Hey I started my first grow Pineapple express auto and gorilla grow auto in 19L 5gallon 75% fill in which 40% Soil and 60% organic compost soil. It's been 1 and half day seeds have not sprouted in soil I followed old germination process which I planted the seed directly in soil and watered any suggestions on germination
Hi Avinash, just be patient, it usually takes around 24 hours just for the taproot to come out of the shell, but could also take 2 or 3 days, then it could take another 1 or 2 days for the plant to make it out of the soil, depending on things like soil temperature, and vigour of that strain (or just that seed in particular, sometimes you can get runts, especially with autos). 20C/68F soil temp is okay but could be a few degrees warmer, you don't really want to go much colder if you can help it. The seed will germinate in much colder media but everything goes in slow motion the lower the temperatures are with this and many other plants. Basically the most important things for a seed are constant moisture, fresh air and warm temperatures, then when it breaks ground it would appreciate some higher than normal humidity, like a plastic dome, e.g. half a soda bottle with some ventilation holes, or a plastic bag, but if you use a bottle, don't use coloured ones, dark ones will block light and raise temperatures, and green ones will only let green light through them which is basically useless to a plant by itself, and if you do use a dome, take it off in the cooler parts of the day to introduce the plant to wind stress and allow air to circulate. You never really want to leave a dome on any plant for more than 24 hours uninterrupted. (unless it has plenty of ventilation)
The way you germinated is fine but a lot of people these days like to first pre-soak the seeds in normal room temp. water for around 12 hours, (you can do less but don't go much more than that) then germinate their seeds between a few layers of moist paper towel, either placed in a bag or some kind of container to keep in the moisture, then put in a warm place like a hot water cupboard or anywhere that stays a relatively warm, dark and a constant temperature. This way you can keep an eye on them and help them out if they don't pop in the first day or so. When you put them directly in the soil you don't really know what's going on until either it breaks ground or you lose patience and go digging for it (try not to do this, but if you must, be very careful, and if you see white root, cover it back over and don't mess with it again). The benefit of planting them directly into soil is that there is absolutely no chance of transplant shock if they do pop (unless someone digs for them because they got impatient). When planted directly into your media, as soon as the root emerges it just starts going down and doesn't stop, I feel this does have a slight advantage over any seed that germinated in paper towels then got moved into media, no matter how gentle the process is.
Sounds like you heard autos should never be transplanted which is good advice as far as I know. Personally though I do start all seeds in paper towels unless I'm 100% sure they're going to germinate with no issues, which is pretty much never. I have only grown a few autos though so there are probably plenty of people on here who can tell you more about growing autos than I can. With your soil mix you probably won't have to feed it much either depending on how 'hot' your compost soil is, auto's tend to eat less than photo plants. There's even a chance that your mix will be too 'hot' for your plants unless you made sure to leave a lot of the compost soil in the bottom of the pots for the plants to reach when they're a bit more mature.
Yeah so after all that I'd say just leave them be for another few days and make sure the top of the soil doesn't get dry or cold. You can even throw a dome over them before they break ground, maybe it will help keep that piece of soil a more constant temp. and moisture level, and in my mind it would kind of "encourage" them ("I'll put this dome here because I know the plant is on it's way"). The power of positive thinking is very real in my opinion, and what harm is it to be optimistic?