How to Do a Seed Germination Test

Video Transcript

"Hi. My name is Willi Galloway, and I'm a west coast-based organic gardener. On my website--digginfood.com--I teach people to grow their own vegetables and cook with seasonal ingredients. I also spend a lot of time helping people learn how to grow really beautiful, productive gardens without using chemicals. So today, I want to show you how to do a seed germination test, because if you're like me you probably buy more seed than you need every year and have some leftover; but just because you have old seed doesn't mean that it's necessarily bad, and it's totally worth your time and money to check if the seed will sprout... because if it does, you can go ahead and plant it and you won't have to buy more. So, the idea behind the seed test is you try and get the seed to germinate, and then you calculate the germination rate. So, we're going to try and sprout ten seeds, because that makes it easy to calculate the germination rate. Basically, if you have five seeds that germinate, then that's five out of ten, and so that's a fifty percent germination rate. But, if you only have two out of ten germinate, that's a twenty percent, and you might not want to use the seed. So, I have some radish seed here that's a couple of years old, and I'm just going to go ahead and count out ten seeds. What I'm doing is, I'm putting them on a double layer of moist paper towel, because seeds need moisture and warmth in order to germinate. So, I'm just going to stick them on the towel here--they don't have to be in a perfect line--and then, I'm going to fold the other half of the towel over the seeds and you kind of press it into place, because they tend to be a little bit squirrelly and want to fall out. Then I'm going to place them just in a regular old Ziploc baggy, and stick them in... slide them in... and then zip that three-quarters of the way shut. Once you have the seeds in the bag, you should put them in a nice, warm spot. I usually keep mine in the kitchen because it's warm in there, and it's easy for me to remember to check on them if I see them everyday. You will need to check on the seeds every day, and what you're looking for is to see if little, teeny roots have started to emerge out of the seed--that's the first sign of germination--and you also want to make sure that the towel stays moist. So, these radish seeds will probably germinate in just a couple of days, but carrot seed, parsley seed... that can take a week or more to germinate, so you'll need to look every day. I have a sample here that I've already started, and we can go ahead and check on them and see how they're doing. Pull it out, and if you look, I've got seven seeds that have sprouted and three that haven't, so that's a seventy percent germination rate, which is pretty good. If, say, only four had sprouted, I might not want to plant this seed. One thing to keep in mind is, when you first see that the seeds have sprouted--the little root has emerged--what you want to do is go ahead and still fold the seeds back up, stick them in the bag and wait one more day--or two--just to see if any more of the seeds germinate. Then, if no more germinate, you can go ahead and calculate your final germination rate... so, in this case, it would be seventy percent... and you're good to go."