How To Correctly Store Cannabis Seeds

Cannabis seeds, with their tough outer shell, look pretty hardy. And while nature has certainly designed them to withstand a wide variety of conditions, cannabis seeds aren't invincible. Sudden changes in temperature and high humidity, for example, https://nativesusa.com/ (https://nativesusa.com) can quickly ruin a batch of seeds. Luckily, caring for your seeds is simple. Keep reading to learn how.

Your Seeds Are Still Alive

Many people forget this, but it's true: your cannabis seeds are living organisms. Before they germinate, however, they are in a state of rest, much like some animals when they sleep. And like all life forms, seeds can perish. When preserving your seeds, you'll want to provide them the optimal conditions to make sure they survive until you're ready to germinate and plant them.

Perfect Conditions for Cannabis Seeds

Cannabis seeds have four primary enemies:

1. Humidity
2. Temperature
3. Light
4. Oxygen

Ideally, you want to keep your seeds in cool, dark, and dry place. Whenever possible, keep your seeds in their original packaging. At Royal Queen Seeds, we've carefully designed our packaging to protect our seeds until you're ready to germinate them.

If your seeds get subjected to light or rapid changes in temperature, these conditions will make them to deplete their nutrient stores before they ever reach soil, meaning they won't have the nutrients they need to sprout. High humidity, on the contrary, can cause fungi to form on your seeds.

Effects of Humidity on Cannabis Seeds

Humidity is easily one of the greatest threats to your seeds. Here is how different levels of humidity (% relative humidity) impact your cannabis seeds:

Need advice on controlling humidity for your plants? The Grow Guide provides key tips for keeping healthy development environments.

Where and How to Store Your Cannabis Seeds

For short-term storage, a dark cupboard or drawer with steady temperatures is usually fine. Try to keep your seeds clear of areas of your house that are prone to the typical temperature changes of your local environment.

If, for example, you are in a region with very high daytime temperatures and cold nights, try to protect your seeds from these changes and don't store them outside in a shed or garage.

For prolonged storage, it's best to keep your seeds with moisture absorbers, such as silica gel, in an airtight container inside the icebox. Remember that opening the door of your fridge can actually produce some pretty dramatic temperature shifts. If you happen to have an additional fridge that gets opened less often than the one in your kitchen, choose that one to preserve your seeds.

Again, if possible, keep your seeds in their original packaging. If you do break packs of seeds and have remaining seeds, transfer the additional seeds directly into sealed container.

Ziplock bags, for example, are great because you can extract all the air from them to create nearly vacuum-sealed container for your seeds. Once sealed, put your bag inside dark plastic bag or black container to shield your seeds from your icebox light.

Low-humidity fridges are the ideal to store seeds. The problem is when there is humidity in the fridge, since humidity is the worst enemy for seeds (worse than temperature, light, oxygen...). For this reason, it is recommended to store the seeds in No Frost fridges.

Can You Keep Seeds in the Freezer?

Yes, cannabis seeds can be kept in the freezer. The lower the temperature, the slower they decline. However, it's generally not necessary to freeze your seeds. Follow the conditions we described above, and you should be able to maintain your seeds for up to half a decade and still get high germination rate.

Determining Which Seeds to Germinate and Which to Store

When you're ready to sprout your seeds, inspect them and germinate any seeds with harm to the outer shell first. The shell of your seeds is designed to protect the volatile genetics inside. Seeds with damage in the outer shell are much more vulnerable and shouldn't be stored.

At Royal Queen Seeds, we excel in our work and want to ensure every grower only has the top genetics in their garden. That means we check all of our seeds before packaging. If you see any damage to your RQS seeds, get in touch with our help team immediately.

Tips for Germinating Older Cannabis Seeds

We've all discovered random seed somewhere at the depths of forgotten drawer or cupboard. Here are several tips on how to grow weed seeds:

Pre-soaking with enriched carbonated water

Before sprouting your old seeds, try submerging them in carbonated water enriched with fulvic acid, enhancers, hydrogen peroxide, or gibberellic acid. For top results, use lukewarm water and soak your seeds for 12 hours in a dark place.

Score your seeds

Older seeds often have an extra tough outer shell. Carefully scratching this shell with some sandpaper can help humidity and warmth reach your seed at the time of germination. Try carefully scarring your old cannabis seeds just before soaking to help them germinate.

Take off a seed's ridge

The ridge is the somewhat elevated side of your seed. Like other parts of the shell, this ridge can become extremely tough over time. Removing it gently with a sharp Stanley blade can help your seed sprout.

Score open your seed

In desperate attempt to grow your seeds, creating a small cut in the seed's shell may help. However, this is no magic solution, and you'll need to be gentle to avoid damaging the inside of your seed. If you damage the embryo, the seed will never germinate.

Remember, some old seeds just won't grow no matter how much you try. Whenever possible, avoid getting more seeds than you will plant so as to avoid having any difficulties at the time of germination.