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Sirius said:
Well, to start off with, let's explain how we came to try out this idea. It became time to start another round of seeds, as we had new strains to try out, but two of the strains were known to both be several years old, and the seeds of the other strain were replacements for seeds that had bad germination rates, next to several strains that had excellent rates in the same conditions, from the previous germination. We first started sets of these seeds in paper towel, and then took them to coco (some had split, some hadn't). Only two seeds actually completed germination - the rest either split and grew too slowly and became rotten, or they didn't split at all.

Then we read a thread, over at ICMag, that described a technique that this poster initially experimented with simply for older seeds that were difficult to germinate, but eventually did it with all of his seeds because they germinated faster. The process as he did it was to gently apply pressure with tweezers on the pointed ends of the seeds to actually pop the seed open where it would normally crack open, after he gave it twelve hours to soak. Several posters in the thread then tried it out for themselves, and reported back that it was working excellently.

So, we gave it a try. First we tried this with the seeds that showed no signs of changes from the first round of attempted germination, and then did it with every new seed that we tried to germinate. The only exception is that my lady popped them with her teeth instead of tweezers, because she had better control on how much pressure to apply (which is barely any, just enough - they pop right away, and you can hear it happen). Within a day, taproots began to emerge from two of the seeds that first showed no signs that they began germinating after about a week in paper towels and then in coco (some of the seeds simply were not viable). It has also been working exceptionally with the seeds we have started germinating since then.

It is beneficial to do this because the energy that the seed would have to exert, especially if they are seeds with thicker hulls, can be expended in taproot growth and getting the cotyledons out of the shell. Of course, if the seeds are fresh and completely viable, then allowing the seed to split itself and emerge would perhaps make it stronger, the same way putting a fan on seedlings will strengthen their stem, but I don't know how consequential allowing it to take care of itself is, and, for our situation, we're dealing with seeds that aren't as viable and need to conserve their energy for everything that we can't help them with. We've confirmed that this definitely works, noting that it isn't just seeds that would have grown out anyways, as seeds that weren't responding in all the usual germination settings then grew out immediately after being popped by us.

Anyways, just passing this along to the Growery , since I haven't seen this technique mentioned yet here. To anyone looking to try this out, I'd suggest trying it out with bag-seed first, because there is definitely potential there for putting too much pressure on them and completely smushing the seeds. The poster we read about this from was using a magnifying glass, in addition to tweezers, to see better what was happening. Teeth work great though!

We're definitely happy with this because we scored some rare beans of a strain that hasn't been available for years (Rez's Apollo Mist), and this technique is resulting in growing seedlings when, at first, it looked like we weren't going to get any results. On that note, expect a new grow journal from us soon.

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impgl said:
a seed wont ripen once its off of the plant. 2 ways i could tell if a seed is ride are:
1. squeeze it between my fingers - is it spurts open, immature, if not then i germinate.

2. put it in water. if it floats, its probably too young.

good luck

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hmmm don't think I agree with that last part. out of my last 10 I germinated 8 of them floated and 2 sunk. all 10 germinated

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could i take it out of the paper towel tomorrow morning and try this? i would take it out around 6 meaning it would be in the towel for about 5 and a half to 6 hours or just leave it and wait.

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Since you only have a single seed to work with, I'd forgo this for the time being as if you fuck up, well you're fucked.