I recently acquired about 1000 seeds from a gentleman that grew some very upper shelf smoke in the 70’s. I have had absolutely no luck trying to germinate. I’ve tried soaking, filing, cracking them open, hydrogen peroxide etc with no luck. From what I’m told these seeds come from Pakistan but there is no way to verify. Any suggestions on how to get them to germinate?
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For super old seeds this is what I do. First I score them in a matchbox lined with sand paper. Then I sanitize in a hydrogen peroxide and water solution. Roughly 1/10 hydrogen peroxide/distilled water. Just let it set for maybe an hour. Then after I soak in oxygenated distilled water with a splash of liquid kelp and molasses. I soak it in that overnight or until it sinks. Then I put it in a 30 mm coco coir disk in a humidity dome and pray to the cannabis gods.
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Sounds good, you added some things I didn’t know about. I have got as far as a tail coming out of the seed but nothing further 
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@Discoball1 the older the seed the more likely it is that it used its glucose and energy stores so it won’t germinate properly without some added nutrients to wake up the genes and get it to sprout.
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Send some to MDBuds to germinate for you. Anyone can get peroxide from any drugstore, pharmacy, market. Distilled water also at any market - NO ADDED SALTS for taste, Kelp liquid - at ant hardware type store or Amazon, Molasses (also Amazon - best is Blackstrap, no sulphur). coco coir - Amazon or use almost any moister holding medium, dirt works too. I usually place seed/s between coffee filters wet with Distilled water, dark container, warm (not hot). 1-2 days sprouts emerge.
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There are just you can buy for germination of old seeds. Not sure exactly what they contain.
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@Rye Those reagent germination kits for old seeds use oxygenated hydrogen peroxide/water solution and sterile oxygenated glucose/water solutions. Same stuff you can do at home. Just harder to keep it sterile at home so you have to be really careful. Use gloves and forceps in a sterile environment and sterilize your humidity dome and coco disk before seeding.
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@Discoball1 also remember that when using coco or Pete to start seeds you need to plant them horizontal with a slight downward angle. So the narrow pointed end goes down into the medium and the wider thicker side is pointed up.
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Love this stream of comments! Old seeds are such a pain to germinate but MDBuds is dead accurate for what you should do! If that doesn’t work, that seed wasn’t gonna pop haha
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@Kronic Right? Sometimes duds are just duds. 
So far the oldest seeds I’ve sprouted were about 25 years old. Some white widow seeds from the 90s. I managed to get a 75% germination rate from those. I figure 50 year old seeds would be about half that with a 30 to 40% germ rate.
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@MDBuds Holy cow! Well my buddy just snagged some heady bag seeds from the 1980s so I shall let you know what the germ rate is! LOL
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@Kronic maybe we can gather enough anecdotal data to make an article about seed germination rates based on age and storage style. Would be super helpful.
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@MDBuds Exactly and Quote: For super old seeds this is what I do. First I score them in a matchbox lined with sand paper. Then I sanitize in a hydrogen peroxide and water solution. Roughly 1/10 hydrogen peroxide/distilled water. Just let it set for maybe an hour. Then after I soak in oxygenated distilled water with a splash of liquid kelp and molasses. I soak it in that overnight or until it sinks. Then I put it in a 30 mm coco coir disk in a humidity dome and pray to the cannabis gods. 
only takes two from old seeds, One Male One Female off you Go!
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@MDBuds 
none i can brag about. but i do have a few old gold and red columbo seeds and some acapulco my grow bud has grown i can’t remember maybe 25 - 30 years. i wouldn’t let my friends out here near the mountain know though. Couldn’t Spank them in our little Grow ~n~ Show Club if they ever beg me out of any. 
little chicken poop or in our case Sifted Horse Apples and some Superthrive Female Plant Hormones in the soil straight on planting in the ground or bucket soil after getting Match Boxxed i can get a couple to sprout under 63 Watts of light
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@MDBuds that little plant in front is the original Lemmon Kush Regular and still germing after all these years 
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