Here is how I now germinate:
1. Make a sandpaper tube about 1.5 cm diameter and 6 cm or so long (you need to be able to close both ends with tips of index finger and thumb of on hand), with grit to the inside of the tube. The grit can be anything in the neighbourhood of 220 grit, wet and dry paper has nice sharp grit.
2. Put seed(s) into tube, close off the ends with your fingers, and give the seeds a 20-30 second vigorous shake to scratch them up well. This assists penetration of water into the shell and cracking of the case.
3. Give the scratched seeds a soak for 3-6 or so hours in a mix of 3% hydrogen peroxide (the first aid stuff you find at pharmacies) and water (1:3 peroxide to water)
4. Put soaked seeds between wet paper towel, kept dark and warm. 30C temperature is best. I use a small holder that keeps the folded paper towel vertical rather than flat, it seems to avoid the roots drilling in to the paper and having to be extracted without damage. I also use a seedling heat mat controlled to 30C, but that is not necessary - I have also had good results by sitting the container on a router that is warm 24/7. Others put their germination container on top of grow lights or in the top of a grow tent. Warm is good, 30C is best.
5. Once you get a ~1cm tap root showing, plant the seed root down in your moistened Jiffy Plug, and proceed as you wish from there. You can also just put it directly into your final pot. The advantage of using the Jiffy is that it is dead easy to avoid overwatering and ensure oxygen to the root because the plug is small. Tiny plants use tiny amounts of water, so if you start them in large pots, you have to be super careful not to overwater because your medium will stay wet a long time because the seedling is not capable of drying it out. It is also easier to keep a bunch of Jiffy plugs at germination temperatures than it is to get and keep final pots to germination temperature.
6. Typically, I plant the Jiffy Plugged seedlings into an instant-transplant pot made out of yogurt containers or small plastic plant pots ~10cm diameter. The transplant pot allows transplant into the final pot with little or no disturbance to roots, and again, the small size makes watering less tricky. I am thinking of making my own soil plugs in future instead of using the Jiffys, but I haven't done it yet.
All just where I have ended up with this process at the moment. Other do it differently with success, and who knows what I will be doing a few years from now.
By the way, Jack's is good stuff. I may end up going with coco and Jack's 321 in my grow this coming winter. If I don't go with a soil mix and water only with the autopots. The jury is out. If you end up going with Jack's and coco, please tag me, I would love to follow along.
Good luck with it mate, and welcome to the AFN gang of misfits.
Look forward to the grow! @OzScott
www.autoflower.org
