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Pre-Soaking

New Pepper

New Pepper

Just wondering how many people pre-soak their seeds and how big of a difference it makes to germination rates ?
I personally dont pre-soak my seeds but have been having trouble germinating seeds recently and wondering whether this would be worth a try.
Thanks
 
Make sure you don't over do it on the bleach though. too strong will just kill those seeds. And check out a few threads around trhe place, a few different ppl like to soak for different lengths of time and soak in different ways.... Some soak seeds some soak peat pellets others soak the soil in the pots they are gonna grow in....
EDIT: I don't soak my seeds but tried it once and had lower germ rate than the others i planted at the same time.
 
I always have good germination without soaking, and I've also seen several trials where soaking made no difference with chile seeds. If you have stubborn seeds maybe try soaking in chamomille tea but in general I wouldn't bother
 
I am at the point of trying voodoo for germination for my chinense, spottie germination with baggie method in paper towel and on heater pad. Then, I tried soaking overnight in water, then into baggie. Then, I tried soaking overnight in tea, then into baggie and peak pellet. Then, I tried soaking overnight in half water/peroxide mix and into baggie and coir puck. Then, just plain into peat pellet. So far, 4 by baggie, 1 by peat pellet and after 3 weeks in coir I just seen my first sprout this morning - now get this, yesterday after reading the magnetism posting(like I said I am at the point of voodoo/witchcraft or even drawing from my Canadian native Indian hertiage and performing harvest dance and chant) I put a magnetic 3" X 1.5" onto the coir and this morning a sprout. Early yesterday morning I even rub the coir surface to see if there was any action happening and nothing. I also put a magnet under my fatalii pup and it seem perkier this morning!

So, from my experience I would say if soaking works for you stick with it, if you see no real benefit just plant the seed in a good seedling mix( I think a good seedling mix would probably be the best route).
 
Never soaked seeds before either and experience a pretty high germination percentage. In soil, I had less luck so I switched back to peat pellets and they've worked wonderfully for me. Give them a try!
 
I just soaked some 7 pots and Bhuts in a weak warm green tea solution (read about it on here somewhere so I gave it shot on some new starts), had 2 sprouts in the first 7 days and all the rest started to hook by the 2nd week only 1 seed out of 12 has yet to germinate and Im at the end of 2 weeks. All of my earlier starts this year were just soaked in warm water for an hour or so and I had good results with that as well. I'm just a little leery about using bleach or other chemicals on seeds when water and tea seems to work just fine.
oh and then theres the saliva soak of course lol ;)
 
Soaking may shorten germination time by a day or two, but won't improve germination rates of pepper seed provided the proper medium is kept at an adequate moisture level and temp.
 
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