Help with germination!!

Actually I was really used to pretty much the same system as you to germinate seeds. But then my new friend Mr.Beansly here suggested soaking the seeds for just 6 hours and potting all of them right away, leaving them in undisturbed darkness till they break soil, it worked very nicely with my Lemon Ice seeds so far, so my White Widow seeds are soaking as we speak, and in about 4 more hours i'll pot them in my 4"ers of soil and vermiculite mix, put them in the dark, and wait for a few beautiful surprises in a couple of days

Actually I've just noticed that my most healthy looking plant has just developed a miniscule tiny tiny twist at the tip of one of the 2 new leaves... i put the plant further away from the light...do you think that might be it? i'm also a little worried about drainage...i don't give it much water and whenever i check the soil's moisture it's always moist-wet. Mind you, this soil mix that is always wet is not the same i'm using for the others. It's this soil i had which is clay-soil i think, very high in nutrients for sure, but doubtful in amount of oxygen it provides to the roots as well...Beansly...need your expertise here

maltagrow said:

Actually I was really used to pretty much the same system as you to germinate seeds. But then my new friend Mr.Beansly here suggested soaking the seeds for just 6 hours and potting all of them right away, leaving them in undisturbed darkness till they break soil, it worked very nicely with my Lemon Ice seeds so far, so my White Widow seeds are soaking as we speak, and in about 4 more hours i'll pot them in my 4"ers of soil and vermiculite mix, put them in the dark, and wait for a few beautiful surprises in a couple of days

Actually I've just noticed that my most healthy looking plant has just developed a miniscule tiny tiny twist at the tip of one of the 2 new leaves... i put the plant further away from the light...do you think that might be it? i'm also a little worried about drainage...i don't give it much water and whenever i check the soil's moisture it's always moist-wet. Mind you, this soil mix that is always wet is not the same i'm using for the others. It's this soil i had which is clay-soil i think, very high in nutrients for sure, but doubtful in amount of oxygen it provides to the roots as well...Beansly...need your expertise here

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Ah white widows... I am growing those right now too <3.
The only prob I see with a 6 hour soak before potting them right away is that you will be waiting to see if the seed sprouts... if you soak them for 12 hours you know for sure if you have a viable seed that is going to sprout or not. Seems like you're just going to worry until that seed pops up out of the soil (if it does).

Can you please post a pic of your plant with the slightly twisted leaf?
Yikes, bad drainage is really bad... It's a double whammy of too much moisture on the roots, and not enough oxygen for them. If you are concerned, I would transplant them into soil that has lots of vermiculite and/or sandy soil so that the roots get oxygenated and no root rot occurs.

Gotta stop taking photos with my mobile phone coz the quality's crap. either tonight or tomorrow i'll post some good pictures taken with a proper camera I'm just praying that I get some nice germination from those widow seeds!

ok mate i'll take a few close up proper pics with my camers and get right back to you with them

maltagrow said:

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Gotta stop taking photos with my mobile phone coz the quality's crap. either tonight or tomorrow i'll post some good pictures taken with a proper camera I'm just praying that I get some nice germination from those widow seeds!

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I'm assuming the plant in the first picture is the one you're saying has a twisted leaf. I can see that for at least 1 day it was placed too far from the light source, and stretched. The stem is white and curved, and too long.. This will correct itself in one week - it will turn greener and thicker.
I can't actually see the twist because it is blurry, but I can see enough to believe that it isn't serioius. I'm a little worried about the other plant though - looks like it's splotched with white.. Could just be the blurriness of the photo.
If it is splotchy it reminds me of my white widow when it was a seedling - it has a pest infestation that I still haven't been able to get rid of entirely.
But both plants look like they will be fine in the long run. The soil actually looks like it would drain really well, so I dunno about that.
Anyway, good luck!

