Have you heard of GA3? If not don’t feel bad, a lot of people haven’t. Gibberelic Acid (GA3) is a plant growth hormone, sort of like steroids for plants. Every seed contains a very small amount of GA3 and when the seed gets wet and swells it dissolves the GA3 and gets the sprouting going. You can read about GA3 on the Wiki here.
Now you can buy pure GA3 and “PUMP YOUR PLANTS UP”. I bought mine from JL-Hudson seed bank @ http://www.jlhudsonseeds.net/ . They seem to have the best deals, best shipping, and best information on the web (also they have a great seed catalogue, i love ordering from them).
Here is 500mg of 90% pure GA3.
To make a 1000ppm solution I need to dissolve it in 500ml of water. To get the powder to dissolve fast I added it too 1tbsp of rubbing alcohol and swirled it vigorously, then added approx 500ml of water inside a water bottle. Because a GA3 solution breaks down when exposed to sun I painted the bottle with spray paint.
I then followed the directions; Put the seeds I wanted germinated in paper towel, made sure to label them from the outside, and put them inside a sealed container. One step I also did is to scarify some of the seeds because a lot of the seeds I was germinating are hard shelled. To do this you use some sandpaper or a sharp knife to get rid of part of the hard outer shell ensuring you dont damage the white seed on the inside. You then add enough GA3 solution to just cover the seeds.
The seeds are too soak for 24hours, then should be removed and potted. The reason you don’t leave the seeds in the GA3 until they germinate is that too much Gibberelic Acid can cause the new plants to be leggy and grow really tall without putting out the leaves that they need to survive. I like to use Jiffy soil pucks, they are those compacted peat-moss pucks that grow huge when you put them in water, they also come with a nice germination container.
Now we just have to wait and see the results.
Make sure to re-pot the new seedlings when they get bigger, and especially if you keep your germination container somewhere dark like I do.
I will update as new results come in.
