I germed them in soaked paper towels inside a plastic bag in between two saucers on a heat pad under a humidity dome. and then put the popped seeds in root riots and when they popped up out of the root riots I transplanted to rockwool and flooded them to much.
Method 1:
Take a really sharp knife, a scalpel or maybe a carpet knife will do. Something really sharp anyway, the smaller the blade the better as this is precision work. Hold the seed between your fingers and chip the outer shell /seed coat at the bottom (sharp end) or in the middle. This will expose the "seed embryo" to the moisture of the paper towel. If you chip the seed coat at the top, the taproot might try to work it's way to the other side inside the shell and usually the seed dies before it succeeds. The trick here is not to hurt the innards of the seed in any way. If you chip too deep you end up slicing the embryonic seed and then it's goodbye for that one.
If you look at the picture above you can see how the seed coat is chipped. This method is so effective that seeds usually germinate within a few hours after a piece of the coat has been removed.
Using this method I have managed to get high germination rates upward of 75% with really old and tough seeds.
It's a gamble but if done carefully it will work almost every time.
Method 2:
This is the safer option with less change of ruining the seed. It might take a little bit longer for the seed to germinate than with method 1 but still pretty fast compared to regular germination.
Use fine grain sand paper and carefully thin out the seed coat until it looks like there is only a very fine layer of the outer shell left. That's it.
Both methods increase germination rates considerably.
is this how you guys germinate?
i have been reading online about ways to germ seeds. tbh i think it's got a bit out of hand, knifes, sandpaper and plates, whats next? a quick spin in the hadron collider?
i have have almost 100% success rate with a glass of water in a cupboard. the ones that fail were poor to begin with, one of them was rotten and broke up in my fingers when i squeezed it. not very seed is a winner and thats one of the reasons why these plants make so many seeds. but most of the time i get all of my seeds growing
just get a glass of water, tap water is fine, and put it into a cupboard or somewhere that's dark and won't be disturbed for 3 days. then put your seeds on top of the water. let them float, do not sink them and that's it. in 2/3 days time there will be sprouts about a half inch long sticking out of them and just use paper to fish them out and plant.
you can use bird seed to test it out. it works great.
the sand paper method is for tomato seeds because of the coating on it, also some very hard skinned seeds, the plate method is meant for beans and other large seeds. but cannabis seeds are small and float plus the skin is not that hard so there's no need for all that madness.
these are good plants and they don't need much for the 1st few weeks
happy growing
