Let's grow some Coffea arabica from dry coffee beans. [montage!] This video is for educational and research purposes only. Caffeine and related xanthines are psychoactive. Coffee consumption is forbidden in some religions and it has been made illegal to consume at some points in history. I'm sure you can already tell by the length of this video that it is quite detailed. If you want to skip the background info to see the protocol, go to *14:46* Otherwise, get ready for a trip. As always, a complete research report is below. In this video, I will be talking specifically about Coffea arabica generally referred to as coffee in the United States. I will use coffee and arabica interchangeably in an attempt to not be so repetitive. Arabica is somewhat unique in its genus. The methods explained herein may not be applicable to other Coffea species such as canephora aka robusta the second most common form of "coffee". If you attempt these protocols on other Coffea species (or any species for that matter), I would be most interested in your results. Youtube is full of videos demonstrating how to start coffee plants from seed. I've watched them all. They come in two categories: "I've tried and failed so many times with dry seeds so I eventually just found some fresh coffee cherries near me, but you won't be able to do that because you live in Minnesota." and "I'm planting this probably dead coffee seed. This is the start of a new series." with no successful followup. This video is one of the latter. Hopefully, without the disappointment. I suppose we will find that out together. Unless you have come here from the future, in which case, please berate or congratulate me in the comments accordingly. Coffee has a reputation for being difficult to germinate and not undeservedly so. Even commercial growers with generations of inherited knowledge and researchers using ideal lab conditions struggle with its uneven and stubborn germination. Arabica is classified as an intermediate seed: slightly tolerant to dessication but quickly loosing viability. In their natural environment, arabica seeds can germinate immediately after detachment from the mother plant and they possess few biological mechanisms to survive dehydration. So the ideal coffee seed has been picked immediately before planting. As many Youtubers have discovered, finding a ripe cherry is the most reliable way to grow an arabica seedling. Unfortunately, some, admittedly understandable, quirks of international fruit import laws prevent me from obtaining coffee cherries directly from the tropical areas where they are grown. If you or someone you know is willing to smuggle some cherries in their pocket, please let me know. But definitely don't do that because it's illegal. But also... let's talk in the comments below. It boosts engagement. Illegal sourcing aside, live coffee plants can be bought online for reasonable prices. But that's no fun. Somatic embryogenesis is also a possibility, but that's for another video entirely. If you are up for a challenge and don't live near a coffee plantation, dry seeds are the only option. So let's talk about sourcing: Right now I have about thirty thousand coffee seeds in my cupboard. Wha??? You say... That's what you sound like in my mind. Green coffee beans are sold online by the kilo to smug home roasters who refuse to pay for Starbucks' sugary swill. Namely me. If you don't already roast coffee at home: Give it a try sometime. It breaks the ice at parties to announce loudly that you roast your own beans. In the past I have, on more than one occasion, attempted to germinate these beans by the usual method of putting them in soil and crying when they inevitably mold. That's likely because these coffee beans are processed specifically for extraction and not for germination: Two processes that rapidly diverge in viability after about the two month mark. Those beans will need some special love to grow into big strong, cherry yielding shrubbery. I'll get to that love protocol in a minute or twenty. But first, let's talk about selecting the best dry seed sources. An Amazon search reveals quite a few sellers of coffee seeds sold specifically for growing. Scrolling down to the reviews, however, suggests buyers have just as much luck with those seeds as I did with my coffee beans. In contrast, the Etsy reviews for coffee seeds are spectacular. Perhaps this is because the editable window for Etsy reviews is shorter than the germination time frame of some coffee? Who can say exactly? In any case, arabica is not listed in the US Federal Seed act so sellers are not required to guarantee any particular germination rate, and I can't find any seller who does this voluntarily. By the time that the seed has reached the likely third or fourth party seller on Etsy, the germination rate has already been reduced substantially. To maximize our germination potential, we must look at the handling of the bean all the way back to the original coffee plantation. In short, you want mature seeds that are dried slowly at a low to moderate temperature with their endocarp intact to a moisture content of between 12 and 20 percent. The seeds should be hermetically sealed and shipped to you as fast as possible preferably kept at 15 degrees celcius the whole time. At all stages, they should be processed by hand to minimize damage and inspected for malformed or immature seeds. Unfortunately, botany researchers, from whom these recommendations are gleaned, do not share terminology in common with on-the-ground coffee growers, so we must translate this into the traditional coffee-lingo first. Despite my past failures, I am still going to attempt