RAPID ROOTERS - CFL - Purple Kush - Germination exeriment

[growdc]

OK folks, here goes it, after all the pier pressure....... I will start a journal of sorts, but a little different. I SUPER ASS suck at germinating. (If our mighty Nebula & Sirius allows me to post this, there'll be a next one on cloning!!!) I suck at both of them. Hope I can get all help I can and you folks can see what I might be doing wrong.

Recently, I chanced upon a friend of a friend of a friend on Facebook that magically and was kind enough to send me 20 seeds of what he says is Purple Kush. He kinda said just use them to practice germinating. After they germinate, you're done, throw them away. I was like "WHYYY???". He said this, and I still don't understand so maybe someone can explain. He said "They are just regular F1's." I was like "OK, cool..."

So, whether they germinate and then die or germinate and will turn into a monster to eat me........ I hope some one can help clear that up, but for now, I went all out to get what I needed for germination.

Equipment
EarlyGrow Medium Domed Propagator, 15" x 9" x 7"
VIVOSUN Seedling Heating Pad 10" x 20.75"
Full Spectrum CFL Grow Light Bulb 60 Watt Bulb 5500K H60
Rapid Rooter Plugs (x20)
Espoma Perlite
Clonex Solution
Orca Premium Liquid Mycorrhizae
Petco Aquarium thermometer tape

So the reason for all this equipment. I was on Nirvana's seed website and they were selling this pretty cool propagator kit. In it, seemed like any other kit, except they had perlite and Mycorrhizae powder. I watched their promotional video and though, hey, I'll try to copy it.

And then I realized I accidentally hit post when I'm not even done yet. New post then.

[growdc]

List & pictures of the exact stuff I'm using. Everything was ordered from Amazon.com except the Petco Aquarium thermometer tape. It was about $2.00 at Petco in the Aquarium section. I have to say this propagator dome is built like good Tupperware. It's strong and solid. Really like it.

[growdc]

PRE-SETUP (Now, don't ask my why I do what I did, it just seemed a culmination of everything I've read every where, bull shit or not, so I hope you guys can tell me).

1. I dumped all 20 F1 whatever seeds into a glass of tepid tap water. Now I heard that I shouldn't have used tap water, but too late. They were placed in my pantry.

2. I dumped 21 Rapid Rooters and a handful of perlite in 3 Liters of RO Water + 6 mL of Clonex Solution + a couple of drops of Orca. PPM = 200 ppm and pH was about 5.9.


Step 1 & 2 sat for at least 24 hours. Again, no rhyme or reason.
NOTE TO SELF!!! NEVER HANDLE PERLITE WET. IT SUCKS!!

SETUP

1. Rinsed out tray and dome with just plain water, figured it was brand new.
2. Plugged in the heat mat.
3. Took the cup and poured most of the water out, (OH! At first, all the seeds floated. They all sank after 24 hours.)
4. Just dripped in enough Orca to form a thin layer of liquid over seeds while I prepared the plugs. (again no idea why I did it.)
5. Took each plug from soaking solution, tried to get all the stupid perlite off, and swung it in the air once to get rid of the soaking moisture and put it in it's respective tray. This this 20 time with 1 spare plug left. 6. Removed the plug, drained most of the Clonex solution, and poured the perlite into the tray and made an even damp perlite layer. Damp from the Clonex Solution.


7. Placed each seed into the Rapid Rooter's hole. Again read somewhere of the anatomy of a seed, that it's best to insert tip side up (versus the popular belief of tip side down-sure whatever. LOL) But was also advised to have an extra rooter on hand, hence the 21st one, and I used tweezers to pinch off a little bit to plug each of the holes to have the seed flush with the rooter I guess.


7. Placed all 20 rooters in their little holders onto the perlite in the tray that is set on the heat mat.


8. Covered with Dome, vents fully opened.


9. Opened the package of the Petco Strip Thermometer and stuck it on the side of the dome.


10. Final set up with CFL Light. CFL light is placed 28" from top of dome. No idea again if this is the right height.


11. There is a fan as you can see blowing on low that osccilating. I figured it would help with the condensation. I saw a you tube video of what a guy calls too much condensation and since all my seeds were rotting in the past I thought i shouldn't let it condensate so much hence using the fan and perlite.


** So, according to this Grow Boss fella, the picture above is WAY TOO MUCH condensation. Apparently you should be able to see right through the plastic with maybe that type of condensation like just a tad bit on the side of the dome...... So, I keep opening it up do let if evaporate off until I can get that effect. Will post another pic if I can.

[GreenDragonRon]

Wow, that seems like a lot of work.

I recently attempted to germinate 4 seeds and luckily, I went 4 for 4.

Simple method.

1. Soak for 24 hours in RO water.
2. Paper towel method till seeds cracked.
3. Placed seeds pointy side down in Rapid Rooters.
4. Placed Rapid Rooters in propagation dome in shallow pool of RO water. I would have placed them directly in my fabric pots but my coco and perlite wasn't ready.
5. Kept in my tent in full light at ~ 78°F.

3 seedlings up 3 days after soak, last seed was a day behind.

Next time I will skip the paper towel even if the seeds aren't cracked after the soak and I'll place the Rapid Rooters into my final pots.

