Help!! Old seeds germination issues

[militia420]

People can check out my greeting thread to see some of the strains I've got.

The SWT#3 seeds that I have are F1s and ~14 years old. I have had some pop and the first starter leaves pop out. I can consistently get the root tip to pop out of the seed.

The c99 F2's are about 10 years old, the c99 F3's are from 2009. I consistently get the root tips to pop out and have had the starter leaves going. They've hit 2-2.5 inches tall with leaf spread of ~1cm.

The technique that I have used for all is the following:
1) scuff in a box with sand paper for 5 minutes each.
2) soak in seed starter solution of distilled water, gibberillic acid, coconut water (pure), aloe (as recommended on other threads for old beans) for ~10-12 hours.
3) individually crack the seeds at the seams with a tiny adjustable wrench.
4) put them back into starter solution to continue soaking about 12 more hours.
5) temperatures have been held at 75-80F for germ period

6) once the sprout root tip starts to grow a little, I put it in a container with the soilless mixture from the icmag thread on awesome all round soilless mixes and fertilizers/teas.

7) it then goes under a 65W fluorescent light that I've used in the past with no problem.
8) The growth rate is not good for most of these seeds. Some of them seem to get going but then lag and seem to stall with the initial leaves at about 1cm from one tip of one leaf to the other tip of the other leaf.

General temps for the sprouts the last time I tried varied from 68-80. This was harder to control than the temps for the seeds. It's warmer here now. Daily weather is ~70-80 inside. It might make a difference if I do another run but I'm literally starting 50 seeds at a time. And only getting about 5 -7% sprouting.



Guys I'm desperate here. I love my c99. I went through living hell to get my last batch of seeds in 2009. I have severe permanent physical injuries that have made growing less of a pleasure, but I CAN NOT LOSE my c99 line.

I would like every one who can think of anything significant that I can try to comment and if you know other growers on here who are good with old seeds please point them to this thread. I need help. I'd even be willing to potentially send out a few hundred seeds to a few different people who have experience with old beans just to try to get these thing growing out to get a fresh harvest of seeds which could then be split and sent back to me.

That's how desperate I am. If any one has ever torn tendons, that's the kind of daily pain I deal with. And it's by far worse than broken bones. I had to drop out of graduate school because of it and I hurt myself horribly tending to my last grow in 2010.

So,any of you that are like me, who always make sure your first grow with a strain is a seeded grow, and who maintain lines that you've been growing for years, should understand the strong sentimental attachment here.

Thank you for reading and I look forward to making things work so my c99 line, and some of the other old lines I 've got, don't die off.

 

[aridbud]

We do

#1.scuff w/ sanded match box....not 5 minutes....a few rattles, then use emery board to scuff up shells.
#2. Distilled water and food grade hydro peroxide
#4. starter medium (sand/fine peat/vermiculite) a in darkness and warmth styro cups or party cups with holes in bottom for drainage. Under LED

#9. transplant to final container. LED or outside. Often outside direct plant.

but I'm literally starting 50 seeds at a time. And only getting about 5 -7% sprouting.

sometimes seeds are not viable....no matter what CPR method you choose....seeds do die or do not germinate.

Good luck!!! If all else fails....look for the strain/breeder that has the most of your current C99 traits.

 

[The Revolution]

Germing Old Seed Tech.

Germing Old Seed Tech.

Here's a technique that was passed down to me from a buddy of mine. He may chime in at some point...
These are his words rewritten and summed up:
Items you'll Need:
-Cotton rounds (circular cotton pads for makeup removal)
-Fine Grit Sandpaper, or Emery Board
-3% Peroxide
-Cold Pressed SeaWeed or Root Enhancer (General Organics Bio Root Now, or other root enhancer)
-Superthrive
-20oz Water bottle
-Stubborn old seeds that dont want to germ or peter out mid germination.

Sand/scuff seeds along seam and on edge that root will emerge.
Start by mixing a 20oz bottle of 3/4 RO or whatever type water you use, fill the remaining with Peroxide. So we have 1/4 to 3/4 peroxide/water.
Add to the mix 1 ML of Root enhancer (Root Now, Rootbastic, etc) and 1 ML SuperThrive. Superthrive is Optional.

Put Cotton pads into a ziplock baggie. Wet with above solution. Add scuffed stubborn seed. Place in a warm dark place. Once root has emerged, place immediately into a peat/coco puck under light. OP suggests not planting seed too deeply, allowing the first set of water leaves to break surface within 36 hours. He also says he continues watering with 1/2 strength germination solution.


I wish you luck with your old seeds. I would suggest once you get a handful to germ, refreshing your old seed stock by open pollinating a few choice females.

 

[militia420]

Thank both of you very much. The Revolution reminded me about SuperThrive, I forget to mention that I am using it too.

The food grade peroxide sounds like a good idea to reduce potential nasties getting growing on the seed. I know plants require CO2, but is there a benefit with the additional O that will come off as the H2O2 destabilizes? Maybe some one can clarify the peroxide role here?

I have cotton rounds here so I'll definitely switch to using them. They should minimize slime creation that I've noted on the moist paper towels I've used (I know that's a terrible technique for old seeds because the longer they sit the more slime build up occurs. I think know it works fine for fresh seeds, but have learned reading through posts on old seed germination that other mediums are ideal.)

