Cant seem to get anywhere..? Help Needed

Wrath99

Member
Hello All, Ive been facing a few problems with my first grow here. So i decided to go with 2 strains (Top 44 and Northern lights). So i took a seed from each, germinated them with the wet paper towel method..48 hours later top 44 popped and that went well and its in the 2nd week now.

Whole issue is with the NL (Autoflowering) strain. I left it to germinate for about a week barely even cracked open so i basically decided to switch to the water in the glass method threw in another NL seed with it cuz i thought that the first seed had an issue..48 hours later a lil bit of growth from the first seed was seen and the 2nd seed cracked open. So after some research found out that when it comes to auto flowering seeds better off planting them directly into the soil.

Now from where I live (And its a far hot place), Its pretty hard to get some top soil like Happy from for example. So I basically mixed some potting soil with sand to get the right consistency and planted both seeds including a 3rd (Not germinated) directly into the soil.

My whole plan was to start off about a week of growth then transfer them into the big pots and carry on with an outdoor balcony grow.

Its been 48 hours now since they seeds went into the soil, Still nothing is popping out. SO, the ques is...Is there something that im doing wrong? Got the right light setup (CFLs), Temp and humidity and still nothing popping up even though its driving me crazy when i read that there are ppl out there that r throwing these seeds in literally ANY type of soil and environment and still getting somewhere. HELP!!
 

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Well-Known Member
we have had seeds take 5 days to pop up, no worries
Dr. Jekyll

be sure to keep them in a warm dark environment until they pop, then place under your lights
Mr. Hyde
 

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Well-Known Member
that's how most do it; water, warmth and darkness
Dr. Jekyll

some people will put it under the lights for warmth, but you have to be sure it's fairly deep in the soil so it's in darkness
Mr. Hyde
 

RetiredMatthebrute

Well-Known Member
seeds can be mysterious in germinating. patience and sometimes giving up on them and setting them aside somewhere yeilds great results. heres a couple examples i have been experiencinf lately and i will only list a couple to keep this short..

marijuana seeds, planted 1 seeds in reg potting soil left to germninate. A week later nothing has happened so i threw another seed in there to germinate....a week later nothing has happened so i threw TWO more in there to germinate....2 days later i have 4 seedling sprouted.....conditions stayed the same and they were all in the same 5 gal bucket..

i have had lemon seeds in a seed flat for over 2 months now....1 just showed a stem and is starting to emerge..

cactus seeds...3+ months and i finally have 1 verry tiny cactus.

summer squash...which are usually verry fast to sprout...about 3 months ago i started a few seeds in a bucket ( i always use 3-4 when planting veggies) and nothing was happening with them, everything else had sprouted and i was getting a bit concerned, dumped the rest of seed pack in warm water and left 48 hours in warm dark place, then planted..about 2 weeks late nothing so i gave up hope, dug around to get as many seeds as i could out and planted a tomato seedling in there, the tomatoever since i put that dam seedling in the bucket i have had summer squash seedling poping up at random, just had to pull one out thursday night which is almost 5 months after i tried to germinate them...

i have a incubator that is kept at around 75=77 it is warm and dark and most seeds germinate in there within a day or 2

i have found sometimes taking the seeds out of the incubator and setting them on a shelf and giving up hope and forgeting about them yeilds great results...im not saying this is a method of germination but it boggles my mind..

also forget the paper towels and glasses of water...wasted time. these seeds were made to sprout in dirt, they dont need any help from a paper towel and them more things you try and do to "help" them the worse off you are, just plant them no more than 1/2 in deep in some well drained soil and keep them in a warm place and keep the soil moist.

at this satge lighting plays no role, like the other guy said some people use the lights to keep them warm but other than that they just dry out the top of the soil faster so if you have a warm dark place then thats your best bet, if you need to use lights to keep them warm make sure you dont allow the soil to dry out.

you dont want to grow in top soil, you want a quality potting soil usually consited of sand, clay, hummus, peat moss, cocoa. perilite, some bark and worm castings. most decent quality potting soils will work. if they dont seem to drain well add some perilite, or if thats not obtainable grab a bag od aquarium gravel and add that, also make sure the container has drainage. Marijuana likes to be dry of the most part, it is not a swamp loving plant. you will want to water when the meedium is about 30% dried out and you want to water thourogly as dried out soil become hydrophpbic so you want to make sure all the soil in the container is wet again...a couple things i like to do is water plain water first then water in nutes after you let it drain this allows nutrients to get into all parts of soil and reduces waste. also the floater test works good to ensure theres no air pocket...place your container with plant in a bigger bucket of water, if it floats there is still air in it...i just leave the bucket in the water and come back to it 10-15 min later and usually it is submerged, pull the bucket out and allow to drain well then add about a 1/2 gallon of nutrient mixture (to a 5 gal bucket) and again allow to drain well.

ok im going on and on...sorry for such a long post.
 