Good luck with your seeds and thanks Green75 for answering my all of my questions along the way

[growdc]

Not sure if it's a lot of work, or me just being long winded. LOL.

Well, I have done it this way or that way or whatever way, but I get 1% germination rate. In 2 years, I only got 2 seedlings to grow to maturity. Don't even talk about cloning. I have a brown thumb.

So, thank god for 20 seeds. I can now eliminate the fact that I just got bad seeds (statistically) or I actually don't know how to germinate worth shit. LOL

[Formernuke]

I soaked the raid rooters in hot tap water, squeezed them out, tore a small piece off to cover the holes and placed in a germination station.

That was my second try and third since I screwed up afterwards worked great.

[growdc]

Yeah yeah..... I see your journal. So just plopping the seeds in did nothing? Then you started 2 new ones BUT plugged the hole and in 3 days they sprouted?

[Formernuke]

Yup, that pretty much says it, surprised me greatly.

[growdc]

Well, I did plug mine. fingers crossed!!

[growdc]

Ok @formernuke........ when I wake up in the morning, it will be the 3rd day. If nothing happens......I need to hire a germinator!!

[9fingerleafs]

I'm no scientist but F1 is a term used in breeding for first generation hybrids (or single back crossed) meaning they've only crossed once with one of the parent strains. After around 3 crosses with the same male the cross gets relatively stable and breeders release strain crossed up to 6 ones or more to get closer to a monocrop

[growdc]

What's the worst that could happen is I allow an F1 to flower to maturity? It's not going. To be halfway genetically unable andcrumble and die will it?

[9fingerleafs]

No man not at all. It just means the breeder cannot be sure how the plant will turn out. Could be tall could be short. That kind of things

[growdc]

Update: Nothing yet.....

[growdc]

Just stuck them in rapid rooters 3 days ago.

[growdc]

Sure Jeg. Here you go:

[9fingerleafs]

The waiting game fellas

[Vapo69]

Hey growdc , I'm subbed in mate..........all i did last time to germinate was soak in water for 24hrs, then plant seed into the ready mixed and moist coco, in the pot it's staying in about half inch down, then get the top of my humidity dome, it's just like yours, and put that on top of the coco, then into the tent, 3-4 day's later..........broke surface

[growdc]

i tell ya.... brown, black thumb.......... technically, following exactly what you did, something should sprout tomorrow. If it doesn't, I blame the F1 seeds. LOL

[Vapo69]

Me too lol

[growdc]

Vapo69 , Day 4 now. Looks like I might have a more necrotic gardening thumb than you.

[Vapo69]

Hey growdc dude IDK what is going wrong, I got a seed delivery today, do you want to do a side by side with me? See if that works....just do what I do.....what light do you have?

[growdc]

Jeg , some of them did crack, but no long taproots coming out. I just soaked them in tepid tap water for 24 hours.

Vapo69 . I'd be afraid to try it with you cuz I'd probably end up jinxing you. LOL. Also, I don't know if I should be starting anything yet, since I got 2 plants mid flower, and 2 plants mid veg. And that's all the space I have in my place to grow. Isn't there a sort of rule of thumb is whenever you move something from one stage to another, like veg to flower, or flower to harvest, or seedling to veg, is when you start something else?

So I can only think of 2 things.
1. The environment is either too humid or too dry. I even got a aquarium temperature strip and it's saying it's about 78 F in there. So that should have been fine.
2. The seeds are bad. Like the guy you sent me these F1 seeds, told me he can't really know if the source of these seeds are reliable. I'll give it till Friday. If nothing happens, I'll tear open those rapid rooters and see..... and if it's still a seed or whatever or rotted or whatever, I'll just start over with seeds that I bought. This is just for practice. Thank God!!

[growdc]

Project Germination: DEAD!!!

So, I took Jeg's suggestion to open one. Opened the dome and a bad smell was starting to develop. Opened one. Seed still in there. Hard. Opened another, and another and another..... all the same. Like no activity but rotting. Just e-mail the guy who provided the seeds and apparently he hasn't even tried germinating any yet. And I asked if there was any possibility they were just not viable seeds. Awaiting reply. But you guys don't have to wait. I threw them all out and scrubbed the whole propagator. The smell was obviously something going bad.

[growdc]

I would, except I'm like an efficiency freak. 1. These seeds came from somewhere totally unknown. 2. They are 2nd hand. The person that gave them to me only knows it's an F1 bag seed type or something. 3. Don't need to waste anymore time on the instability of what I have.

As you can tell, when I do something, I'm anal as f&*k. Which leads to stressing out and all that bull shit if it doesn't work. That's why I think I'm understanding why sometimes when I do something, it's gonna be kinda great. Or a total failure. Nothing in between. Thanks all for following a "False Alarm Experiment".

[growdc]

So!! Got confirmation back from dude. He tried soaking the rest of his seeds in water for 48 hours, not a single crack. He feels he got gypped by whoever sent him those seeds.

[growdc]

OMG, So DAMN WASTE OF TIME!!!!!!! Taking all those pictures and trying to make it all perfect.......

[Aloner]

I don't know that it was such a waste. You're pretty much all set up, you got to do a dry run, you've gotten feedback on your germinating technique. Plus you've experienced the disappointment of seeds not popping so your future expectations will be tempered. Plus, just think how awesome it will feel when you get some viable seeds and they successfully germinate!