Some things to know about seeds that will help you germinate them:
- Seeds come pre-packaged with all the nutrients they need.
- Light isn’t necessary until some green plant matter appears. If you don’t see any green, it doesn’t need light.
- You can drown a seed, but it’s hard
Ziploc bag and top-of-the-fridge method
As I mentioned above, don’t worry about sunlight, the seeds don’t need any. Don’t put nutrients in the water, the seed has everything it needs. It really is that easy: put ’em in a bag and let ’em sit in a warm place for a while, that’s all it takes.
A word about transplant
Stress to autoflower plants triggers flowering, so the only time you can transplant your plant is post-germination. When you move your germinated seed to the growing medium that’s it, there won’t be another move after that.
This is unusual because people often move the germinated seed to a small pot, and then re-pot the plant when it becomes root bound, but with autoflowers this is detrimental because once it’s root bound, it WILL start the flowering phase even if there’s only one stem!
Therefore, when your seed is done germinating, choose what pot it’s going to spend the rest of its life in and move it there. The time for this move is just before you start to see green but have a strong taproot – this is so that the plant will grow up towards the light as soon as it can, but if it already has green inside the ziploc bag it won’t have what it needs to start photosynthesis until you move it.
Now that you’ve finished germination, the next chapter is about the vegetative stage.