I've gotten excellent germination in paper towels in baggies :)

Hi Disney,

I forgot to add the result of the bag method. I tried five of them in bags. 4 germinated. The fastest was 6 days and the slowest was 9 days. However, the "germination" might be a little different, as I counted "germination" on the bag method as when I saw roots, and I counted "germination" from the direct sowing as when I saw noteworthy growth.

In addition, I've noticed that the ones from the bag aren't growing as quickly as the others now (and 1 got taken out of its pot by something before the root took hold in the dirt). They look healthy, but they don't seem to be growing as quickly. Of course, this is my first experience with all of it, so I certainly could have done plenty of things wrong that I don't even realize, yet. :)

spiroan,
seeds germinate a lot quicker when you float them on water on Styrofoam.

In just 4 days they form a taproot.

In two weeks the have true leaves and a nice roots system.

George

I also use the floating styrofoam method - I had the beginnings of taproots within 24 hours with seeds from Brad (almost 100% germination rate, although I weeded some weaker ones out later).

I had a similar setup to George. I also put a string of lights (incandescent tube light) under the plastic container, and had halogen lights on them from the top (they were on our stove-top). I used a mix of distilled water/H2O2/Superthrive for the water that the seeds floated in.

Wow! Thank you both. Looks like I will be trying that next time. I think Disney had very early germination on his in the baggie, too. I'm gonna have to change up my methods.

I had very fast germination except for Penang Peach... That was the only variety that took longer than a few days.... Everything else, including mixed noids, were well sprouted within a week.

Wow... that is really good information for a seed newbie like me. I can't wait to give this a try.

~Bob