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seeds Seed battle royal/ germ test

B

Blakeg88

I over-wintered my peppers in a makeshift greenhouse this year, it kept them alive and happy enough that they kept producing pods all winter long. Unfortunately since I had them sealed up I couldn't get to a majority of the pods and they went bad/ dried out on the plant. This weekend I finally trimmed back the plants and noticed that a lot of the cayennes had fully dried on the plants and the seeds were shaking around inside. So I collected 6-10ish pods and dumped all the seeds into a little cup.
 
I got an absolute crap load of seeds out of these peppers so I decided to see if they would grow. Since I really don't have anymore space for these plants i plan to make a test out of them for the different preplanting methods I've seen around here and other places. I have 2 batches just soaking in water overnight, one of these will get a peroxide bath before planting one will just go as is after the soak, another batch is soaking overnight in chamomile tea, and the last batch is just remaining dry next to the others until tomorrow.
 
I plan to toss each of the batches into a solo cup just spread out roughly in the soil and let them battle it out to see how many if any germinate. I have no idea if these seeds are any good or not or if this is just a waste of time, but i figured it was a fun little test and i will update if anything actually germinates.
 
 
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Very interesting! I can't wait to see how it turns out.
With that many seeds, you should be able to get some statistically significant results out of this.
 
If you pulled the seeds from pods that actually dried on the plant, that's probably the most ideal way to collect seeds. I would imagine your germination rates will be really high.
 
Dinsdale said:
Very interesting! I can't wait to see how it turns out.
With that many seeds, you should be able to get some statistically significant results out of this.
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I dont know how significant / accurate they will be, im not exactly going about this all that scientifically haha 
Edmick said:
If you pulled the seeds from pods that actually dried on the plant, that's probably the most ideal way to collect seeds. I would imagine your germination rates will be really high.
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they indeed came off pods that dried on the plants, they were sealed up/ I couldnt get to them for roughly 2 months so some of them spent a good while on there. if the germ rate is that high I really have no idea what I'm gonna do with all these plants haha
 
DontPanic said:
Neat experiment!

Did you dilute the hydrogen peroxide solution? If so, by how much?
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I havent put them in the peroxide yet, was just gonna give them a quick soak before planting, probably something along the line of 1.5 teaspoons per cup.
 
Blakeg88 said:
 
I havent put them in the peroxide yet, was just gonna give them a quick soak before planting, probably something along the line of 1.5 teaspoons per cup.
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I decided to try soaking my seeds in hydrogen peroxide this year after I noticed some of my seeds would grow into black, fluffy balls when germinating on a damp paper towel in a zip-lock bag.
 
I read several threads on the forum that suggested the hydrogen peroxide method.  Unfortunately, I missed the portions that mentioned diluting the hydrogen peroxide solution. :rolleyes:
 
After nothing happened for a week and a half using the paper towel method, I consulted with the Oracle of Google on the soundness of soaking in peroxide solution, and then realized I was only supposed to use about a teaspoon per cup.  :)
 
DontPanic said:
 
I decided to try soaking my seeds in hydrogen peroxide this year after I noticed some of my seeds would grow into black, fluffy balls when germinating on a damp paper towel in a zip-lock bag.
 
I read several threads on the forum that suggested the hydrogen peroxide method.  Unfortunately, I missed the portions that mentioned diluting the hydrogen peroxide solution. :rolleyes:
 
After nothing happened for a week and a half using the paper towel method, I consulted with the Oracle of Google on the soundness of soaking in peroxide solution, and then realized I was only supposed to use about a teaspoon per cup.  :)
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Thats pretty much what my reading have shown, soaked the peroxide ones in the 1.5 teaspoons per cup last night for about a half hour as i planted up the rest of the seeds. I planted every thing in a tray with burpee seed starting mix, so now the waiting game begins!
 
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Update time! Day 5
 
First seedlings popped up today! we have a very clear front runner and those of you who were rooting for dry... don't get your hopes up too high! haha
H2O2 bath pre-plant: 10 started plus 1 clear helmet head
Soak in plain water: 8 started plus 3 clear helmet heads
Soak in chamomile tea: 20 started plus 4 clear helmet heads
Dry, no soak: 0 started plus 0 clear helmet heads
well there is clearly a front runner in this race, looks like chamomile tea is great for an early start. I am not sure what is causing all the helmet heads though, either I didn't plant deep enough or this material isn't dense enough to pull off the seed case. I'm leaning towards my error though. I will keep updating as it goes on, heres some pics:
 
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overview, hard to see alot of them from this far
 
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water overnight+ before planting peroxide bath
 
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plain water overnight
 
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overnight soak in chamomile tea
 
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no soak, just dried
 
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sorry for the shitty pic couldn't get my phone to focus very well. Apparently i didn't spread some of the seeds out very well. 6 popping up in this tiny area, 4 out of the same hole. Tea area
 
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Again i can not spread seeds very well apparently, different spot same results 5 coming out of same spot. Tea area again
 
Wow!

I'd seen people mentioning a soak in Chamomile tea, but haven't tried it yet. Chamomile tea has officially gotten my attention! :)
 
DontPanic said:
Wow!

I'd seen people mentioning a soak in Chamomile tea, but haven't tried it yet. Chamomile tea has officially gotten my attention! :)
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yeah its pretty insane to me how well it is working. the count as of this evening is
 
tea: 42
H2O2: 32
water:29
dry:0
 
So i am already over 100 seedlings haha
 
Thank you, great test.

Just remember, those dry seeds first saw moisture one day later.

Overnight or 24hour in the tea?

Sent from my HUAWEI VNS-L31 using Tapatalk
 
karoo said:
Thank you, great test.

Just remember, those dry seeds first saw moisture one day later.

Overnight or 24hour in the tea?

Sent from my HUAWEI VNS-L31 using Tapatalk
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This is true, I expect the dry seeds to pop up eventually. But it was right around 24 hours soak for everything except for the H2O2, they spent the night in water and soaked in the H2O2 solution for about 30 mins before planting. I might try another one some day that I let them soak in the H2O2 solution for 24 hours along side the tea see if it effects it anymore.
 
DontPanic said:
What was the final count on this project?

Were you completely skunked on the dry, no-soak seeds?
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I actually ended up with around 140-150ish that popped up. I actually lost a big chunk of them shortly after this, took an overnight trip and alot of the smaller one dried out and died. I ended up getting 15-20 from the dry seeds but they were maybe 7-10 days afters the rest popped up. I kept 15 total that ive got growing in solo cups, all I had remaining room for under the lights. gonna keep a few maybe but give most of them away.
 
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