Hey malta, i don't think you have to worry too much about the little leaf twist your talking about. I can't tell by the picture but if it's what I think it is, it's just the pinch of where shell was attached to it, or something else harmless. If it keeps up in the next couple sets of leaves then I'd say you have a plant with a small genetic mutation, unless they're contorted and twisted due to pH or other problems, which doesn't seem to be the case or else the whole leaf would be funny. Not just the tip.
As for your soil, you did fine getting away with it up to now, but over-water will cause a lot of problems in the future like bugs, mold and rot, not to mention that it could stunt the growth and yeild of your plant. If you think it's the drainage of the soil, do you best to try and transplant it into some with better drainage. Idk what kind you're using or if you have to mix your own, but a bag of perlite mixed in with the soil would help.
Like aqua said, the plants do looked stretched for light. You can probably bring it closer.

maltagrow said:

ok mate i'll take a few close up proper pics with my camers and get right back to you with them

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Cool thank you.

Oh, also I hear what your saying about having to wait for the seed to sprout if you only soak for 6 hours.
I don't like to germinate seeds in water or paper towels because I don't like to handle the root once it's exposed. 12 hours is the very longest I would soak a seed because like you say, they start to crack at about 12 hours. And also imho, I think you should plants seeds whether they sink or not. You just don't know sometimes. Some of the seeds that other growers would toss out have grown me perfectly normal plants.

is 3 feet enough distance from a 400W mh bulb though? coz after reading all that i did put them closer to the bulb but im getting worried i might ve put them a little too close, and now being in bed thinking, im starting to get a little worried. im so excited about buying dwarf ganja lowryder seeds! it does produce a small yield but it's nice and short and stout so in my case (having a grow area with low ceiling) it's the most ideal plant probably. coz like that i think i have space for about 16 plants leaving me with a yield range of 160 - 240g whcih would do wonders for me. my only intent is simply to stop wasting money on weed. i smoke quite a lot and it s too bloody expensive. Plus, you probably wouldnt know this, but Malta being such a small island always gets the crappiest shit, coz we get like italy's leftovers or libya's garbage. and the thing is this, we only get "hash". the kind that you need to burn with a lighter in order to crumble and emits a smell of burning plastic bleeehhh. there was a time we used to get decent hash but its been soooo long i ended up smoking legal alternatives instead. THAT is how desperate i am for my first harvest. Im hoping that ill give myself the best christmas present i ever got thia year, a beautiful rich yield of lemon ice and white widow... id be the happiest guy on earth i swear

maltagrow said:

is 3 feet enough distance from a 400W mh bulb though? coz after reading all that i did put them closer to the bulb but im getting worried i might ve put them a little too close, and now being in bed thinking, im starting to get a little worried. im so excited about buying dwarf ganja lowryder seeds! it does produce a small yield but it's nice and short and stout so in my case (having a grow area with low ceiling) it's the most ideal plant probably. coz like that i think i have space for about 16 plants leaving me with a yield range of 160 - 240g whcih would do wonders for me. my only intent is simply to stop wasting money on weed. i smoke quite a lot and it s too bloody expensive. Plus, you probably wouldnt know this, but Malta being such a small island always gets the crappiest shit, coz we get like italy's leftovers or libya's garbage. and the thing is this, we only get "hash". the kind that you need to burn with a lighter in order to crumble and emits a smell of burning plastic bleeehhh. there was a time we used to get decent hash but its been soooo long i ended up smoking legal alternatives instead. THAT is how desperate i am for my first harvest. Im hoping that ill give myself the best christmas present i ever got thia year, a beautiful rich yield of lemon ice and white widow... id be the happiest guy on earth i swear

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I tell you man, I believe in plant telepathy.
Once I was deep asleep in bed one night and I woke up for some reason. I went to the bathroom in a haze and I got this weird felling that I need to check on my plants. I was really tired and practically sleep walking so I ignored it. When woke up the next morning the plants had all fallen over (they were in pot) from heavy gusts in the night. Two were damaged beyond repair. The nexrt time, I listened to the instint and lo and behold, they were all knocked over again.
If your laying in bed and you get a strong feeling that you need to check your plants, you should do it.

