Starting seeds with out a medium.... sorta

So i germinated these two seeds with the traditional paper towel and no light method. However instead of placing the germinated seeds in a medium such as rock wool, soil, or what ever, i just placed them directly into my cloning units foam inserts. I threaded the tap root down down and out of the insert very carefully while allowing the cracked open seed to be just on top of the insert. I did this last night right before lights off and upon checking this afternoon this is what i have.

Does anyone see a problem with what I've done as it seems to have been successful and i will continue to do this with whatever seeds i germinate from now on?

Side note: those seeds were just above the inserts top last night and their tap roots were only 1.5 in long. These pictures are what i have today. I'm sorry i did not take pictures of when i set it up but i will make sure i do it the next time i try this.

and yes i did make my foam inserts out of $1 pink strawberry short cake sandals from the dollar store.

no one wants to give it a shot?

Haha this is the third thread in a row of mine that has had no replies for awhile.

Any response would be greatly appreciated.

its called hydroponics buddy

ontariogrower said:

its called hydroponics buddy

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A little condescending there....

But thats ok i'll take it. I am well aware that it is called hydroponics, as you can see there in the pictures i am also cloning my plants and that is my third set.

I also am on my 6th plant of my perpetual cycle, using DWC buckets. I also mix my own hydroponic nutrients from raw chemicals.

This is however the first time i have treated a germinated seed this way, in the past i have always started my seeds in soil, rapid rooting plugs, or something similar, then transplanted to the buckets. I have never tried just placing the germinated seed into my cloning unit, i was just making sure i didn't miss or screw up any essential part of the young plants lives.

Next time i will be more clear about by experience and the exact explanation of what my question is so i don't get the "youre a newbie" attitude in my thread's responses. Thank you for your response it was appreciated.

Well if no one else sees a problem or cares to comment i guess i have received my answer and will no longer be using any mediums other than water in any stage of my plants lives from now on be it seed or clone.

Damn man, you got shut down on this question. And you are too nice (in my opinion). To each his own, but I would be pissed off at a stupid answer like "it's called hydroponics"... great help there 'buddy' (my attempt at condescention).

I say it looks alright. Not sure, but don't know why not. As long as roots aren't developing above the flip flop I would say all's well. Are the flip flops able to open like pacman, or is there just a hole poked through? If you can open it like pacman, you could easily slide the young string like seedling down, exposing more of the plant to the root zone.

Does that make sense? This is what my buddy Survolte needs to do with his setup... I will have to pass on the $1 store flip flop idea. That is great.

I've been tossing around the idea of cutting up my old wetsuit, but figure I will give it to goodwill or something. Now I have the flip flop hook up.

jigfresh said:

Damn man, you got shut down on this question. And you are too nice (in my opinion). To each his own, but I would be pissed off at a stupid answer like "it's called hydroponics"... great help there 'buddy' (my attempt at condescention).

I say it looks alright. Not sure, but don't know why not. As long as roots aren't developing above the flip flop I would say all's well. Are the flip flops able to open like pacman, or is there just a hole poked through? If you can open it like pacman, you could easily slide the young string like seedling down, exposing more of the plant to the root zone.

Does that make sense? This is what my buddy Survolte needs to do with his setup... I will have to pass on the $1 store flip flop idea. That is great.

I've been tossing around the idea of cutting up my old wetsuit, but figure I will give it to goodwill or something. Now I have the flip flop hook up.

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Thanks for the response jig. Yea i thought it was just me there for a second but i just like to let things like that roll off my shoulders you know. No need to get in a fight when he actually kind of gave me my answer.

Great thanks for the reassurance, you're always there for the rescue. I thought it looked good and you made total sense. Yea the flops were a find, yes they're pac mans, just made sense to make them that way. Yea they're great for the inserts of the cloning unit however when i was walking around Homedepot the other day i came across black rubber gaskets that would have been a much better choice and i think i might change them to the gaskets, they weren't to expensive like $2-3. The reason i used the sandals was because i had no money and you can't beat a $1 right?

this is really a clever idea! i'm definitely going to be trying this out. thanks for the tip!

sorry to sound like a prick but going on like you invented the thing and then complaning when you respond to your own question/statment 3 times with in couple hours just doesnt make sense. Good for ya you found something that works for you all my best peace out

ontariogrower said:

sorry to sound like a prick but going on like you invented the thing and then complaning when you respond to your own question/statment 3 times with in couple hours just doesnt make sense. Good for ya you found something that works for you all my best peace out

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I respect your opinion, you do not sound like a prick. I'm sorry if i sounded to you like i was bragging, i also like to be as detailed as possible to leave as little confusion as i can. I wasn't complaining just trying to bump my simple question to the top of the page when there was more people viewing the sub-forum, and i was just looking for some reassurance. Not a whole lot of people view the advanced marijuana cultivation sub-forum and i wanted to give my question a better chance of being answered within a short time as we all know how quickly a new seedling can die if there is something a miss. Thank you for clarifying your response for me, and letting me see where you were coming from.

thomassmith said:

this is really a clever idea! i'm definitely going to be trying this out. thanks for the tip!

