Sub gifted me a pack way back in 2005 and I made an f2 run with them. These seeds have sat in a shed, in my closet, in my dresser…and pretty much everywhere else. So far all attempts have failed, but last night I decided to go for broke and shuck the seeds first. Here’s my progress:
last night after shucking the shells -
found a good example of a dried up zygote from a seed that was already cracked, so i know my zygotes are good!!
and 12 hours later, here’s the progress:
Any advice is appreciated!!! I have a couple dozen more, so if this fails I’ll try again.
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We have action!!
You can see the top zygote has split its membrane, and the bottom one has a nice gap between the cotyledons and the tail tip. The middle one wouldn’t let go of half its shell, so I left it to see if it works itself out.
These are 19 years old!! I can’t believe it!! The F1s came from a batch of 50 packs of resin mix given out to the first 50 Breedbay members when they went live in fall 2005. Vortex may be easily obtainable these days as F2, etc. but I bet none came from stock this old.
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Sweet! I have some from Norstar that I’ve been through almost 2 packs with either no germ, or dies after the tap root gets out.
Good thing for me to try before I run out of those beans.
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My cheese quake was bred by him and I had 7/10 pop, but I have a friend trying to get JC2 going, also bred by him, with no luck so far. Seems kinda hit or miss I guess huh?
Hopefully this experiment finishes as well as it started and can get some people a little better success.
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Digging your experiment.
Imo, sanding or scuffing the seed shell might be better than removing the shell entirely. Plus the shell “helmet” helps protect the growing tip as it pushes up through the soil.
And i think the seed embryo may not enjoy the light and air exposure. As seeds are not used to (having no shell) in the wild.
As long as the embryos stay moist enough, but not too wet and get algae or rot, would be a challenge for me.
Watching intently and rooting for you.
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I’m using paper towel method, and they’re only exposed to light/air to check on them. No soil to push through.
They’re not the strongest seeds. They weren’t stored properly and every attempt has resulted in a cracked shell, but no tail. So I’m removing the shell since they’re having trouble pushing through it on their own. Sanding, scuffing and cracking have failed. Like I said…I went for broke.
The zygotes are obviously still good, or they would have dried out. I really do thing there is 100% chance these CAN be germinated, under the right conditions. I was having a chat with a friend about using agar to germinate weak zygotes because they can’t penetrate the shell, and I figured I’d try a down and dirty method. I’ve handled hundreds and hundreds of germinated seeds, and I’m not worried about it. They’re pretty tough. I’ve broken root tails in half and had plants live to produce over a half pound harvest 
Thank you for the input 
I do appreciate the advice. Hopefully one of us can stumble on the right answer here.
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I read once about aloe gel for the same but haven’t tried it.
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this.