I found the ones i did in low temperature rotted, i had a lot of losses from rot,
the ones germinated inside papertowel damp in a sealed plastic bag in the propergator at about 30C ,nearly all germinated (as soon as i took the outer shell of them they did anyway)
, one bag of japanese bitter orange started to rot quickly before i took the shells off, inside turned to mush on some, i took the others out and then washed then and put them into compost and they then germinated some of them had dried bits of fruit on them

since then i have been washing any seed carefuly to make sure they are clean, then soaking them in dilute GA3 overnight before germinating with no outer shell in damp papertowel and the last lot every seed germnated

If theres a chance seeds are old i would try some dilute GA3 to soak them to increase the germination

Make sure the papertowel is only damp, not actualy wet

what exactly is GA3? lol sorry i am not familiar with it :) i think these seeds might also just be fussy. the lemons and grapefruits i planted are all fine! i removed the seed coats off the mandarins before planting them, and i didnt with the others. i also soaked them overnight in a solution of water and a couple of drops of superthrive. i might just pick from fruit, clean and plant in future lol i have other mandarins that i planted before them, and they seem to be rooting ok - i think only one of eight was rotten :)

thanks for the advice, i'll look into GA3 :)

GA3 is gibberelic acid, its strange stuff, a growth hormone for plants, you need to get the strength right though for a lot of things, a main use is to make old or hard to germinate seeds germinate easily and grow quicker

its also used to make larger fruit and seedless fruit, spray the flowers and they will act like there polinated and have no seeds, i dont use it for this as i want seeds

i sprayed the garden once or twice with it this year and all the plants went......strange!, bigger leaves, flowers, longer flower stems and more and more growth, just dont use it a lot as it can if too strong make the leaves fall off! ( not that ive had this problem and im not carefull )

its sold sometimes as a spray for on plants to make super growth and flowers, names like megagrow mainly used on roses, but the best place is in capsules of powder, you need to dilute it down the right amount, the website i got it from said how much to dilute it, i got it from plants a float on ebay, just search for ga3 they also have a website somewere

Oh no-- your superthrive experiment rotted? Darn. I wanted to see the results. I just started two citrus from seed outdoors in peat pots-- germinated in 2 weeks. I guess it must help to live on a tropical island ;-) Gonna see if my tropical island sells that Ga3 stuff somewhere.

in order to get fair results i am going to conduct a few tests with the superthrive. seeds from both groups rotted :( but i have flying dragon seeds going on at the moment. and maybe some evidence in favour of superthrive, depending how you want to look at it.

i had cut back a 2 and a half foot grape plant that i had after accidentally neglecting it (the guilt!) i had to cut it down to a two inch stick just to find some green in it - i ended with just a tiny stick popping out of the potting mix. i had pretty much no hope for it, especially since its starting to get quite cold here in northern england! Then after a month, it got a bud or two, which just clung to the side of the little stick for quite a while. i thought what the hell, i'll give it a good dose of superthrive. and now it has exploded with life. I'm not saying its a miracle, or that it has been restored to its former glory because it definitely hasn't, but the change in it is staggering. Now, some people will believe it was the superthrive. others will say it was going to grow so well regardless of anything. I leave that choice to anyone who reads this. Some believe, some don't. Thats just a little info :)