I shook them all in the seed scraper device GLG included, but it’s small enough that I’ve been wondering if it’s really effective with just a few seeds inside. Next set, I’ll try directly rubbing against the sandpaper. If I try cutting off a tiny section of the ridge on the thin edge of a tiny seed with a scalpel, I’ll just end up fertilizing it with the tip of my finger instead.
Yeah, that makes more sense then. I just bought a whole-house water filter a few years ago, didn’t know about RO and don’t think I would bother using it now… the EC on my filtered tap water is 0.1, so about 50 PPM. It’s not quite as good as 0, but it’s a hell of a lot better than average tap water. Similar to what @JohnnyPotseed just linked in fact, but quadruple the price or so since it’s for the whole house. I drink a lot of water too though, and brew my own teas rather than buying from the store. It’s worth it, for my situation.
I have plans to but I’m less than month away from temps that will render my hose useless anyway. That’ll be a spring purchase but for now I’m going to use a mix of tap and spring water. I gave up the RO earlier this year.
So I guess I already did that with the other ones. Are they really getting enough friction from just being shaken for a few minutes? Doesn’t seem like it would do much.
If you look at the seeds periodically during the ‘shake’ you’ll see the outer parts of the shell disappearing. On the rare occasions I’ve had to do this, I shake until I see most of the stripes/spots etc almost gone. That’s how you know the shell is thinner.
How long do you usually keep it going? My eyes suck, so I always like to have something else to go on other than visual indicators. Are we talking 1 minute, or more like 10?
I said it in the post above you cuz… lol just check periodically, there’s no real ‘set’ time
Since different seeds will have difference in thickness and hardness
An alternative heat source for the paper towel method is your modem / router. Just put the baggie on top, there’s some heat, but not too much. Did that many times (even more times for hot peppers since I did alot of them in the past 10 yrs).
I have to admit, I have always wondered about growers using RO water (unless they have municipal with chlorine in it). I have a few RO and RO/DI systems here from my reef tank days where we wanted TDS to be zero. But if I have well water, wouldn’t I only be removing minerals that the plants might ultimately use (and that we re-add with nute mixes)?? I recall pure RO/DI being bad to drink, as it would pull minerals from your body to regain osmotic balance.
Always seemed silly to remove minerals and then just add em back with nutes…
As far as seed germination, as @JohnnyPotseed said this is probably the wrong thread… and even better, there’s already a thread dedicated to precisely this topic. Germinating old Seeds has lots of good suggestions. DMSO sounds interesting, could quite possibly be the most effective of any method I’ve seen described. I’ll have to try that some time.
As far as I can tell, RO water is basically for suburban/urban growers who can’t trust their water supply, or for high-end hydroponic systems where you need to have 100% precision on everything about the water your plants are getting. Like you said, not sure it’s going to be all that useful if your water’s already pretty clean. It gives you full control over the precise makeup of the TDS, is all, which is helpful but not entirely necessary in soil.
Our city water is terrible. 9 ph and I’m scared to look at ppm. Keeps vegetable gardens alive with no growth hardly at all. It’s a soft water that comes from a deep well. RO is all we use for our indoor grow
Thanks @MoBilly. Tent#1 is probably getting chopped this weekend. Ill get better pics when I pull them out of the tent. The C99s have multiple big colas that are going to fall over.
I drink a lot of water too though, and brew my own teas rather than buying from the store. It’s worth it, for my situation.
