Seed Germination using the Baggy Method

How's you experience been?

I've had very mixed results. Much of the seed (I would say about 80%) that I tried in this way (because it need a cold spell) didn't germinate at all. In fairness everything done "the baggy way" was for seed that is hard-to-germinate, so that would have had a baring as I have never done "difficult" seeds before

I wonder if I didn't allow enough air in the bags? Didn't occur to me until much later that air was important, and I was probably thinking more about saving space by excluding air from the bags, rather than having them more "balloon" like

I've put the gory details of the method I used, and some photos, on my blog:
http://kgarden.wordpress.com/tips/sowing-seeds-indoors/seed-germination-using-the-baggy-method/

What works for you?

 

I think this is a very interesting subject. And I read your blog with interest Keith. There are clearly different ways of doing effectively the same thing, ie germination without soil. Bags is one method and Shiney showed an interesting alternative of using a container with moist paper on the bottom.

I have used the bag method in the past with a lot of ordinary seeds - rather than difficult ones, and would say my success rate was 80% or more. So, whilst oxygen is important, I wouldn't have thought that bags created a problem. However I did like to open my bags quite frequently - mainly to breathe in carbon dioxide for seeds that were already germinating.

A couple of days ago I made my first visit of the year to a local garden centre and bought amongst other things a nice book "Exotics are easy" which had been reduced from about £16 to £4. It covered a number of exotics with a different author for each topic. But one author made a very pertinent comment. He said be very careful about getting fresh seed as much of the exotic seed that you buy is already dead before you get it. He explained that unlike normal garden plants, exotic seed sold very slowly and many merchants held stock that was several years old.

Christopher Lloyd has mentioned this in one of his books. On one ocassion he bought a pound of seed from a supplier, and only one seed out of the whole lot germinated. With the bag method there is no compost to bring in disease or mould. But I have noticed some seeds grew mould in the bag and never germinated, inspite of spraying with a copper compound. This implies that the mould was on/in the seed.

 

Good food for thought, thanks.

The seeds were a variety of things, but pretty much all needed stratification (which is why I chose the Baggy method). The few things that were "easy" germinated without trouble as you said PeterS - its a good point as they germinated there was enough of whatever they needed.

I think if I get some unusual seed again I will start it off immediately rather than keep it until the right "season", if it germinates I'll stick it under lights and consider it a nice-problem-to-have - the seed will, at least, be slightly fresher as a result.

I'll refresh the coffee filter in those that are left and give them another year, who knows - that might be what they need.

 

I always use brand name kitchen towel. I tear two off and fold along the serrations to make one sheet, fold in half, rotate 90° and fold in half again. Wet it and press out the excess on the draining board. Open up on the last fold and place your seeds here. Close and place in any sealable bag identified using a waterproof marker.
I now have some Tropaeolum tricolorum seeds that have been in the same paper for 5months which are checked every two or three days.
Successful seeds have included Salvia (patens & glutinosa), Datura, Mimosa, Fuchsia procumbens and most recently Leonotis.
Lobelia cardinalis germinated but died when I transplanted them (excess damage to root hairs?).

 

Saw this on my travels - its on an article about Passion Flower seed germination and recommending putting the bag flat on a heat mat. Maybe I would get on better with 50:50 Multi-purpose and Perlite than filter-papers?

 

I recently sowed 15 lots of seed in bags - and am very pleased with the progress:-

Ipomea
I sowed some in a pot, but they never germinated and developed mould on them. So I sowed some more in a bag. After a couple of days the seeds had swelled to three times their size and started emerging from the seed case - but were green and slimey. It was sad that they didn't germinate, but the bag told me that the seeds themselves were dead.

Hibiscus newbiscus - from Victoria
I also sowed these in a pot and none germinated. They also got mould on them. So I was delghted to see three seeds germinate after 1 day soaking and 2 days in the bag.

Thunbergia alata - from Angelina
Several germinated after 3 days, compared to an earlier batch that took 6 days in a pot. But I don't regard the difference as significant.

Tithonia speciosa - last year's seed from Jungle Seeds
Loads germinated after 3 days. They also took three days in a pot.

Echium russicum - own seed
Again 3 days - my first and only sowing so far.

Overall very pleasing. I wouldn't expect seeds in a bag to germinate any quicker - but its easier to see exactly what is going on. And there is no fear of bad compost. The downside is having to transfer them to a pot of compost after germinating.

 

What are you using in the bag - kitchen paper / filter paper? or vermiculite or multi-purpose perhaps?

