If you're not using a heating mat, it may take a lot longer.

For pepper seeds a week to germinate isn't long at all. At two weeks you can start to worry.

Yes, older seeds generally take longer to germinate and have a lower yield, but a great deal depends on variety, how they were dried, how they were stored, germination environment, etc.

Dennis

In my experience over the last 30plus years of growing tomato's, germination of tomato seeds is usally under a week. Peppers, as the others have discussed can take upward to 2 weeks depending on age, type, etc.....

Sandy

Yea ! some peppers take 2 - 3 weeks to germinate. My Manzano seeds took the longest: I think it was 2 weeks.
Just give them time.

and some warmth. Not too hot though.

Kevin

If stored properly, pepper seeds have a pretty good shelf life. As said, germination rates may be lower for older seeds.

One year old is not old. This season I'm growing out some seed from 2006 - 2008 I hadn't gotten around to growing out yet. I've had on average 60 - 70 percent germination for 15 varieties of the 24 I started. The rest clocked in around 30 percent.

What varieties are you growing? Some take longer than others.
As suggested, give them some time and some heat in the 75 to 85 range if you can.

This post was edited by ottawapepper on Wed, Mar 5, 14 at 18:12

You might see variation in the amount of time you can hold pepper seeds but they seem to store better than many other vegetable crops. I had the last of some Hungarian Wax pepper seeds a few years ago that were 17 years old (not held in frig or freezer) and the germination was still in the 30-40% range. Lately I do a preplant test on older seeds by counting out exactly 10 seeds into each labeled cell and recording # that resulted in sound plants. Often older seed will not only take longer to germinate but a few of the seedlings that emerge may appear stunted and just never amount to a sound plant. I suggest you try a similar test on your older seeds, especially if you had problems with those seeds last year.
Some might call such a test a waste of seed and many professionals will advise to buy only what you will use in 1 year but we all know that you can buy 1M of many varieties of pepper or tomato seeds for less than 3x what the same supplier will charge for 250 seeds; that means you get an extra 250 seeds free. That is a deal for peppers or tomatoes since germination should remain above 80% for 4 years under normal cool,dry storage. For someone like myself who spends over $1000 annually on vegetable seeds the savings is immense.