Propagation: Germinating seeds in warmed water?, 1 by Erynne

Erynne wrote:
This is probably one of those things that everybody knew already, but me being still new to seed starting various seeds, did not know. So I'll risk my pride and spill it. I had a packet of Gomphrena globosa seeds that I wanted to start for DH (he really digs 'em) and the directions mentioned to soak the seeds in warm water for 24 hrs and then sow them. So I fill my amber glass with warm water, dump my seeds in and then I start to think how is the water going to stay warm for 24 hrs? I think I was over-analyzing at the moment or something because I later learned from someone that you don't have to keep them warm like a hen sitting on her eggs...sheesh. Anyway, like a hen, I did keep them warm. I put the glass directly on the heat mat where I had a some coleus seedlings starting and left it there, grow lights on and all. Next day, about 18 hrs later when I happened to glance at the glass, it was full of seeds with tails....cool! So I potted up all those little babies and they're growing like mad now. A few seeds didn't have tails, so I chucked them as I had way more than I needed.

On the 11th of March, I headed out on vacation for a week but before I left, I stuck some lupin seeds in my amber glass and told my plant nanny to keep an eyeball out for seeds with tails in that glass. Well she phones me all excited at 7:30 am her time, 4:30 am my time to tell me there's little roots sticking out on a few lupin seeds. This took just under 4 days. That seemed pretty good to me.
I got home last night and a few lupins were really growing and need to get out of there but I was too tired to fuss with them so I threw 4 leftover Tithonia seeds in the glass with the lupins and said goodnight. Today, one of the Tithonia has a little tail.

I'm going to try playing around with any leftover seed from different types and see what I get and compare germ times and overall plant health afterward. Has anyone else ever done anything like this?

Here's a pic of my lupin seedlings and the one lonely Tithonia that germinated taken a little while ago, looking down into my amber glass.

This message was edited Mar 19, 2007 10:07 PM