Paper towels are made with some harsh chem’s, brands vary but I’m positive in some cases with others, they were the problem… If there’s something still left in them, it’s leaching out and messing with germ’ing… The fact that the seeds haven’t mushed out is something of a clue… Wait, have they even cracked?
That said, after reading others troubles, and Jean’s mentioning there are 4 batches and he had good germ’ing but didn’t track which batches thry were, might be that one batch is undercooked/wonky…
I used the same discount paper towels for all the recent germinations. The others all germinated: MJ -12, KFxOHxW2G, anvil, bloodstone. The two batches of MJ-12 failed to crack at all. Jean thought maybe the seeds are too fresh.
Yeah im thinking one of the plants made duds. Im going to run a germination test on all 4 to figure out which one made the duds so I can toss em. I got overly eager to get a test thread out on this new forum, I should have checked them all and tracked which batch I was pulling from. The S1 or selfed batch was the only ones I did a germination test on. Im glad there was testing so I was able to catch the issue. Its been plenty long enough since harvest that they should be good to go. I obviously pulled from different batches since some had issues and others didn’t.
Im not the biggest fan of the paper towel method either. I prefer direct soil planting. That said though every tool has a specific job. I use the paper towel and a heat mat during the winter and usually go direct soil in the spring and summer.
Coco Coin Rooting Pucks by Char Coir Or the pucks I use mainly because they will actually decompose in my living soil, but they seemed to hold water very well also.
Once the pucks are hydrated, I squished the pucks together to mess up the drilled hole in the center. Fresh seeds get laid on their side and material pulled from the side to cove the seed and a light tamp to make full contact.
I put a tiny bit of water in the bottom for humidity. I turn the lights on 1/3 in the heating mat i’ve been using 85 degrees.
I’ve only had one failure and that was one out of 14 of the BloodStone.
I do the exact same thing with clones but don’t squish the pucks. I might soak the pucks in root wise with sprouted seed tea. The SST would provide rooting and growth hormones.
No more of scraping seeds and soaking them or any of that stuff!
The seedlings are not in there very long, as I hardened them off fairly quickly. The roots are just barely breaking the fabric’s surface when I transplant.
I make sure my pot media temperature is the same along with good moisture content and the seedling doesn’t know it’s been transplanted. That’s been pretty easy to do up until now since I pot up on transplant day. The pot is inoculated and is at the perfect moisture level and temps. With me going to a true living soil with multiple grows, to get that same shockless transplant results, I’m thinking that I will have to have a continual running of the tent if I’m running back to back without using that room to dry.
Another very good reason for using this method is real estate. You don’t need a full tent to germinate a bunch of seeds.
It works for me and it solves a bunch of problems.
Im not sure what’s happened for those who had germination issues with the W2G. I think i counted 38 seeds i dropped in the other 3 batches and 4 out of 38 haven’t germinated in 4 days which I imagine if I give them more time they will germinate also. But I will call it over 90% germination on all 4 batches of W2G. I will say for certain germination and seedling times are the toughest for all growers. And just because I didn’t have issues with germination doesn’t mean the seeds couldn’t be at fault here. I think possibly they were too early/fresh to put out for testing.
…sometimes the germ’ Ju-Ju is just bad, plain bad… We’ve all seen that before! – fek, I hate that when it happens!
Enough time has passed too now, maybe some fridge time as well and that could be the difference right there…? *(BTW, I read more and more that freezing is generally not recommended.. always made sense to me, long term at least. Micro-ice crystals can start to form, damaging physically and chemically… )
During their travels, who know what wonky shit they went through! Big repeated T swings are no friend to the seeds either…
…who knows at this point! At least the batch test turned out ok
MJ-12 is 37 days old. I reduced the lights from 24 to 13 hours a day 6 days ago. I’ve been spreading the branches for a week or 2. Removing a handful of leaves every day to uncover bud sites and improve airflow.
beauties my man, they are gonna rock the bloom! It’ll be interesting to see who wins the race to fully bloom, and finishes first… There’s quite the mix of photo and auto genetics in them, but none are straight F1 auto-photo crosses so the wheel of expressions is spinning on both!
That’s what I ran on my Lemon Z and it worked so good I ran it on my Slush Mint Cake and Blue Zushi! It’s an extra hr of photosynthesis every day and that adds up! We already know from autos, the more time under light equals fatter yields. I think pure indicas can even flower under 14/10 with no issues. Critical dark period for flowering ranges from 10-12 hrs, 10for the purest indicas and 12 for the purest of Sativas. According to what I have read about the subject
I’m not gonna do stuff like that. That would screw with my schedule, needlessly.
With CO2, I’m already at the high end of DLI.
And the 4x4 has 890w of Photosynthetic light(650 HLG and two Craft Farmer 120w Under Canopy lighting) And 30 watts of UVA.
Ive ran a 13 hr light cycle for years now. Ive run a 14 hr light cycle several times. I don’t know if I have run 12 12 in the last 5 or so years. I add light at the end ill go up to 18 hrs for a week or so at the end. Thanks Rosta Jeff.
– fek, I hate that when it happens!
beauties my man, they are gonna rock the bloom! It’ll be interesting to see who wins the race to fully bloom, and finishes first… There’s quite the mix of photo and auto genetics in them, but none are straight F1 auto-photo crosses so the wheel of expressions is spinning on both!