Tools / Planning

Cannabis germination tracker

Cannabis germination follows a documented sequence of visible milestones across the first three weeks from the moment seed contacts moisture. The tracker below reads a paper-towel start date and projects the four windows growers reference most often during the establishment phase — when the taproot is documented as cracking the seed coat, when the seedling is documented as transplant-ready, when the first set of true leaves is documented as appearing, and when the seedling stage is documented as ending. Each window is a published range rather than a single date, because temperature, light intensity, and cultivar shift the actual timing within those bounds. Use the projections as a planning calendar alongside direct daily observation of the seedlings themselves.

How the windows are derived

Each window is a fixed offset from the entered start date, with the lower and upper bound drawn from published cannabis horticulture references and aggregated breeder catalogue notes. The crack window runs day one to day three, the transplant-ready window runs day two to day five, the first true leaves appear between day seven and day fourteen, and the seedling stage ends between day fourteen and day twenty-one. The calculation is purely calendar math — no environmental adjustment is applied because the tracker has no inputs about temperature, medium, or light intensity.

Growers running cooler rooms, drier mediums, or older seed stock are documented as seeing the actual milestones land toward the upper bound of each window or beyond it. Conversely, warm mediums and fresh stock are documented as moving the milestones toward the lower bound. The projections describe the documented range, not a precise forecast.

Reference ranges

Documented cannabis germination tracking ranges are drawn from published horticulture references and breeder catalogues. Crack typically appears between day one and day three for viable, fresh-stock seed in a moist paper towel at approximately 24 °C. Transplant readiness is documented at a one to two centimeter taproot, reached between day two and day five. The first serrated true-leaf pair appears between day seven and day fourteen, and the seedling stage is documented as closing between day fourteen and day twenty-one when three to five true-leaf sets have developed.

Seed older than two years, seed stored at room temperature rather than refrigerated, and seed recovered from poor-quality flower are documented as running slower through the sequence and missing the upper bound entirely with greater frequency. The tracker is descriptive, not predictive of viability.

Related references: Germination guide · Vegetative stage · Common beginner mistakes

Other tools: VPD · Yield estimator · Grow cost