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haha is it a tip or a question? I guess its a tip now and then no problem .

I don't have an answer to whether there is anything wrong with this or not, let us know if your seedlings go on to stay healthy. I have been trying to figure out a way to get around starting in a medium to grow mothers, then cloning them before I can put them in my aero set-up. Now it looks like I have something to try. Thanks for posting pics and making everything clear. And that guy that was kindve dissing you prolly didnt understand your question. Hydroponics usually starts in a medium of some sort or with a clone from what I've seen. So this really is something different, not just regular hydro. Thanks again. Cool idea.

BlazaBlaze said:

I don't have an answer to whether there is anything wrong with this or not, let us know if your seedlings go on to stay healthy. I have been trying to figure out a way to get around starting in a medium to grow mothers, then cloning them before I can put them in my aero set-up. Now it looks like I have something to try. Thanks for posting pics and making everything clear. And that guy that was kindve dissing you prolly didnt understand your question. Hydroponics usually starts in a medium of some sort or with a clone from what I've seen. So this really is something different, not just regular hydro. Thanks again. Cool idea.

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Cool, thanks for the appreciation. Yea i wasn't too sure about this either but i had a few spare seeds so i thought i'd try it. I also hated starting in a medium and then transplanting to hydro. I was looking for a run around as well but was unsure to try this because i hadn't read about it anywhere, everyone always starts in another medium. Hope no one finds anything wrong with this method as it will save me a bundle in the long run.

GL

Edit: Forgot to add that the seedlings are doing great. They're showing their first little set of real leaves, and the roots are now about 4-5 inches long and branching. I'd say not bad for 2.5 days since being put in the cloning unit.

A side note about my cloning unit, its a combination of fog and aero. I run the outlet from an ultrasonic humidifier to the cloning unit as well as a pretty large air stone. I can't speak highly enough about the use of fog in a cloning unit, i went from about 20% success cloning to 75-90%. I don't think the fog could do the job on its own but in combination with the aero bubbles and shallow water culture, its almost a sure thing.

Sounds like theyre doing well. I may end up trying this one out in the next few days. I have an aero cloner so I might have different results, but I have tons of extra seeds, so I can try it on some of the seeds that I would most likely never use anyways. When you used the paper towel method, how long did you let the roots get before putting them in your cloner?? For soil, I only let them show about a quarter inch before putting them in the soil, but I would assume you let them grow a lot more because they have to be long enough to stick out of both the top and bottom of the plugs?? Let me know. Thanks for the help.

BlazaBlaze said:

Sounds like theyre doing well. I may end up trying this one out in the next few days. I have an aero cloner so I might have different results, but I have tons of extra seeds, so I can try it on some of the seeds that I would most likely never use anyways. When you used the paper towel method, how long did you let the roots get before putting them in your cloner?? For soil, I only let them show about a quarter inch before putting them in the soil, but I would assume you let them grow a lot more because they have to be long enough to stick out of both the top and bottom of the plugs?? Let me know. Thanks for the help.

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Cool, Yes they're doing great. I run an air stone in my cloner as well as the fog so there is an aero effect. You should be just fine. i let the roots off the germinated seed get to 1 inch long or so as my collars are .75 inches long and the roots needed to be able to stick out of the collar as you said. I will post pictures of the seedling later

doing this is very common for those growing in aeroponic systems that need to start from seed. it has been posted here on the site as well numerous times. there is nothing wrong with it. in fact I am doing the very same thing here shortly.... but I'm starting in rapid rooters, cracking them open, then transferring to a cloner.




good luck.

Delusional said:

doing this is very common for those growing in aeroponic systems that need to start from seed. it has been posted here on the site as well numerous times. there is nothing wrong with it. in fact I am doing the very same thing. good luck.

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Thanks for the response, and for giving me a definitive answer. Good to know that we all tend to think alike in a given situation. Good luck to you as well.

Seedling at 3 days. I gave the other seedling away as a present so i now only have this one.

How big were the germinations when you put them into the sleeves? I am thinking of trying something similar put with fog instead of an aero system.

BaliShag said:

How big were the germinations when you put them into the sleeves? I am thinking of trying something similar put with fog instead of an aero system.

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About an inch long tap root sticking out of the cracked seed. It really just needs to have a tap root longer than the thickness of whatever collar you use to hold it in place.

GL