Max time for seeds soaking in sucrose water?

[doodlekitty]

Help!!! I'm hoping for some advice for the seeds I have been soaking in a 5% sucrose solution. I started them yesterday at 3 pm est. In the meantime, I've come down with a horrible cold and don't want to deal with them. Can they stay there for more than 24 hrs? Will I lose them if I do not proceed today?

[LouisW]

What kind of seeds are they. Orchid seeds?

[doodlekitty]

Yessss........

[Andrew]

I assume you're pretreating them with sugar to improve sterilisation. While sugar treatment is not necessary, it does encourage the germination of any fungal spores on the seed, thus increasing your chances of killing the fungi when you sterilise the seed. The recommended 16-24 hour treatment period spans the window between fungal spores germinating and sporulating. If you soak the seed for longer than 24 hours there's a good chance any fungi will have formed spores and, therefore, you're relying on the bleach to kill of the spores. The sugar treatment should not effect the viability of the seed too much, so if you can't sow within the 16-24 hour timeframe drain the seed on to filter paper, rinse them, dry them and try again when you have more time.

[doodlekitty]

Thank you Andrew, I appreciate the help....looks like I better go drain and rinse them...this cold "ain't goin away".

[OrchidMom]

I have on occasion soaked seeds up to 72 hours with no ill results. I have suspected, however, that the sugar soak enhances germination speed. I have not done a laborious experiment to test the hypothesis, though, so this is pure speculation, or a gut feeling, or a hunch, or whatever you call it.

[lovely09]

I haven't try to make the experiment.Honestly,if i love the seed then i plant them,though,sometimes i didn't notice some other factors for germination.

[mehitabel]

If you are talking about seeds of ordinary plants...

For many years, I soaked seeds to get them germinating faster. (Never used sugar, tho). I left them to soak at least until I saw the seed skin cracking, sometimes til the tiny root tail appeared. If I was really busy, I left them til the tiny new leaves appeared. Some of the seeds (eg columbine) take a long time to sprout, more than a week.

*They were fine as long as I changed the water every day or two*

The only bad stuff happened when the water went bad. So even tho you're sick, try to find the energy to replace the water every couple of days and you should be ok.