I'll give it a few more days to see what others might add, if anything. Then I'll give it another go. I stopped months ago because it was getting depressing and I thought warmer weather would help too.

AridBud I'll have to look again through the breeders offering stuff. I had a hard time many months ago finding anything c99 like or related and I seem to recall seeing many posts either here, or here and on other sites by people who were surprised at the lack of availability of c99 lineage.

I want to get my hands on sour diesel and c99xsour diesel again. I had a friend who grew out the latter a lot and when he had to move gave me some seeds. That's stellar weed and definitely denser than c99. I'd be a happy man if I had that one and straight up sweet grapefruit c99 going again (that's the one I kept breeding and selecting up to 2009).

Thanks guys.

 

[militia420]

UPDATE

UPDATE

So severe lead poisoning messed me up most of last year and put a halt to my attempts to get these old beans growing. I've got that under control at this point. Here are some pics of the latest attempt. The 3 major changes are adding in hydrogen peroxide and using cotton balls instead of paper towels. These are seeds from the same earlier batches but they were stored in an emergency "go-bag" so I know they were under somewhat different conditions which is why I'm specifically trying them now.

I've noted a while back that some of these seeds get this "bloated" supersoaked look to them. Part of me is thinking that the seeds that do this might be duds and they are just acting as a mop to suck up the seed starter even though they are goners. If these don't work I'll go back to my main stash and try the h2o2 plus cotton with them. One set of seeds really seemed close to overcoming the age thing but they kept stopping at the 1st or 2nd set of leaves.

I think I need to get this root booster and liquid kelp to add to the seed starter.

Has any one else observed these over bloated seeds that become some what translucent from the amount of water they suck up?





You should be able to see one in the middle of the 1st pic. It's as close as I could zoom.

 

[militia420]

Okay guys. I had a run with severe lead poisoning last year. It delayed my posting on here. The only people that should ever suffer something like that are pedophiles and the worst of human kind.

Any way, I've still had trouble getting things to grow when I keep trying to pop these old seeds. Almost 100% have the 3-4mm tip grow. But that's as far as most go. I've read about some one using mild pressure chambers to help get moisture and nutrients into the seed. Can any one post or link more info on this? I want to keep trying different things before I run through the remaining thousand some seeds of c99 that I have.

I have used specialized seed starter formulas recommended here. I have scuffed the seeds. I have gently cracked them with vises and continued soaking them for the total 24 hours. I have noticed a good number of seeds seem to get some water bubble trapped behind some skin like layer on many of the seeds. I don't know what to make of that or if it's reducing germination. I'd love for some one to comment on this as I don't know what to make of it.

 

[militia420]

I wanted to post an update. So I have so many of these c99 seeds from my 2009 seeded grow that I figured if I started carefully messing with different factors I might get some to pop. Sure enough I've had some pop. I had a large grid of c99 in bred f2s that I separated my seeds based on which plant they came from. One in particular seems to have more viable seeds than the others.

The factor that I changed was how long I soaked my seeds. I had been going for 24 hours. But I noticed that many of the seed shells looked soggy. And they'd get moldy after a few days even if many were just barely popping. So I started squeezing the seeds and sure enough they were rotted from water log. So this most recent attempt was a total of 12 hours of soaking. I didn't bother with cracking the shells because hand cracking hundreds of seeds is a complete bitch and takes hours to do.

I also cut the seed starter formula with 4 parts distilled water, as the 500ppm gibberillic acid made some good seeds (CAT supersonic and CAT venomdog) stretch like crazy. So I only had 3 c99 seeds get normal root tips going by ~1cm, many of the rest pop but stop at 1/3cm. I suspect I can cut the soaking time down to 6-9 hours with the next batch.

Oh yeah, I also started the soak during a full moon. I know farmer's almanacs talk about how they used to do that and who knows if some added energies help them grow.

So, out of the 3 that I put into soil 1 rotted from within the seed, while the tap root was healthy. Another sign that I can cut the soak time down to increase success rates with these old seeds.

The 2 that are in soil are slowly growing. I'm going to be patient with them and see if I can get any thing. There's a good chance the leaves will be all rekt as I saw what they looked like last year when I was trying runs with the same seeds.

I think one other thing that's helped these guys take is to use normal seedling strength fertilizer (using foxfarm for veg) w/ other seed starter things like coconut water. These old seeds have eaten themselves up and lack nutrients and sugars. The moist paper towels that I use with them get dipped into that solution and squeezed out as well as possible. Then I rotate paper towels every few days to keep mold from growing, and I toss the seeds into some peroxide for 1 minute to reduce infections. I take them out, pat dry them, make sure the shells are dry looking and not soggy before they go back into the ziplock with the papertowels.

This is rambling since I've only had about 15 hours of sleep over the past 3 days. But I wanted it logged so others can contemplate these things I've noticed and chime in if they think of any thing else.

If you have old seeds, don't try popping them all at once. Do a few at a time and monitor how the shell looks. If it's too soggy looking them cut the soak by half. Repeat until you get it just right and then be patient and don't forget the added nutrients or they'll have nothing to grow with.