This is the slightly new sowing approach.
I sow densely on sphagnum moss:
Sphagnum is soaked in water, drained, but not drenched. Then humidity dome to cover them up. And I put them near the central heater or on a 27C heatmap.
They will germinate after 11 days or so. This year I did not time. But unless the seed parent is a triploid, the seeds all germinate.
Once the root comes out from the seed, I transplant the those seedlings to a tray with only peat/perlite. I put in a thick layer because I might decide to overwinter them in that tray. The thicker the layer of soil, the better. Ideally, this tray has drainage holes. Then I just space them out using a toothpick:
If they do have leaves opened, I orient them so the leaves are in the air, not touching the soil. The seeds could use some misting, especially if the soil mix isn't that wet.
Then humidity dome back on, of course. And under the LED light.
Then after a few weeks, these partially germinated seedlings just keep going no problem:
A bit of a more optimized method could be to sprinkle a thin layer of peat only on the peat/perlite, and then make evenly spaced holes and fill each hole with a seedling, for better spacing.
I just find that is hard makes good holes or position them at an exact spot with lot of perlite particles.
You can see some algae is growing on the perlite and some moss also emerged.
The light intensity is 55-75 umol/m2/s according to the Photone app (free phone app that acts like a light/PPFD sensor).
Then I put those trays with drainage holes in larger trays without them:
Long term plan is to move these outdoors when it is really humid/raining somewhere in late April or May. I might try to use a polytunnel to avoid late frosts.
But I will probably try to move some of the more favoured crosses that grow well into individual pots somewhere in January, to try something new.