Wrath99

Member
seeds can be mysterious in germinating. patience and sometimes giving up on them and setting them aside somewhere yeilds great results. heres a couple examples i have been experiencinf lately and i will only list a couple to keep this short..

marijuana seeds, planted 1 seeds in reg potting soil left to germninate. A week later nothing has happened so i threw another seed in there to germinate....a week later nothing has happened so i threw TWO more in there to germinate....2 days later i have 4 seedling sprouted.....conditions stayed the same and they were all in the same 5 gal bucket..

i have had lemon seeds in a seed flat for over 2 months now....1 just showed a stem and is starting to emerge..

cactus seeds...3+ months and i finally have 1 verry tiny cactus.

summer squash...which are usually verry fast to sprout...about 3 months ago i started a few seeds in a bucket ( i always use 3-4 when planting veggies) and nothing was happening with them, everything else had sprouted and i was getting a bit concerned, dumped the rest of seed pack in warm water and left 48 hours in warm dark place, then planted..about 2 weeks late nothing so i gave up hope, dug around to get as many seeds as i could out and planted a tomato seedling in there, the tomatoever since i put that dam seedling in the bucket i have had summer squash seedling poping up at random, just had to pull one out thursday night which is almost 5 months after i tried to germinate them...

i have a incubator that is kept at around 75=77 it is warm and dark and most seeds germinate in there within a day or 2

i have found sometimes taking the seeds out of the incubator and setting them on a shelf and giving up hope and forgeting about them yeilds great results...im not saying this is a method of germination but it boggles my mind..

also forget the paper towels and glasses of water...wasted time. these seeds were made to sprout in dirt, they dont need any help from a paper towel and them more things you try and do to "help" them the worse off you are, just plant them no more than 1/2 in deep in some well drained soil and keep them in a warm place and keep the soil moist.

at this satge lighting plays no role, like the other guy said some people use the lights to keep them warm but other than that they just dry out the top of the soil faster so if you have a warm dark place then thats your best bet, if you need to use lights to keep them warm make sure you dont allow the soil to dry out.

you dont want to grow in top soil, you want a quality potting soil usually consited of sand, clay, hummus, peat moss, cocoa. perilite, some bark and worm castings. most decent quality potting soils will work. if they dont seem to drain well add some perilite, or if thats not obtainable grab a bag od aquarium gravel and add that, also make sure the container has drainage. Marijuana likes to be dry of the most part, it is not a swamp loving plant. you will want to water when the meedium is about 30% dried out and you want to water thourogly as dried out soil become hydrophpbic so you want to make sure all the soil in the container is wet again...a couple things i like to do is water plain water first then water in nutes after you let it drain this allows nutrients to get into all parts of soil and reduces waste. also the floater test works good to ensure theres no air pocket...place your container with plant in a bigger bucket of water, if it floats there is still air in it...i just leave the bucket in the water and come back to it 10-15 min later and usually it is submerged, pull the bucket out and allow to drain well then add about a 1/2 gallon of nutrient mixture (to a 5 gal bucket) and again allow to drain well.

ok im going on and on...sorry for such a long post.

Thanks for the post, it really did help a whole lot, and I do agree on the fact that seeds are meant to be dropped directly into the soil. The consistency of the soil I'm using is ok so far, it does drain water well yet still holds just enough of moisture. Distilled water is what I'll be using for now to water the plants.

wont be using light at all and keeping them in a warm environment will be my top priority now then patience is all that is left I guess.

just wondering on top of my mind, is it fine to basically transplant a seed in soil into a bigger pot with more soil even when the seed still did not sprout ? So I basically can perform the air pockets test and add some nutes and let it drain out.

and again thnx for the post ! Good info right there
 

RetiredMatthebrute

Well-Known Member
the less you move the seed the better.

the air pocket thing is because i really let my soil dry out before watering so it gets hydrophobic. just leave it alone till its time to repot then do what ya need to do. to be honest i shouldnt have even gone into the air pocket thing as it is relativly non relavent but i got to babbling lol.

alot of people prefer to water every 2-4 days thus eliminating the need to do this, they have verry successfull grows i would focus on working with that method until it gets boring and more of a chore than a hobby, then you can be lazy like me and not water for 2 weeks to a time and use my method :)
 
Top