it aint rocket science or brain surgery , i accept diff ways of doing things but i usually get a 1/2' tap in 48 hrs or less in the p.t. . popping seeds is a simple process, it only takes walking around sence , if u dont have that then you'll be befuddled by the simplest of tasks .good luck to all ...

VirtualHerd said:

Decent advice but not always practical and certainly not necessary. Paper towel works fine.

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Just as with a many things.... "you can never stop learning".

As the OP said "the fine little root hairs get stuck to the paper towel".

To bring out the most of a plants potential is a very good thing.
Maximizing is the key not just settling for what ever you get or
whatever happens I believe.

Not saying putting seeds directly into soil is a bad thing and it makes sense that less handling is a good thing. I have just seemed to have better success with the PT method. As far as time I dont see a difference really between soil and PT. My seeds typically sprout in 24 hours and I put them in rockwool in the trays in 48. After that they just keep going lol. I really have shit luck germming in cubes and soil is not an option for me due to setup.

it depends how long you leave in the paper towl, if you get the seed as the tap root first shows its not a problem, i left one seed too long and thoes hairs you talk about took a while to appear, also you say not to use soil with nutes but i have germed many autos in a hot mix and never had a problem, as long as you sprinkle a fair bit of water before planting you should be fine, it may be your opinion but it is the road of trial and error every newb has to find out for themselfs, but thanks for your advice, you are right in what you say but wrong in the sense that if you time it right its fine.

as long as it germinates its all good. im thinking of germinating directly in a jiffy pod thing. i have always germinated in a paper towel but since i grow in dwc i might as well skip the paper towel. to each their own!

I had some issue on my 1st try ever. and yea i broke tap root on 3 of my 8 seedlings.
I do a mistake and leave them too long in paper towel so the main root drove directly
through several layers of paper, and when I tried to gently pull out was broken..
Yea newbie can do this kind of mistake, like i do but never happen agin to me.
Im using different method now, with 100% results...
I just soak beans 12h-24h (or till the shell crack) in tap water, when that happen you can see the white slot through one side of the seed. Such seed can safely put continue to germinate in any substrat ...
Rockwool,root riot,coco,perlite,lava rock,clay beans, soil.... all except soil need Ph-ed water 5.5-6.0.

Last grow i start using 1/4 str. of Rhizotonic with good results...

Just paranoid said:

as long as it germinates its all good. im thinking of germinating directly in a jiffy pod thing. i have always germinated in a paper towel but since i grow in dwc i might as well skip the paper towel. to each their own!

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I could be wrong but maybe jiffy pods are not the best choice for DWC.