Bored experimenting

[TheFertilizer]

So I have a bunch of really old bag seeds and I don't think I am really interested in growing them so I am just going to do some experimenting with them. I am kind of interested in what kind of material a person can use for hydroponic medium and I wanted to experiment with some polyster batting like out of a pillow. So I made three different containers and mediums and am trying to germinate some of the old seeds in them now.

Used a small yogurt container for all..

Container 1:
Large drain holes, loosely packed polyster
Conttainer 2:
Small drain holes, tightly packed polyster
Container 3:
No drain holes, "hempy" style resevoir and moderately packed polyster

I soaked all of them with a mild nutrient solution ( 1/4 tsp per half gallon water of GH FloraNova Grow) pH'd to about 5 ish, I am using drops so I am not quite sure but it looks closer to 6 than 4 so good enough. I put the seeds in and then put them all under a clone dome to try to retain humidity better.

I am betting that none of them will even germinate, especially since the seeds are somehwere between 5 and 10 years old.

 

[OlderGrower]

I would think it would depend on how the seeds were stored for one. As for will they germinate in a medium other then the industry standard, I would guess yes. After all at one time in history, the idea of using rock wool to grow a plant was revolutionary, not it is pretty much standard practice. If it holds moisture I would think it stands a pretty good chance of working and allows the roots to penetrate.
I am curious as how your experiment turns out. Hopefully you stored your seeds in a dark cool dry place over the last 5 to 10 years.

 

[TheFertilizer]

I would think it would depend on how the seeds were stored for one. As for will they germinate in a medium other then the industry standard, I would guess yes. After all at one time in history, the idea of using rock wool to grow a plant was revolutionary, not it is pretty much standard practice. If it holds moisture I would think it stands a pretty good chance of working and allows the roots to penetrate.
I am curious as how your experiment turns out. Hopefully you stored your seeds in a dark cool dry place over the last 5 to 10 years.

Well they have been inside of a tin so I am sure they have stayed dark and dry, but I think they spent some time in a storage unit somewhere and some time in my cabinets, and since it gets up to 100+ here I am not sure how cool they stayed.

So far I can't really tell if it stays moist enough. Kind of hard to feel the moisture on the surface but that's true with dirt too I guess. I have just been soaking them twice a day and misting every six hours between. I think I may have made even the tightly packed stuff too airy.

Anyway I am thinking it will probably be a week or so until they sprout if they're going to, can't really remember how long it takes seeds to sprout from memory but I am sure 3 days isn't enough to tell

I think the hempy style container probably has the best shot since it keeps the litrle reservoir of water wicking through the top layers but in the other hand I might have planted the seed down past the drain hole so it might drown.

Biggest problem right now is remembering to keep the clone dome on so they don't dry out so fast.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Well today I just decided to see if the seeds had germinated. I have plenty of seeds and time so it's no problem to just abort and see results mid process.

The seeds had gotten significantly darker in color, almost blacked. Before there was visible veiny/mottled patterns and it was pretty much totally invisible for each seed after. Two seeds (non hempy) looked as if they were starting some kind if metamorphic process. It would seem promising buuut...

The medium is just impossibly dry and spongy, there's like no structure to it. I guess it's feasible to kind of wrap the batting around something like a stick, so it's wound tightly with little give but when I tried this and just sliding it into a solo cup it still didn't seem to want to hold water. The biggest problem is that if the batting isn't one homogenous mass it's like the water wants to roll around the "top half" of the stuffing and just hang there midway. It's kind of bizarre how this stuff takes water, it's almost hydrophobic.

I have worked with Rockwool cubes to clone so I am kind of familiar with it, and it definitely isn't the same. I think the only way to make polyester batting viable is to get it in a compressed form, not like lofty and pillow-like.

Oh well it was worth the experiment. I did learn that a solo cup an be very easily converted into a "hempy" style planter rather easily, I might play around with that later.