How to Soak Sprouting Seeds the best way

Soaking your sprouting seeds has 5 major benefits.
All are positive for both you and the plant.

Five good reasons to soak sprouting seeds

There are five good benefits to soaking your sprouting seeds before you start the cultivation:

1 Sprouts get a good start to their growth >

2 More seeds will start to sprout for you >

3 Soaking will shorten the cultivation time >

4 Seeds sprout and grow more evenly >

5 Young sprouts withstand heat better >

So give your sprouting seeds a good start on their journey to grow into nutrient-rich little plants with a good initial soaking.

Soaking your sprouting seeds
SproutPearl bpa free sprouter by fresh sprouts

What is seed soaking?

Soaking sprouting seeds means that you put the seeds in water, before you pour the seeds into your sprouter. Soaking has five benefits for your cultivation as you can see in this article. The most important is that soaking gives the plant a good start.

The seeds should soak in clean, cool drinking water in a clean glass. Place the glass on your kitchen counter in shade.

Each seed variety has their own length of soaking. To make it easy for you all seed bags from FRESH SPROUTS show how long each variety should soak. I recommend, that you keep the soaking time to get the best result of your cultivation.

1 Sprouts get a good start to their growth

Your sprouting seeds are dormant – ‘sleeping’ – as long as the seeds are dry. This hipernation state is nature’s way of preserving the seed, untill the conditions are right for it to start growing.

But when you soak the sprouting seeds in a glass with cool, clean water, then the hibernation is broken. During the next few hours in the water, the seeds will absorb as much water as they can contain.

As the soaking allow the seed to take in all the water it needs to start to grow, this soaking gives the seed a very good start to grow into a plant. You can see the seeds slowly change colour and expand, as they absorb the water.

2 More seeds will start to sprout for you

The germination rate is determined by several factors. One of them is the age and quality of the seed. If this is fine, the next is whether you allow for the seed to soak before cultivation.

You will soon learn that sufficiently long soaking affects the germination percentage of your seeds.

The soaking time varies depending on the seed variety. Most seeds need to soak for 8 hours, but some – like Mung bean and Chick pea – need 12 hours in water before cultivation.

You can alway see the optimal soaking time on FRESH SPROUTS seed bags for your chosen seed.

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Soaking sprouting seeds for good growth

3 Soaking will shorten cultivation time

Soaking your sprouting seeds will shorten the cultivation time of your plants. This is because your seeds can absorb moisture much faster when soaked completely in water rather then being exposed to just a slightly moist environment.

A ‘moist environment’ could be seeds spread out on a moist piece of cloth or the likes as I see recommended some places.

I prefer the more optimal complete soaking i water. This way the seeds can take in all the water they need in just a few hours. As soon as the seeds have taken in all the water they need, they start to grow.

4 Seeds sprout and grow more evenly

Soaking has another benefit: As all the seeds are equally submersed in water at the same time, they will all absorb equal amounts of water.

This means that all the seeds will start to grow about the same time. And they will grow in the same tempo as you rinse them equally in your SproutPearl sprouter.

That gives a very even sprouting process which again means that you can ecpect all the cultivated plants in the given tray to mature with only a single days span.

That way you can harvest them all at the same time.

5 Young sprouts withstand heat better

Soakting sprouting seeds as the first step in the cultivation gives the plants a very good start. This good start cause the plants to have a healthy beginning.

This will benefit both you and the plant during the cultivation and the final intake of the mature sprouts and/or microgreens.

Why? Because plants that have developed with sufficient amounts of water, oxygen, light and heat have been able to convert the nutrients in the seed into nutrients that your body can absorb and benefit from.

Soak Sprouting Seeds in the right way

So how do you soak seeds the right way? First of all, your sprouting seeds need fresh, clean water for the soaking. If the water is of bad quality or unclean, the seeds will absorb this water and thus grow into sick plants.

In many countries – like here in Denmark – you can use the water directly from your kitchen faucet. But I am aware that this is not the case in all parts of the world. So here is the list of water, you can use for both your soaking and daily rinsing of the seeds:

  • Clean, drinkable tap water without chlorine.
  • Uncarbonated spring water.
  • Bottled clean water free from chemicals of any kind.
  • UV cleansed water.
  • Coal filtered water.
  • Osmose treated water.

You can experiment with the mentioned types of water. They should not give different results but test them yourself and be curious. That is what makes sprout cultivation so interesting.

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Do you need to soak seeds before sprouting them?

Yes, soaking is needed to give the seeds the optimal start as the time in water lets them absorb water to start the growth.

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