Seed shell halves not popping off on sprout

Hey all,

just wondering what you do if the seed shell halves are stubborn to pop off after seed sprouts ? how long do you wait before attempting to manually remove the shell halves with toothpicks or something ? at some point if the shells don't pop off the sprout dies, that happened to me a few times.. also i'm paranoid about attempting the removal too early and forcing the shells off causing damage to the sprout. in a perfect world you'd just plant the seed and it would take care of itself but sometimes they need help.

Mist it might take a couple times and maybe some persuasion with a tooth pick.

Some people take a canister with sand paper and shake the seed in there to help score the seed line especially for one's the shell sticks together on

People might frown on this but I’ve used my fingers to lightly crack the hull on a couple stubborn ones before. As long as you don’t pull just squish it your fine

I would leave it alone. Chances are good that you'll screw it up.

Imo I’d mist it at a minimum. If not it could harden on there or take too long to get light and it’s a wrap imo

I use my trimming scissors. The trick is to rest the hand you grab the seedling with on something, if your hand moves, you'll rip that little sprout in half. Rest your hand, gently hold the top of the seedling in between your thumb and pointer finger, and take your scissors and go like you're cutting the seed shell in half. You'll want to angle to top of the scissors away from the plant, and put the top blade on the top of one of the seed halves. You're not trying to cut the shell off, you just need enough pressure to crack where the shell halves meet. Then it will fall off. I had to do 4 just the other day. Take your time.

Mist it with a spray bottle a few times a day and give it a couple days. Most of the time it works it self off. After three days I gently pry it open.

Little peroxide in the spray helps soften the shell

bam0813 said:

People might frown on this but I’ve used my fingers to lightly crack the hull on a couple stubborn ones before. As long as you don’t pull just squish it your fine

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This will either work, or you'll behead it. I've done both, lol.

Definitely gotta go easy lol

bam0813 said:

People might frown on this but I’ve used my fingers to lightly crack the hull on a couple stubborn ones before. As long as you don’t pull just squish it your fine

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same. ive used tweezers as well

PopAndSonGrows said:

This will either work, or you'll behead it. I've done both, lol.

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Yep. Ive done that quite a few times.

Hate when that happens, usually it’ll work itself out. If it doesn’t: toothpicks, tweezers or if you’re particularly dexterous you can lightly wiggle/crack the shell with your fingers(you’ll save them half the time this way if you’re lucky)

I mist it to keep the shell soft and wait 24 hours+ the shell will usually come off on its own but don't wait too long, after about 48 hours they start to get pretty weak. As suggested above it helps to rest one hand on something, the table, the pot it's in, whatever, and then I hold one half of the shell with a pair of tweezers and carefully(!) pry the other half off with a toothpick or another pair of tweezers or something of that nature.

cbr900rr1 said:

at some point if the shells don't pop off the sprout dies, that happened to me a few times

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If the shells don't pop off it's usually because the seed was planted too shallow, moisture also plays a role in the seedling sloughing off its shell properly. I used to have a few seedlings that would fail to break free of their shells every time I germinated seeds, then I started planting the seeds deeper, now I almost never have a seedling come up with the shell still attached. Keep the soil very moist while germinating and sow the seeds a little deeper.

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