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Reviving Old Seeds: Tips for Success · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hello there and welcome back to
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  Hydroponics Daily, your go-to podcast for everything soilless cultivation.
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  I'm your host Dr Russell Sharp and it's very hot here and I've got the windows
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  open so you might hear some traffic and some diggers because they're building
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  houses across the road from Utrema HQ.
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  I don't know what the actual subject of today's podcast is, I'll wait for the
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  AI bot to determine that.
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  Basically I'm going to be talking about what to do when you're growing plants
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  from seed that have been stored for a long time.
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  Now, we've talked in the past about how some plants can rejuvenate from seed,
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  can grow again from seed, even when the seed had been stored for many years.
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  They're non-recalcitrant. Recalcitrant seeds die after a short period of time in storage.
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  Things like tomatoes, pumpkins, and legal cannabis can be stored for potentially decades.
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  However, that doesn't mean, and they'll grow and they'll germinate.
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  However, that doesn't mean that the plants are 100% healthy when they germinate.
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  So what to do when you are
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  going to grow plants that you have been stored for a long time
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  so maybe you're looking at rare genetics if you
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  know that the variety the cultivar the
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  strain you're growing is rare and
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  isn't grown very often and the chances are it's been in a seed bank
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  for a long time and not been grown and the
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  plant that they were harvested from was many
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  years ago so what to do in that
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  situation well the first thing is buy more seeds
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  because you can have a very low germination rate
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  and once they germinate the vigor will be very low so i did this recently with
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  some seeds that i bought some rare tomato seeds and the ones that grew were
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  very very spindly and then most of them just died and only one survived out of 20 seeds sown.
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  So that's the first thing buy more seeds and the second thing is realize that,
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  this is going to be, germination is going to be an issue and make sure you've
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  got your germination environment dialed in.
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  Don't be just throwing them in some seed trays and put them in a glass house
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  or in suboptimal conditions. These have got to be really optimal conditions.
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  You've got to treat them really well.
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  And because you want maximum germination, you want them to thrive when they get out there.
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  The next point is that they're not going to grow as fast.
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  And that's because they've been mutated they will
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  be mutants because they've been in storage for
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  a long time the cells have not been going through mitosis and
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  repairing themselves and so they will be weak once
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  they've been stored for more than say six years
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  they really will be weak plants and so
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  you're going to need to treat them like they are they are weak
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  plants don't think that they're going to grow really fast they're.
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  Going to need maybe dial back the nutrients dial back the temperature dial
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  back the light levels a bit still want to
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  be optimal and the air movement as
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  well they're going to be weak you know the stems are going to be weak and
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  then give them at least a week maybe two weeks extra vegetative
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  growth if you're growing legal cannabis if you're
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  growing tomatoes in photo period has no
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  effect on when they flower when they flower they will flower and so
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  if it's legal cannabis give them two more weeks at least
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  one to two more weeks in veg so long days
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  and then think about you
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  can have to expand the growing season beyond that
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  they're going to be they're not going to be as vigorous so
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  they won't need as much defoliation probably leave more leaves
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  on than you would normally and think about it more as
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  less about getting a crop in your first year don't think
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  about how well they yield in their first year it's just
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  about getting seeds and reproducing that strain so
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  that you get fresh seeds the next year because once they've gone
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  through that one life cycle and they've produced more
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  seeds you can then select for the strongest ones the ones
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  that have repaired the genes or the the
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  mutant genes have been removed during meiosis when
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  the seed production was the pollen and the
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  ovules the seeds were produced so not about
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  assessing yield on seeds that have been stored for a
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  long time it's more about getting them through that one life cycle getting
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  more seeds and then assess it after that a lot.
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  Of people i think will be looking at strains and varieties
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  and saying oh well this one this was really poor yielding
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  but if it's been stored for a number of years then it's definitely
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  going to be that case so that's something to consider and if
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  you are growing legal cannabis obviously normally you wouldn't want seed
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  production but in this case i think you probably are best
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  to produce some seeds and start again from that your your strain won't come
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  true from seed anyway because a strain to come true it needs to be vegetatively
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  propagated so you can select the best ones from the seeds that are produced.
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  And then finally, just like any other weakly growing plant, it's going to be
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  susceptible to pests and disease.
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  So really be careful about making sure that you don't get an infestation and
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  then treating the infestations or infections as soon as they become visible.
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  Do not let this get out of hand because the plant will keel over and die if
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  they are weakly growing.
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  They're not like an alpine plant that just grows slowly and these are growing
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  slowly because their genes are damaged.
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  So definitely something i've come across recently and
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  i think it's something that a lot of people who are sort of
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  hunting rare genetics will be should be
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  aware of so that's been hydroponics daily for today if you thought it was interesting
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  if you know anyone who's breeding plants any illegal cannabis breeders or pheno
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  hunters as they're called then please share this episode with them and if you've
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  had this episode shared with them with you then you owe that person a cool cold
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  drink thank you very much for listening until tomorrow goodbye.