Seed Germination Rate Trial Results

I recently had to do a trial for a course I’m doing. I had to:

• collect seed from five lots of different plants
• clean it
• dry it
• test germination rates

I had to use 2 different seed raising media. I chose a retail mix, I hadn’t used before. The other one was my home made mix of coir and sandy loam.

For three of the seed lots there was no difference in the germination rate at all and the other two results won’t convince me to pay $5+ for a tiny bag of commercial mix that I have little knowledge of it’s contents.
I would need to buy it in bulk for all the seeds I sow anyway.

I find it’s most urgent to have fresh seed. For that years onions I’ve planted some of the red onions that went to seed. I collected the seed from the garden one week and

sowed them the next and had at least 100% germination…there are millions of them (well it seems like it ). The others I purchased as a fresh packet and have barely had 40% germination with!

Another thing is the water you use on them. After reading in the Trees For Life handbook that whether your water supply is good adequate to grow vegetable seedling successfully soon after use it for these native seeds otherwise use rainwater.
I have always used rainwater since first reading that about 10 years ago.

I have additionally found Moon Planting to be an advantage with seed germination. See Cosmic’s May Guide here on her blog. She has a link in her side panel for the current guide.

Temperature at moment of sowing is vital too…however most of the seeds I chose to sow were summer crops and I planted them in Autumn…I still had good rates of germination in my unheated greenhouse (that was featured in that post).

[Source] Scarecrow