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Grittyville, WA

Half of all non germinating seeds may be alive but unable to break ground.


In the previously posted germintation test of 72 seeds (not 96 -- it turns out I can't count... trying to be smart shows how dumb I am) noticed that of the small number that did not pop out of the soil in a week... half were alive but struggling under the soil. I "rescued" two or three of these by digging the seeds out and breaking the seed coat off and planting them halfway out of the soil. Even with problems of immature cotyledons, small stature, and other impairment, they developed normally after that. I think that the intervention did not hurt and likely did help these stragglers.

An FYI for you to consider... but I don't recommend digging around in your soil prematurely but after a week of no germ it might be possible to carefully break apart the growing medium and provide timely assistance to to a seed that is alive ... but not doing well enough to ever break ground on its own. I think rather than intervene most people wait two weeks and by then any seedling which germinated but failed to break ground will have rotted and the grower might not realize it was alive a week earlier.

I don't know the merits of saving weaklings ("week"lings?) it's the antithesis of this sport of big and healthy ...but it's possible.

3/21/2017 10:12:13 AM

Grittyville, WA

To clarify... these were seeds that had already partially germinated under the soil but we're too small to get out of the seed coat or other probelms that kept them from breaking ground

3/21/2017 10:21:56 AM

President - GPC

Perhpas with seeds that old, the seed coat removal would assist....at least give them a fighting chance...

3/21/2017 10:29:27 AM

Owensboro, Ky.

Great post, Wiz, maybe not weak seed...just old/dry coat that needed a lil help? Peace, Wayne... as I do, as an old dry guy!! Thinkin I still have a fighting chance? Maybe?

3/22/2017 12:27:00 AM

JACKSON, WISCONSIN. ; )

What temp are you sprouting at... I mean soil temp at the seed. I germ at 85 to 90 if I want fast germ I normally turn up my temp I use a soil probe to monitor soil temp at seed depth I have found if to cold to wet things don't want to germ I start thousands of seeds a year and I have the best of all types at 85 to 90 I've been told it's to hot but I run upper 90% germ rate.

3/23/2017 10:11:37 AM

Grittyville, WA

My post here wasn't the best post... I was basically saying that in the rare times when a seed does not germinate on time it may be beneficial to carefully break apart the soil and see if the roots are caught in the seed coat or if for some other reason the seed has germinated but not sprouted an example would be: (in one instance) the seed grew the stem down into the dirt like it was a root...

The point is the seeds which don't emerge might be alive ... but may not emerge without assistance. If left in the dirt for more than a week, a weak or otherwise impaired seed which is alive but struggling might never germinate. Ideally rot would not be an issue and the seed would eventually emerge on its own... but what I found was that excavating the few stragglers (3 of 72) to assist them @ one week did not hurt, and I believe assisting them in getting out of the ground may have prevented them from never emerging and eventually rotting.

A long post of narrow focus and limited importance! (My apologies).

Big City why do you germ so many seeds? Can you explain and tell? This post is dead I think I'm sure a new post would tell the story best.

3/29/2017 9:00:12 AM

Syracuse, NY

give your self a little credit- it is all good, here!
i am also a digger-upper, whereby exactly as you say, a few may need a little assistance to get started in life.

3/30/2017 4:20:52 PM