Do you ever use Hydrogen peroxide on your seeds before "sowing" them?

I've used it on bulbs (Aroids like Colocasia) as they are very prone to rot when you start them off in the Spring. Not tried it on seeds though, but it might help. (I am guessing that 1% or perhaps as high as 3% if I was feeling very brave! [or had loads of seed!!!])

 

P.S. Sorry meant to ask this earlier:

No worse than pricking out is it? (Bit more fiddly, granted, but I ain't using the Baggy method for bog standard stuff, only things that are difficult in the first place, or I have only 2 or 3 seeds)

 

I am just using a roll of the cheapest kitchen paper, which is now several years old. I cut it to size, and put it in the bag (just a single sheet) and wet it by spraying with a dilute copper compound. When I first started I wet the paper and then tried to put it in the bag. - not easy . I started with sandwiching the seed between two sheets of paper, but it was difficult to see what was going on and even more difficult to remove the germinated seeds. So I now just use one.

No, perhaps I should. Though I hoped that the copper solution would have the same effect. Its not uncommon to see mould growing on the outside of the seed case, and often the seedling can grow happily through it. I have had quite a bit of mould this year and I suspect my compost has a part to play.

One advantage of the baggy method is that it removes the uncertainty of the compost. Another is simply space. Its allowed me to sow duplicates of what I had in pots, as well as some new stuff.

 

I remember you describing your one-sided-only kitchen paper method now ... good idea.

Agree about the space saving [very significant for anything that needs a spell in the fridge, of course] and the other benefits you mention.

I'll have another go, although my confidence is dented by the high rate of failure I had last year

If I try some H2O2 [I have some bought specially for "gardening", so no excuse not to experiment!] I'll report back

 

It probably wouldn't help with difficult seeds. They are difficult because ....... they are difficult.

My thoughts are that a seed doesn't know if its in soil, in a bag or in Timbuctoo. All it senses are the things that it needs to germinate, ie heat, moisture, oxygen and perhaps light. If the levels are right it should germinate. Difficult seeds perhaps need very precise conditions, the right time of the year or special pretreatment (which is probably how a seed knows what time of the year it is.

To me the advantages are :-
1) space
2) no soil - so no soil borne disease
3) ability to see clearly what progress each seed has made
4) the ability to treat seeds individually, ie to remove them if they have germinated, or if they have gone mouldy.
5) the ability to count seeds as they germinate - to give an accurate % germination.
6) perhaps the ability to control the moisture level better. Compost can be too wet or too dry without being obvious.
7) the ability to sow a second batch because it takes up so little space. Sometimes a second batch will succeed even though the first batch failed. Like my Hibiscus newbiscus.
8) ability to identify seed that is dead. Non viable seeds tend to go mouldy or rot without any attempt to germinate.

As far as confidence is concerned, I like to use bags as an addition to pots and not instead of. Two goes are often better than one, which raises my confidence.

I would be interested in the hydrogen peroxide - though I wouldn't know where to buy it. Isn't it an integral part of a bomb making kit?

 

Good post

Do you put some air in your bags? I think I maybe excluded too much from mine ... (it would be nice if that WAS the case, because then I would have a reason for such high failure rate, and something I could "correct" and try again).

I got my Hydrogen peroxide from eBay. I bought a couple of small bottles on 35% on the grounds that a) it may "escape" once opened, so if one bottle becomes no good then the other will still be usable as "stock" (I've read its best to keep it in the fridge) and b) I didn't want to pay for carriage of "water" so bought the highest concentration I could get.

Dunno about bombs, but I suspect its freely available for wannabe-blondes!

 

No I didn't put any air in deliberately. But the seed tends to produce a gap between the two faces of the bag, which is automatically filled with air. Very small seeds are more of a problem. They still seem to germinate OK but are more difficult to prick out.

I often use the bag method in addition to using a pot. Rather than sow all my seeds in one go, I prefer to split them into 2 or 3 seperate sowings. Its so easy for one to go wrong.

 

BTDTGTTS !! ... unplugged laptop (or so I thought), pulled the cable to extract it to put in my bag ... Crash! down came the windowsill propagator and 7 x 1/4 sized seed trays, compost, seeds and all :(

Only sowed the day before, so no time lost in re-doing as most were bog standard veg seeds. The only one that mattered was some Hedychium seeds I had been given on another forum, and luckily they were light brown and big enough to "find" in the mound of compost ...

... but all three varieties in that tray are now all mixed up :(