I just sprouted a bunch of seeds and thought id share…
I start off with a piece of bounty paper towel and fold it until its 2" square,i dampen it with bottled water,nothing else,the paper towel should be damp,but not steadily dripping.
I unfold,place my seeds a bit apart from eachother,fold the paper towel back over to cover seeds and put in a large ziplock bag sealed 3/4.i fold it to the width of the paper towel and put on a piece of cardboard on a heat mat set at 80 degrees,cover with foil just to keep the light off(i usually have other seedlings going so i have a light on).
Now im sure most people germ fairly similar to mine,but i always leave the seedlings in the pt till they are at leat 1.5" long,usually 2.i then fill my seed pots with plain organic seedling mix,zero nutes,dampen,let sit for half hour before planting.i put my finger down into the soil all the way to the bottom,put the long seedling in with the tip curved up just a bit,then i fill in the dirt around so the top of the seedling is exactly level with the soil,being barely seen.i put under the light,no dome ever.the seedlings are up above the soil within a few hours.
I find this works extremely well,and i never lose seedlings.they grow very fast this way and are ready for bigger pots much faster than the regular way.
This pic was taken less than 4 hours aftrr planting
Just thought id share
The only downside is sometimes the seedling will grow into the paper towel so you have to be gentle,i actually find cheap one ply paper towels work much better than bounty cause the seedling doesnt get stuck nearly as easy
I prefer to float them in a half full ceramic cup in purified water in the medicine cabinet for 2 to 3 days. The germ rates are similar but i have better survival rates of the seedlings.
I switched from papers towels to those cotton makeup remover pads. 100% medical grade and sanitary cotton. I was using Bounty and kept losing seeds. I dropped a ph meter in there and whatever they added to the paper towel to make it picker upper quicker, made it burn my seeds quicker too. Anyway I like either cotton pads in ceramic plates on a sprout mat, or floating them. and right to soild myself too. I take them straight to ten gal pots. Once I see leaves they are gonna live, might as well put them in thier pot and not mess with them. My .02 cents.
We all have our own “system” lol
I never used the water method,
When we were kids in the 70s I just dropped them in a cup o water to sprout, throw them in a bucket of Super Soil with some Miricle grow, drop it in the ground on a mountainside, watter them real well, and come back two months later. Man things have changed! I grew up next to Big Sur. Was growing one mountain over from Bodhi seeds.
I’ve seen fully submerged fully formed seedlings. No drowning no browning.
I direct sow. I like simple.
Switched over to JP’s EWC method from soaking + paper towel method and have seen 100% results thus far.
I grew thousands of plants over 46 years using that same method.
That is really cool about Bohdi. I have only recently discovered that fellow. I’m a “little behind the times”.
u don’t mean u put them in dirt!?
I do yes. No fiddling.
Never heard of that,could you explain the EWC method?
As in worm castings?
Here you go
Don’t even try to pull them thru the paper towels…just use scissors and cut the the sprouts out with a small piece of paper towel attached to the sprouts and just plant…the small piece of paper towel will not harm the seedling…
I did the soak->papertowel method for years and years, and for sure it worked (mostly).
This year I’ve been doing a soak then right into medium. That works too.
I sow seeds directly in a solo cup of coco. Less steps, less handling of any roots vs. the paper towel method or even the water-soak method.
I usually put the seeds in a glass of water with 3% hydrogen peroxide. After 24 hours, they go onto a damp paper towel and stay there for 1 to 3 days (I usually wait until the root is about 2 cm long), then finally, into the substrate. It takes a bit more effort, but it speeds things up by about 2 to 4 days!
I give them an 18 to 24 hours soak and then into the Solo cups of coco have about a 98% germ rate
knock on wood 
I’ve had decent success with this, recently started scratching the shell of my seeds (not just cannabis) and have seen tap roots emerge over an 8 hour period. After day 2 or 3 they’re almost always ready to go into starter cups
