Germination

What is germination?

Germination is the beginning of the process to be able to plant and grow our seeds. In this post we will try to explain what are the most successful methods from our point of view, how to do it in the best possible way and what are the fundamental factors to succeed in this critical process.

A small white tuft will emerge from the seed that we have acquired. This white lock is the main root. From this main root, other secondary roots will emerge. After that the first stems and perhaps the first leaves will be born, toothed leaves normally known as cotyledons.

The seeds are not exactly cheap, do not waste your time with poor quality seeds or with imprecise germination methods.

What are the factors that influence the germination of our seeds?

- Humidity: always keep them moist. Try not to dry the seeds under any circumstances, at this point our seeds will die and will not germinate.

- Temperature: as a general rule for germination we will need a temperature between 22 and 25 degrees. Having a lower or higher temperature than indicated, our seeds will not achieve their end, germination.

- Tranquility: our seeds need to be calm, do not play with them, do not stress them, try to disturb them as little as possible. From the first moment you plant them until you are able to see that the white lock has come out, try not to manipulate them, it is important.

- Cleaning and handling: these two are the factors on which we can rarely find information in any forum or manual of cultivation and germination. At SMB seeds, we take these factors very seriously, since if we manipulate our seeds with our hands stained with any product, with dirt, with germs, it would always negatively influence the germination of our seeds. We give you a simple example. Imagine that we are smokers, we have just lit a cigarette and immediately manipulated our seeds with nicotine-impregnated fingers. As we all know nicotine can become a poison for our plants, or a powerful herbicide. So, most likely, our seeds would die almost instantly, since they have some of the nicotine that we have transmitted through our fingers.

Germination methods.

- Germination by water and hydrogen peroxide.

We consider this method to be the most effective, but it can also be the most risky. This method is especially effective for those seeds that have the hardest skin, or those other seeds that have been in storage for a longer time. The method itself is quite simple.

We need:

A glass.

Distilled water.

Peroxide.

preparation:

We will fill our glass with about 180 milliliters of distilled water.

To this distilled water, we will mix 8 drops of hydrogen peroxide, in this way we will provide our water with greater oxygenation, which will greatly favor germination.

We will add our seeds to the previously obtained mixture, bearing in mind that under no circumstances can we leave them to soak for more than 24 or 48 hours at most. If arrived at 48 hours we notice that there are seeds that have not yet germinated, we will remove it from the water mixture and we will put them on a paper always with a lot of humidity, until we get that our seeds have germinated.

We will place our glass with the seeds in a dark place and with a warm temperature between 22 and 25 degrees.

This method is quite effective, but it is also true that we must carry it out as accurately as possible, otherwise the degree of effectiveness would drop considerably.

Germination in dishes with wet paper.

This method is the one commonly used by most growers, since it is simple, practical and with a high germination rate as well, although personally from SMB Seeds, we prefer the previous one. We leave to your choice the method that you like the most.

We need:

Two plastic plates.

Paper napkins.

Water.

preparation:

Moisten enough two or three layers of paper napkins.

Put them on the first plate keeping in mind that there can be no water formations.

Place our seeds on the paper napkins without them being too close together, since they would prevent the growth of the root.

Place the second plastic plate on top of the first, in such a way that it will create a dark environment.

Check that the seeds and napkins are always wet and never lack water, since they would die.

Tips:

Always handle the seeds with clean and sterilized hands or use gloves.

When we remove the seeds already born (sprouted) from the paper or the glass with water, manipulate them with tweezers without exerting too much