seeds-germination Best way to get old seeds to germinate?

Siv

Siv

I have a lot of seeds collected from dried pods and have been struggling to get even a single one to germinate. Now I have 100s of these seeds so I don't really care if I try them all but I'm wondering what the best way would be to attempt to germinate. I'm really only looking for a couple of plants so the success rate is not important, just that some do pop.
 
Initially I tried my standard method of poking a few into a rock wool cube - this didn't work.
 
I then tried wet paper towels in a tupperware (note these aren't the actual seeds but same setup and quantity). These molded over and nothing happened.
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I have a bunch in the zip loc bag method and nothing happening there either.
 
I'm now thinking about just soaking them in water. This seems to work when sprouting microgreens etc. Is it worth a shot? Or is there a better way?
 
Siv said:
I then tried wet paper towels in a tupperware (note these aren't the actual seeds but same setup and quantity). These molded over and nothing happened.
 
Click to expand...
That is a good way. Just keep the seeds in dark place. You can cover the seeds with a bit of peat so they don't mold that easily if they need very long germination time. 
 
I germinated some 2014 Trippaul Threat seeds
in 2019 that were really stubborn, so put them
on a heating duct in the garage where there were
more wide fluctuations in temp and then they
had a high germination rate.
 
Other than that, I really like SB's method. He has
the cool tools!
 
As exciting as SB's technique looks, I don't have the gadgets for that and I'm not gonna fall down another rabbit hole!
 
So far I've stuck a couple hundred seeds in the fridge. Will give them a couple days to chill and then will just soak the lot in some water with a little sugar. We'll see what happens!
 
I still have plenty more left in case this experiment fails.
 
Less important is the method used and more important is how you store seed I believe.  I easily germinate 15-20 yr old seed.  In fact, I had 95% germination on 13-17 yr old melons, cucumbers, squash, etc. if the seed goes bad, all the crazy tricks in the world won't do crap.
 
Chris
 
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