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Ontario, Canada.

The pillbox method is very successful. The most important part is to keep the temperature 85* to 90*f.

I have tried both a soil mix of 1/ 3 peat moss, vermiculite and perilite and the paper towels. Both seam to work equally well. I tend to prefer the paper towel as it is easier to observe, document, and see the embryonic root
tip (radicle) as it emerges. The paper towel has one main advantage in that it is relatively sterile and pathogen free. Rock wool other some other type of starting medium may work even better.

The pillbox has seven airtight partitions that allow me too adequately control the temperature and humidity levels inside them using a heating pad set on medium. The box is then placed onto an insulation medium to regulate the temperature from the bottom. I am layering the bottom of each compartment with five or six layers of small cut up pieces of paper towel. The filed, soaked seeds are placed on top of the slightly moisten layers. Water is applied using a rather large syringe until the towel layer below is just saturated. The main point here is the seed environment needs to be sufficiently aerobic without being too wet.

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4/14/2007 10:26:12 PM

Ontario, Canada.

I have used three different types of starting solutions all with good but varying results. Plain water works very well and results in a fast growing radicle root tip that is long and tapered like a cone shape. The cotyledons (seed leaves), the section of shoot below the cotyledons (hypocotyl), and the section of shoot above the cotyledons (epicotyl) all grow very fast. Water and Seaweed has similar results but tends to promote more lateral side shoots from the radicle. The largest and widest radicle roots I have obtained are developed, when using Indole-3-butyric acid (IBA)and mycorrhizea fungi. These roots are well establish across the entire base of the seed coat and emerge as a club like appendage with numerous side roots. These many additional adventitious roots are not well understood by me. Do they help or hinder the developing dicot? I have noticed this seedlings grow much slower than a plant started in plan water. This I believe could be caused by the larger size and volume of the radicles root mass.

The seeds are then covered on top with one or two layers of very slightly moistened paper towel. The seed tip is left exposed to allow for quick viewing of root emergence from the base of the seed coat. I have been using the standard stratification(soak and file) practice and it seams to work fine. I have now gone 9 for 9 and I have moved on to watermelon seeds, Thursday evening and one of them has germinated already after only a 12-hour soak and 30 hours in the pillbox. Watermelons are usually hard to start but they seam to be going very well so far.

4/14/2007 10:26:37 PM

Ohio

Russ, Im looking for a way to grow the near perfect cots, sometimes they come up all twisted and folded, but other times the cots open beautiful and near perfect. Id like to figure out a way to prevent the cots from twisting and folding under themselves.Seems like when I grow a seedling that ends up with these twisted cots it never seems to grow right through out the season.

On any of your seed starting methods are you showing any diffrence in how your cots start growing?

Brooks

4/16/2007 5:07:09 PM

San Jose garysand@pacbell.net

brooks, try the advanced seed starting, perfect cots

Gary

4/16/2007 10:18:07 PM

Ontario, Canada.

Brooks, I have found that sometimes the cots are already folded inside the seed case. In this case think there is nothing that can be done to try and improve the cots.

The pill box method allows you to easily remove the seed casing soon after germination. The seeds swell up and allows the shell to be separated and removed from the cots.

4/21/2007 9:45:39 PM