I tend and works everytime for me, to fill a mug with clean bottled water at room temp.(3/4)
Place seeds in cup and a notebook over the cup and place on top of a cable box.
Seeds will germ 1-3 days eveytime!
(sometimes even earlier)

Hello again guys, got some amazing news...remember that root that came out which we concluded had been an upside down plant?
Well I had assumed that it was dead, and then all of a sudden surprise surprise
I don't know if what I did was the right thing to do but now it's done so here's what i did: i scooped it up with a nutrient scoop (hoping to manage to dig under the roots) and re-potted it on its own in a vermiculite-rich mix. Furthermore, since it had a very long circular root, i sprayed it lightly with water and then sprinkled rooting powder all over the root. Then I planted it, leaving only the tiny tip of it breaking soil. I put it the same distance I had put the other 2 plants from the bulb.

Anyway, here's a camera pic of my Lemon Ice Plant number 1 - the one with the tiny twitched tip, still looking nice, and the foliage has grown relatively in a couple of days; what do you think?


And the following is an update of the 2nd plant. The one that had a very very flimsy and long stem in the beginning and we realized it had been stretching badly for light. It's now emitting new foliage! It's 2nd pair of proper leaves Not sure if you manage to see them in the picture - it's quite high res a little blurry


What do you think guys? ...Beansly? Aqua?

I don't know about y'all but i use peat moss pellets in a humidity dome to start my seeds and have a 95% germ rate so far. I let them sit in the dark untill i see the first few germ and then move them to light to let the rest finish.

A bit worried, and a bit happy

A bit worried because of this bloody yellowed tip. People had told me it's probably nothing since it's one leaf but it's still worrying coz it used to be a minuscule pinch and now it's a small yellow tip as you can see here :
Here's the one that had the stretched and flimsy stem looking a little better but it's worrying me coz the initial two round taproot leaves are yellowing at the tip as well :/
Please let me know what you think guys, here it is:


And now, a picture of the hardcore survivor plant that was upside down for over a week. It looks like crap, it's developing reallyyyyyy slowly if it even is.


And finally the one i'm currently most excited about, my sweet sweet white widow is looking really really sweet And the best thing about it all is, I just found another one that germinated successfully, i'll post pics of the second one in a few days, here's the first one though, broke soil on the 27th Sept - two days ago and look:


Oh how I wish I could fast-forward time AT LEAST to know the plants' sex so i know where i stand after all. Coz even though I have a few they must turn out female to make me happy. Please hit me with updates re my plants' progress please

The yellowing could be several things. I don't know what soil that you are using, but it may be a "hot". Meaning the soil has a bunch of good nutes that it doesn't need right now. Here are a couple of tips moving forward though:

-don't OVER water them. make sure that the soil is dry before watering them again.
-use RO when watering them for the first couple of times (keeps the ppm to a minimum).
-make sure that the pots have good draining holes below.

If the seeds are femanized then they should more than likely be girls!

farmin said:

The yellowing could be several things. I don't know what soil that you are using, but it may be a "hot". Meaning the soil has a bunch of good nutes that it doesn't need right now. Here are a couple of tips moving forward though:

-don't OVER water them. make sure that the soil is dry before watering them again.
-use RO when watering them for the first couple of times (keeps the ppm to a minimum).
-make sure that the pots have good draining holes below.

If the seeds are femanized then they should more than likely be girls!

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Seeds are not feminized, couldn't afford them last month, the cheapest feminized seeds I could find where sold at 90 euros per pack of 10. Obviously I can only look for website that have international delivery, coz in my country you can't even find a ballast or a freakin 400w metal halide bulb, let alone cannabis seeds. Can you please explain what you mean by "RO" to water them, and "ppm to a minimum"? Coz i'm not familiar with any of the terms.
By the way, it's weird that I have this white widow seedling that (so far) seems to be enjoying it's surrounding conditions to the full coz it's going absolutely perfect so far and it's in the same soil mix, same light distance, temperature, humidity and all the others.

