Need ideas to germinate old old beans
ctack2
16 years ago
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galina
16 years agoctack2
16 years agoRelated Discussions
Old manure - can it keep seeds from germinating?
Comments (3)There is one way to know for sure. Get your soil tested. Check with your state's Extension Service. Each county should have it's own Cooperative Extension Office which provides free publications and information for the asking. They can provide you with soil testing information. Mine was only $9.00, less than the cost of some strictly pH tests, and far more thorough. No guessing at what might need to be added, no money wasted. They will also have valuable vegetable/gardening tables available specifically for your area determined by universities and horticultural research scientists who have collected data from growing those crops in your state. Your tax dollars are already paying for this service so you may as well get some use out of it....See MoreIs it possible to germinate 20 year old pepper seeds?
Comments (7)I hate to rain on this parade. It is very unlikely that any of your seed will grow. There is however a small chance if you will try the method below: How can I improve germination and "Wake UP" old or poor quality seed? Old seed gradually lose viability because of oxidation of the endosperm and loss of nutrients in the embryo. If the seed are dead, they are dead, no amount of heroics will make them grow. If even a few of the seed are viable, then here are some steps that may help. 1. The most important and essential item needed is water, but not in excess. The next most important is oxygen. Third most important is nitrate. Fourth is a source of growth regulators like salicylic acid. 2. Prepare a seed start tray with good quality moistened seed start mix such as promix bx. This MUST be sterile mix! 3. Get some miracle grow or peters or whatever variety available of water soluble fertilizer with a high nitrate content. Mix 1/2 teaspoon fertilizer with a quart of water. Alternatively, use "tea" made from oak or tea leaves as below. 4. Saturate a paper towel with the fertilizer water and then let just enough drip out to be thoroughly wet. 5. Loosely wrap a large quantity of seed in the paper towel so that the seed are not clumped up, but are in a single layer with each seed touching the towel. 6. Place the paper towel in a ziploc bag and drop it in the refrigerator for 16 to 20 hours. The bag MUST contain air, the seed need oxygen! See instructions below to increase the oxygen level if you feel that might help. 7. Remove the seed from the paper towel and carefully sow them on top of the seed start mix well spread out so that seed do not touch each other. 8. Do NOT heavily cover the seed, instead, gather a small amount of the seed start mix and dust it over the seed so that they can still receive light but have a light dusting on top. The easiest way to do this is by putting the seed start mix in a large mesh screen kitchen sifter/strainer. The seed must be spread out so they are not touching each other, otherwise mold will be a problem. 9. Place the seed start tray in an incubator at 85 degrees for up to 20 days. A chicken egg incubator works fine for this purpose. Humidity must be kept very high. If you are using a chicken egg incubator, fill the water tray and keep it filled. If you are trying to germinate them at room temp, cover them with a sheet of plastic to prevent evaporative cooling and to keep the seed moist. 10. check the seed daily to see if any are breaking the seedcoat and if so, put them in very bright light immediately. 11. Be patient. I have had seed take up to 7 weeks to germinate. 12. Old seed that manage to germinate may have a range of problems from stuck seedcoats to missing growing points. Stuck seedcoats are easiest to remove by coating them with saliva and waiting 30 minutes, then pinching the seedcoat off. If there is no growing point but the cotyledons are healthy, wait patiently, they will often generate an adventitious shoot which will grow normally. Increasing the oxygen content in the ziploc bag can help. I have done this by putting a cup of hydrogen peroxide in a pint jar and then adding a package of dry yeast. This releases a huge amount of oxygen which you can capture by holding the ziploc bag over the top of the jar. To make seed tea: Get some dry oak leaves, crumble them up, then pour 1 quart of boiling water over them. Let them steep until the water is cool, then pour the water through a strainer into a quart jar and add 1/2 of an aspirin (pure old plain generic aspirin is salicylic acid, a plant growth regulator) and 1/2 of a teaspoon of a water soluble fertilizer such as miracle grow. Soak a paper towel in the liquid and wring out most of it. This also works using ordingary "tea" leaves. The tannic acid from the oak leaves prevents mold and helps break dormancy. The salicylic acid from the aspirin stimulates growth. The nitrate from the fertilizer triggers the seed to initiate growth. But the magic secret is that it contains water. Remember, no matter what you do, you can't wake up a dead seed!...See More13 year old tomato seed germination
Comments (38)There are two ways to germinate really old seed -that have had a very high rate of success that I know of. The first is- take about 7 or 8 seeds and place them just under the surface of some of your ordinary garden soil where you usually grow your tomatoes-in a flat container about three inches deep, buried to the same depth as the surrounding soil suface, and just leave them there all winter long, frost, ice, snow, rain etc, in the spring most of them will germinate naturaly around mid may, a bit late but once potted up they will soon catch up. The second method well tried and tested- involves the plastic bag zip lock type bags, into which is placed a square of folded kitchen roll tissue- previously soaked in a mixture of cold tea (without the sugar and milk) just straight out the tea pot, and a few drops of seaweed liquid extract, wet the tissue right through and squeeze it out to a fairly damp pad, place in bag, lay your seeds (any number of seeds) 10 to 20 on the surface of the pad and zip up the bag- place in a warm place around 75 deg F and wait up to three weeks or less, sometimes only a few days, check them about every day after the fifth day thro to the three week point, and remove carefully any that germinate, with a couple of wooden tooth picks (which becomes easier with practice) and place them in a seedling mixture just under the surface and in a couple or three days -up they come as large as life. If you do succeed -save me a few seeds to try for next season :)...See MoreNeed help germinating some old bulbs w/ pic
Comments (1)They are tulips. and they look extremely dehydrated. I don't hold out much hope for them. All you can do is plant them in moist medium or in the garden and hope for the best. The cold period is neither here nor there because that is all about getting flowers from healthy bulbs. Your goal is to see if they are even still alive. I'm afraid I very much doubt it. Bulbs are not seeds, so they don't germinate. They are the underground storage bodies of certain plants and in nature they should never dry out like seeds. Once they do they die....See Moreruthieg__tx
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