fast germination: dirt vs dirt + towel

compared to my last germination which took over a week, the germination i just made took just over 48 hours.

my previous method was what I call noobish. heres how it went. I put the seed in the planter and left it outside for a week. finally it came up after about a week, maybe longer.

my most recent germination was with bag seed again, and was an experiment. In 4 pak planter 1, I put four seeds in miracle grow potting soil.

in 4 pak planter two i put three seeds, each one folded in a small 1/2 inch tear of paper towel. the crease was put on the bottom so the seedling could grow up. both planters were placed equidistantly from a 10w CFL. gave each seed a squirt of water to keep the medium moist.

in just over two days, the three of the seedlings in planter one have sprouted. Just about a half a day behind are the paper towel seedlings.

interesting to me... interesting to you?

the next part of the experiment is if the seeds in planter 2 will have problems rooting.

my new favorite method is to put the seed into the medium of choice for my grow after treading this generous with cloning hormone, all head out after less the 48h. rest my case

you use cloning hormones when planting seeds? to speed up the process or what?

thats a clever idea with that rooting hormone trick... ill definately try that on my next op. might not even be too late to treat my water with some, think thats possible?

Wigmo said:

you use cloning hormones when planting seeds? to speed up the process or what?

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you got it, this will speed up the process of rooting as it does with clones, also let the roots grow faster then normal and is lots cheaper then those worthless power root agents you can by at hydro stores since they are just a weak version of what i do with the pure hormone

killertomatoes said:

thats a clever idea with that rooting hormone trick... ill definately try that on my next op. might not even be too late to treat my water with some, think thats possible?

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it probably still do a lil magic but not as much as it does with seeds

any good suggestions for how much to mix in with the water or what percentage.

Wigmo said:

any good suggestions for how much to mix in with the water or what percentage.

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good question, i used powder and put a tiny lab spoon full of it straight on the medium so it is a bit hard to guess, about the volume of a seed i would say i would water it down too much really, if you are a gel user, dip the seed into a bit of gel and dig it in

I saw that other people have tested this method in other threads and I wanted to add that after a week, both sets of seedlings, the dirt germed and the paper/dirt germed are all about the same size, within 1/4 inch of each other.
So i guess the dirt germed wont grow faster as seedlings, but they germ and pop up faster in that first week.