awesome. very cool to hear that your seeds are still viable at over 15 years.
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Yep , and the 3rd one has come up too So 3 for 3 . 
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For older really stubborn seeds if scuffing them with sandpaper didn’t work I take a razor and ever so lightly I scrape the side where the seed will split. Your not trying to get to the embryo just remove that waxy first layer . The amount thats removed could be measure in microns. Or tenths . . I will put them in a wet paper towel with two plates stacked on each other that sits on my seedling heat mat . The mat has its own thermostat. I keep it at 79 degrees f . In between the two plates the damp paper towel with the seeds in the middle of the paper towel will sit.
Your not out the woods once they germinate . I usually get a tap root in 8 to 24 hours. The seeds go inside rapid rooters . The rapid rooters humidity dome goes on the heat mat with the rapid rooter inside it , seed in the rapid rooters. No nutrients for few weeks.
Seeds are stored in Eppendorf Safe-Lock Tubes . They will last many many years.
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Hello @Strayfox , i seen your seed drop at soaknbeans. You hsve something that intrests me id like to talk to you about.
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Chat with me please.
I am bongho
lio
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What is st Louis sleeper? Do you know the lineage. It sounds interesting lol.
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I think I stumbled upon the trick to germinating old seeds. First my old method which worked OK. I would scuff seeds in a sandpaper box for 3-5 min, followed by an overnight soak in a maxicrop solution, and then into a moist napkin and baggie. I would change the baggie every three days.
This technique worked about as well as any other, and I would be able to save some seeds. One problem with the seeds is they would often have a rounded root tip, and be very weak. If I did get them into soil sometimes they wouldn’t develop leaves. I think the seed embryo used all its energy growing the root which would grow very slowly.
Now for the secret. About 8-10 years ago I bought a seed soak from Seeds n Such. It contains both Gibberellic Acid and Salt Peter. I had never heard of using Salt Peter before so grabbed a pack. Fast forward, I am trying to do a run with some old Classic Humboldt Kush seeds. For the first (5) 4 of 5 germinated but had these weak round tip roots.
I had been starting some tomato seeds, and saw the seed starting mix. I figured now was as good of time as any to try it. It being 8-10 years old I didn’t know if it would still be any good.
A package is designed to make 2 quarts of soak so I divided it to just make enough for 1/4 cup. I soaked (3) more seeds overnight in the solution, and then put the seeds into a napkin moistened with the solution. I only kept them in this napkin for 24 hours. My thought was I wanted it to effectively soak into the seed but did not want to cause too much elongation from the GA. After this they went into the normal moistened napkin in a baggie.
The results are stunning! I will use this soak on any old seed germination I do from here on out. The product is currently sold out but you can add your name to a list to get it when it comes in. I am also considering making my own as both GA and Saltpeter (Potassium Nitrate) are both readily available.
I never had much luck with straight GA. Maybe the seeds were just too old, and dead. The addition of the Salt Peter seems to be the secret. Here are a few pictures.
First the typical old seed with the round slow growing root tip. I got a few of these in soil but they don’t look like they will grow any leaves. I have gotten a few of these to grow in the past but it typically takes several weeks of intensive care. It took over two weeks to get to this point.
Now for the stunning results! This is after only 5 days.
Of the two, one already has leaves. One looks like no leaves so far. Definitely get some of this!
I also started to do a little research of Saltpeter which has been used to help germinate old or tough seeds for a millennia!
Wanted to make sure the freakers also saw this as some of those landrace gems will probably need to be treated as old seeds @Guitarzan @Upstate @Instg8ter
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Thanks for the tip! I have to look into that. I think saltpeter could be made at home? It must be something readily available if people used it back in the day. I seem to remember it had something to do with gunpowder…
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It is pretty inexpensive too. Found 8 ounces for $8.
GA is pretty cheap too so for about 20-30 bucks could make a lifetime supply.
I will say the little packet if they get them back in stock is super convenient for 4-5 bucks. It’s probably only a gram but makes (16) 1/4 cup soaks!
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Thanks for sharing.
Are you going to do your own one?
Cheers.
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I’ve still got some of my package left but if they don’t restock by the time I run out, I would absolutely make my own.
Seems pretty simple I would start with a 200 ppm solution of GA, one quart, and then add the teaspoon of Potassium Nitrate. A quart is way, way too much solution for a seed soak but the measuring quantities would be super easy!
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How much Salt Peter and GA3 are in the kit? I have the GA3. What ratio are they mixed or how did you mix for the 1/4 cup? Intriguing.
They don’t give the mix % on the pack. The pack is designed to make a quart I think so I just divided it into 1/16s, and use that in a quarter cup.
If I was going to make some from scratch, I would start with a 200 ppm solution of GA. Generally 150-350 ppm is recommended as a seed soak. Then I would add the right amount of Potassium Nitrate. Recommended at 1 tsp per quart. This is just my own concoction but based on generally accepted amounts.
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great post and information
- I am still struggling with those old breeeder beans myself
- the corkscrew tail pic looks so familiar -
I have two strains that are proving difficult . - I am going to do the saltpeter and gibberellic acid mixture with the germination bomb,.
hope this works…
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Amazon, 4 Lbs, $20ish, used to remove Stumps!!! When growing the Veg Garden in Straw Bales (yes, it’s a thing), Potassium Nitrate, NON EXPLOSIVE, Liquid Ammonia Nitrate, watered in, quickly conditions Bale. Add growing Medium after two weeks, plant seeds. Old Southern Farmers sprinkled a “dusting” of Saltpeter in the holes before seeding. New use of old practices. SS/BW…mister 
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I love the idea of straw bale gardening. Have you tried it? We have real boney, shallow soil here, and my wife took the old garden for garlic growing…so i need to make a new one somehow, and quickly. This is the perfect method.
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Hello there. How’s things going? I have a question for you that I hope you can answer. I was sorting through seeds and putting all of them in vials over the weekend… and I managed to label the Columbian gold and the Lambs bread from exotic Alchemy Colombian gold. So they are both labeled Colombian gold. Do you have any lambsbread seeds you can take a picture of? The seeds do look different… so I’m hoping I can figure out what’s what.
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A place I ordered chili seeds from also offered KNO3 (salpeter) to help germination. Found it only after I ordered but was planning to get some next time. Don’t think you can buy it around here.
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@Upstate I got a package of the Pepper Seed Starting mix at Seeds n Such. They are out now but you can put your name on a list to email when it is back in stock.
I think it would also be easy to make with GA and Potassium Nitrate being readily available on both Ebay and Amazon.
If I bought raw items, I would start by making a 200 ppm solution of GA. Then a recommended amount of Saltpeter, Potassium Nitrate, to add for a seed soak is 1 tsp per quart.
It worked like a charm on the first three seeds but not so well yet on the last two.
In my case, the seeds germinated, but do not have growing tips yet. I’ve seen this before with old seeds. It is as if the gene that tells the seedling to grow has been damaged.
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Thanks for the info! I’ll be looking into it. Perhaps tweaking the recipe one way or another will get you some better results. As you have it now though, crappy Tales are better than none at all and they’re definitely a step in the right direction.
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