Seeds that pop but won't sprout

[enalkarion]

I've grown a few times in the past and never had a problem germinating with the paper towel method. A buddy of mine recently gave me some supposed ak47 seeds from a friend of a friend of a friend etc.. I tried to germinate 15 and they all popped, I could see the taproot, but they never extended. Let them go for 5 days after popping and put them in soil for the hell of it. Nothing happened. So I tried 15 more soaked in distilled water and the same thing happened taproot never extened. I've just put those in soil as well. Now I could understand a few having problems but 30? Every time I've gone from seed they literally grow like a weed from the start. Any suggestions?

 

[Nekminnut]

Could be to cold for them ? Try germinating them in a warm spot

 

[enalkarion]

I've got them under a quartz work light just for the heat purposes. Temps between 80f and 86f. Thanks For The Reply though

 

[Antics]

Ditch the heat. Room temp is fine. Keep them moist, but not wet.

I don't soak my seeds in water.

Lightly scarify with a fine emery board, drop into soil. Keep soil moist under 18/6 lighting and done.

Just trying something new can often remedy a problem.

 

[enalkarion]

Can't hurt to try. Thanks

 

[Cannabelle]

Soaking seeds in tap water is good for light antifungal treatment as municipal water supplies are often treated with a light amount of chlorine. It also helps determine if seeds are viable. Seeds that sink most likely contain a viable germination core.

In my limited cannabis experiments on freebie Herbie promos, seedlings which have not shed their shells and are kept in heavy moisture for too long, tended to develop a tough arenchyma outer layer on emerging tap roots. Arenchyma development occurs when roots experience hypoxia in oxygen depleted root zones such as flooded fields. Arenchyma development helps native wetland plants transport oxygen to a small area around submerged roots. Since the seedling does not have any above ground development, it can't do any sort of arenchyma oxygen transport. Because the seedling cannot adapt to its waterlogged environment, the tap root will begin to purple from hypoxia and its inability to process energy or nutrients.

I can see why the scarifying method used by Antic works well. He is helping his seedlings shed their shells faster to expose those primary baby leaves so the seedlings can process available energy and oxygen to encourage energy intensive root elongation. If you have ever grown bean sprouts for salads or stir fry, you can feel how energy intensive tap root growth gets as the aerated growing container fills with long, fat tap roots.

Additionally, cannabis is not a wetland native. The genetics of your seeds maybe favoring arid conditions and thus more susceptible to hypoxia. In other words, your seeds maybe be programmed to thrive in arid conditions. I don't think most people want to grow GMO programmed cannabis to mimic advantageous arenchyma wetland growth. In third world countries where fresh water is a premium, a GMO programmed strain which favors wetland conditions will fail much in the same way a native arid land species will fail in wetland conditions. For instance, scientists who have tried to minimize water requirements for wetland rice production could never quite get high producing rice strains to grow well in more arid conditions no matter how much they manipulated other growth factors. These agriculture scientists eventually concluded that in order to grow rice to conserve water, they would need to genetically manipulate rice. (Root morphology, hydraulic conductivity and plant water relations o... - PubMed - NCBI)

Thus, don't feel so bad if you can't coax seeds which have an AK47 mother. The father or an ancestor may have arid genes which trump wet genes. If agricultural scientists can fail at growing rice in aerobic conditions, the rest of us can suck at trying to coax arid genes to grow in wet conditions. It's like getting a fish to swim in air or a bird to fly in water. You kind of need to be a penguin to do that.

I hope this kind of made sense to someone in the 420 readership.

 

[Antics]

Great info. Damn. You'll fit in great here.

Welcome to

 

[Auggie]

Getting some good suggestions here.
To them I would add that you should look at the medium you are planting them in. How much nutes are in the soil? There should be NONE. Some bagged soil comes pretty dosed up with large amts of nitrogen - this will burn your sprouts right after the seed busts open.
Use something with no fertilizers in it - like Canna Coco ...

~Auggie~

 

[enalkarion]

thanks for all the help guys. what finally worked for me was to soak all the seeds in a tsp of root powder and water in a solo cup for 12 hrs. once they all popped i moved them into some wet paper towels ( just barely damp) in a sealed container kept at 75 degrees for about 5 days until they finally sowed there taproot. waited till the tr was about a .5 inches long and planted in my home made nutrient rich organic soil/peat/perlite/mulch mix. finally out of 75 seeds iv'e get 10 fine looking seedlings. i get the feeling that most of the seeds were old and possibly non viable. i'm not sure whats up with this supposed ak strain ( i have my doubts about authenticity) but from talking to Friends that also had some said they took forever to sprout. also saw for the first .25 of taproot they had a dark green skin on them which iv'e read is kinda normal and is a protective coating which they did grow out of. iv'e got a good mix of pearlite, lobster much,mushroom mulch, worm castings and some good old organic soil that's been cooking for 2 weeks now so i think i shouldn't need to add nutes for a few weeks. again much thanks to all on the board who commented on this thread and the community in general. whatever this strain is its sure picky about conditions and i anticipate some issues with the grow in general.

 

[Auggie]

tt
tt
"planted in my home made nutrient rich organic soil/peat/perlite/mulch mix"

... and there is part of the problem. Do NOT put seedlings in a 'nutrient rich' environment. When you brought your new born baby home from the hospital did you sit her down to a steak and eggs breakfast? No? Why not? Lots of good protein there ...

Seeds especially, and clones to a degree -- should be started out very slowly on food. For a week they should be in coco with NO nutrients in it at all. They don't need it yet. After about ten days go 1/4 strength. Ten days later go 1/2 strength.

~Auggie~