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Germinating Cannabis Seeds - My Most Successful Method

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Keeno
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Germinating Cannabis Seeds - My Most Successful Method

Post by Keeno »

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Germinating Cannabis Seeds - My Most Successful Method

Germinating cannabis seeds is something most growers do without thinking, but I always hear of people saying success rates of 60%, 80%, etc. I never seem to have this problem so I thought id share my method which seems to give me 100% success even with older seeds. Its a mix of 2 methods commonly used.

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Step 1

My first step is to fill a glass with normal tap water. I will then leave this water to stand for 12-24 hours, this allows the chlorine to evaporate off. Next, I add my seeds. I will leave the seeds in the water for no more than 12 hours. Through germinating 100's of seeds over the years I've learnt 12 hours is the perfect amount of time. After 12 hours in a dark place, some of the seeds should have sunk to the bottom of the glass, if not a good tap on the seed and it should sink, if it doesn't that's not an issue. The 12 hours in the water has softened the shell, any longer and I've noticed you can drown the seed.

Step 2

Once my seeds have spent 12 hours on the water I like to transfer them damp tissue paper. This is an important step and something I see being done wrong. You want the tissue paper damp, not wet. I literally meant no excess water over damp. I normally give the tissue paper a good soaking and then squeeze it heavily between my hands. It hardly feels wet once I've done this. In the wild seeds don't want a bog or swamp to germinate, just enough moisture to start their journey. You want the tissue to be pretty thick as well. If using standard toilet roll I find 12 squares folder down to 1 square to be perfect, no perfumed tissue either, plain white tissue, normally the cheapest is perfect.

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Step 3

I now Place my seeds in the damp tissue covering 1 half as I will shortly be folding the tissue over to cover the seeds. Do not compress the tissue when you fold the tissue over the seeds. A seedling wants room. Established plants do not want a tight compact medium to contend with, a seedling definitely doesn't. I will normally just push around the edge of the folded tissue, sealing it.

Step 4

This is where I see most people making mistakes. I place the damp folded tissue containing the seedlings into a ziplock bag. Gently squeeze all air out and seal it. You do not need a heat mat, you don't need to keep your seeds at higher than room temperature for what comes next. Put the ziplock bag into a kitchen cupboard or similar. If your house is below 10c then find somewhere warmer in the house, do not add actual heat to the process. Trust me, nearly 14 years of germinating seeds and adding heat to the process has always given me fewer germinated seeds. Store somewhere dark, even cool. Now for the next mistake, I see more from new growers.... Be patient. Leave that sealed bag in a dark place for 3 days. Many seeds will be ready in 2 days but do not be opening the bag 10 times a day looking to see if they are ready. Everytime you do so you change humidity, light levels and temperature, all these things will slow or worse stop the germination process.



Using the above method I will get a 100% germination success rate time and time again.

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Re: Germinating Cannabis Seeds - My Most Successful Method

Post by ohlordyeah_420 »

Totally agree about the heat. Made that mistake myself several times.

Great guide!
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Keeno (Sat Jul 24, 2021 3:59 pm)
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Re: Germinating Cannabis Seeds - My Most Successful Method

Post by Greenfingers »

@Keeno Nice one mate, i soak seeds until i remember im soaking seeds :lol: then i panic and hope for the best.

Happy growing everyone :oik!:
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Keeno (Sat Jul 24, 2021 5:06 pm)

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Re: Germinating Cannabis Seeds - My Most Successful Method

Post by MommaB »

Absolutely agree about the adding heat. I use the same method as above (wonder who taught me) and have always had a very high germ rate. Great read Keeno
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Re: Germinating Cannabis Seeds - My Most Successful Method

Post by wutang »

Thanks for this @Keeno

I've been using jiffy pellets with mixed success. I've just blown 2 seeds as I think the peats were too moist and caused fungus and sadly they died. RIP Grapefruit Tangie :( my humidity levels were like 99% in the propagator and 27c so I think that combined gave it this result.

At one point I had good success with peat pellets but can't for the hell of it remember whether I used to do paper towel first then transplant them into there. Well I've gone back to paper towel now.

Once yours have germinated...what do you put them in next? Do you put into any small cubes or anything...or straight into its pot?

Cheers!

