What is the effect of soaking time on the rate of seed germination?

Question

What is the effect of soaking time on the rate of seed germination?

Answer 1

Depends on the seed....you should not soak so long as to drown the seed...once the seed starts germinating, it needs oxygen, or it will die quickly. Soaking most seeds for an hour or two speeds up germination. Palm nuts can be soaked for up to 24 - 48 hours to speed up the process.

Answer 2

It depends on the species, but in general the seeds will germinate *faster* after soaking. That does not mean that more time soaking is necessarily better, though. You could drown them.

If you want to know whether the *percentage* of seeds that germinate is affected by soaking, I would say that it is probably higher, but I do not have any data at hand for that one.