By the way I had a bunch of gathered seeds so I soaked them for 12hrs and potted all of them, but for some strange reason some of the pots developed a few small patches of thin layers of white hairy moss. How can i prevent that from happening? And what could be the cause? This happened in the drawer I normally use for leaving germinating seeds in the dark within their pots, so it's not like i tried a new place or anything. Any clues?

OK. So here's my best exp.
RO stands for reverse osmosis. It essentially means that all of the impurities and most elements are removed. Typically in my country, RO has a ppm of less than 20 (very clean). PPM stands for part per million. It's a measurement of particulates that are present in the water. Seedlings like VERY little (50-100ppm). This is one of the major reasons that people have a loss in success with germination. They use what ever tap water they have and it's sooo high in ppm that the seed doesn't "pop". Also, pH is a great factor. A pH of 6.8-7.0 is good for germination. Techniques of "popping" a seed vary from growers, but the real success is keeping the seed in a comfortable environment (low ppm/good pH) while germination is taking place. All seeds (unless they are old or from a unreputable source) want to naturally germinate. It's in there DNA!

Not all seeds/strains enjoy the same environment. They all differ when it comes to nutes as well. One may like more N and the other enjoys more P or K.

I am not familiar with that method that you used above. First aquire RO water, then pH it to 7.0. Apply the water to a paper towel, damp it, not soaking wet though. Then take the seeds, put them into a the paper towel and fold up the paper towel, and put it into a zip lock bag. Put the zip lock bag into the a warm dark place for 24-48hrs. I like to put them above the lights. If you do this, wrap the bag with a dark towel to block out the light. Check them, but be very careful. Seeds when popping are fragile. If the seed shows a root coming out (approx 1/4" long or more) place the seed into some damp soil (using your RO water pH'd to 7.0) with the root pointing down. You can use tweezers to place it. Cover the seed with some of the damp soil. Put in under the light and spray the soil if it looks like it's not moist.

Hey guys this, is gonna be my last post in THIS thread, i'll start a new one soon, but since thanks to you guys my trouble with germinating seeds is over the aim of this thread has been fulfilled. Anyway...so apart from thanking you all for your help, I thought I'd end this by posting the latest update of how my babies look. Ultimately, the one that had been stretching for light and that had a very flimsy stem is the one that turned out to be my baby coz she's beautiful. Lemon Ice Plant No.2, She looks great doesn't she? I called her Lee Mona

Then there's the larger one, the first to break soil but the one that was browning foliage from the tips but it turned out that the 1st pair of leaves were the only ones affected by this coz as you can see the new ones look just fine

And here are the two white widows, one of which is still in very early stages


Thank you soooo much everyone, couldn't have done it without you as I had been failing before I came here, and now i'm doin ok You'll hear from maltagrow very soon on a new thread, probably just about the time when I'm about to transfer the plants to larger pots!

One last note - Please guys, do your best, even in the most subtle of ways to support movements that want to legalize our right to grow our own cannabis for our own personal use. This is a terrible terrible mistake that the people made ages ago, legalizing alcohol and illegalizing cannabis My uncle is dying from liver failure that resulted in developing pancreatic cancer as well which is obviously terminal. That is what happens with alcohol, the stuff you buy over the counter. NOBODY dies (especially from the torture my uncle is going through right now) from cannabis. OPEN YOUR EYES PEOPLE OUT THERE!!

Beansly said:

I'm not a fan of sprouting seeds in paper towels or water. Like the grower above, I soak my seeds for about 4-6 hours till they sink of I can push the to the bottom of the glass, but no matter what, don't soak them for more than 10 hours. .

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i've cracked hundreds of seeds by putting them in a cup of water for 2 to 4 days! they are perfectly fine like that. i leave them soaking until they crack open then plant them. easy peasy!

i bet there would be more possible plants that die out using that method. From what I've read and experienced it seems that seeds don't just need water to germinate, what you are doing is probably a trauma to the future plant my friend :/