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Re: Germinating Cannabis Seeds - My Most Successful Method

Post by seymore_budz »

I've just done a whole bunch of fecking about with old seeds and different methods and I've found the most reliable is to use peat/vermiculite and a bit of liquid oxygen. I couldn't document it as the guy that I worked with is super paranoid and doesn't want any photos to be published :(. I germinated about 100 seeds (not sure if I'm even allowed to disclose that :lol: They all went in the bin as it was just an experiment with a bunch of redundant seeds we had.
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wutang (Sun Jul 17, 2022 7:03 pm)
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Re: Germinating Cannabis Seeds - My Most Successful Method

Post by wutang »

seymore_budz wrote:
Sun Jul 17, 2022 5:02 pm
I've just done a whole bunch of fecking about with old seeds and different methods and I've found the most reliable is to use peat/vermiculite and a bit of liquid oxygen. I couldn't document it as the guy that I worked with is super paranoid and doesn't want any photos to be published :(. I germinated about 100 seeds (not sure if I'm even allowed to disclose that :lol: They all went in the bin as it was just an experiment with a bunch of redundant seeds we had.
What a...waste or the luxury to be able to do that lol

I think I went wrong with my peat being too moist..once my taps emerge in the towels...I'll wack them in peat again..the time I'll squeeze the crap out of them :bang head:
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seymore_budz (Sun Jul 17, 2022 8:35 pm)

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Re: Germinating Cannabis Seeds - My Most Successful Method

Post by seymore_budz »

wutang wrote:
Sun Jul 17, 2022 7:05 pm
seymore_budz wrote:
Sun Jul 17, 2022 5:02 pm
I've just done a whole bunch of fecking about with old seeds and different methods and I've found the most reliable is to use peat/vermiculite and a bit of liquid oxygen. I couldn't document it as the guy that I worked with is super paranoid and doesn't want any photos to be published :(. I germinated about 100 seeds (not sure if I'm even allowed to disclose that :lol: They all went in the bin as it was just an experiment with a bunch of redundant seeds we had.
What a...waste or the luxury to be able to do that lol

I think I went wrong with my peat being too moist..once my taps emerge in the towels...I'll wack them in peat again..the time I'll squeeze the crap out of them :bang head:
Lol they were some seeds that I had from when I was messing around with pollen. I had a few hundred seeds that I'm never going to grow so decided to just mess about and use them to answer a question that I had in my head.

The key was the vermiculite mate. I got the idea from watching videos on these commercial seed planting machines. The guy was saying that the perfect media is vermiculite as it has the best air/water ratio for seedlings. They were filling seedling trays with 3/4 peat/perlite, popping the seed straight on top then covering the top with vermiculite 2.5x the size of the seed and watering. Then covering up and placing in a humid environment for 4-7 days. Worked a treat. They were by far the healthiest of them all. The paper towel method worked very well too but I found that there was a little less consistency. I would get the odd failure and se would shoot up real quick where others would sprout a tap root then fizzle out and never even pop their head out. The other thing I found is that when using paper towels I would have more of the seedlings sprout with the husk attached and would need to intervene to take the husk off the plant. Whe using vermiculite, those were much less and the odd one that did pop up with the husk, removing it would be much easier.

I'll do a diary soon and document the method.
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wutang (Sun Jul 17, 2022 10:42 pm)

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Re: Germinating Cannabis Seeds - My Most Successful Method

Post by Mafooo »

Beautifully written @Keeno

Seems you and i are on the same wavelength on this one except i am not as rigorous as you are with the 12 hr limit for the soak. Only other thing i do different now is i soak in diluted EM1 instead of just tap.

Only tip i have that hasn’t been said is if it has been damp in your area at all where you store your seeds, consider tossing the seeds in an airtight container 1:1 with rice kernels. The rice will absorb excess moisture from the cannabis seeds, which will provide a more extreme shift in the endosperms moisture when you decide to dunk them for the soak
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wutang (Sun Jul 17, 2022 10:42 pm)

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Re: Germinating Cannabis Seeds - My Most Successful Method

Post by wutang »

Update:

Using 'Plenty' Kitchen towel in a plastic takeaway tub with two towels folded in half, one at the bottom one at the top. 4 seeds. 100% success in less than 24hours.

I quickly dunked them in water for about 30 seconds rather than 12 hours...because I was pissed off I already lost two seeds and my patience went out the window lol

Next step into coco in small pots. I think I should fiary this. Sorry for hijacking your info thread @Keeno

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