to germinate my cupboard coffee beans. In part, this is because my green coffee bean vendor has a lot of information about each batch. Information like arrival date, source location, processing type, packaging, and variety. Each of these be discussed in turn. As far as I can tell, this information is rather limited for regular coffee seed sellers despite it being perhaps more relevant to their product. My vendor also specifically requests of their growers to deliver their bean "in parchment" suggesting that they might be less prone to infection and moisture variation in transport. Unfortunately, the central mill location is still abroad and therefore the beans spend a significant amount of time exposed. Some of the beans are vacuum packed during shipment, so that helps considerably. You win some and you lose some. Now, there are methods to preserve coffee seeds and maintain upwards of 97% viability for over a year, but that isn't standard practice for commodity coffee or seed vendors apparently. I guess they haven't gotten a chance to read the Journal of Plant and Cell Physiology, 1984, Volume 25, Issue 8, pages 1431 to 1436... like a nerd would do. Mostly I am using commodity green coffee beans because they are likely to be the worst case scenario. My success rate here will represent the worst germination rate you can expect from your seeds, regardless of the source. That is, of course, if you follow my methods exactly by watching 100% of the video. Better yet, rewatch it multiple times all the way through. Anyway, freshly picked coffee is subjected to two (not necessarily distinct but definitely oversimplified) kinds of post-harvest processing: wet and dry. In short, the wet process removes the wet fruit bits first and typically includes some sort of fermentation period before drying. As you might have guessed, the dry process goes straight to drying the whole fruit without separating the seed. Since the dry process must remove not only the moisture of the bean but also that of the watery exocarp encased fruit, the seeds are typically subjected to higher temperatures for longer periods. Arabica seeds do not tolerate temperatures above 45 celsius for even short periods of time, so dry processing can result in a substantial loss of viability. Likewise avoid any sort of mechnically dried coffee which can use high heat and high impact tumbling. The wet process is not without its faults, however. Fermentation of defruited beans can trigger germination, which is aborted upon drying. This might result in nonviable seeds depending on the length of fermentation. In either case, shade drying tends to result in fewer damaged seeds compared to direct sun drying. As I said, the two categories are not exclusive and there is a lot of variation and misattribution. Quality control also differes substantially between farms as does the method of parchment removal, if done at all. Without knowing exactly the protocol that is followed I can't guarantee one way or another which is the better option. If I had to guess I would go with a wet process coffee to maximize viability. I would definitely avoid any process which removes the coffee parchment before drying often called a wet hull process. I'm going to be using some wet-process coffee because that's what I like to drink and what I buy. If this fails, perhaps I will buy some dry-process on my reup, but I won't hold my breath there. If you really want to go the extra distance, you can time your purchase to coincide with a farm's harvest to avoid warehoused seeds. Not only would this minimize the age of your seeds, but also reduce fungal contamination and the moisture variations inherent to storage. You can at least minimize the local warehouse storage by selecting batches with a recent "arrival date." Timing varies considerably from region to region and there likely isn't any reliable information about transport times from the farm available. Also, some regions harvest all year around. Also, harvest time is when coffee sellers liquidate their old stock either by selling it outright, or mixing it in with new stock to meet buyer's qualifications by dilution. Also, small coffee coops accumlate beans for up to two months before shipping to meet minimum volume requirements. So maybe just buy coffee whenever you feel like it and roll those dice. The only locations I would specifically avoid are ones that routinely experience a temperature above 40 to 45 degrees celcius. As mentioned before, that kind of heat can damage arabica and those areas almost certainly use open-air patio drying. While this may produce good, cheap coffee for drinking, it is not ideal for germination potential. Some cultivars of coffee will perform better for home gardeners than others, especially at low altitudes or at high temperatures. Dwarf varieties that grow well indoors are available online as potted plants but these are typically not available as seeds due to their low productivity. For me, knowing the variety and locale is mostly about record keeping. In my location it is unlikely that I will produce enough coffee for consumption from a single plant, so selecting a "productive" or "tasty" variety is moot. Provenance record keeping and specialized breeding probably isn't a high priority on small coffee plantations anyway, so even if you think you bought a "Caturra Bourbon" coffee, there's no way to verify that a posteriori because coffee is so morphologically homogeneous. The US National Germplasm is the usual source of research quality plant varieties, however there is only one accession of coffee in GRIN and it is available as cuttings flown overnight from Puerto Rico. In fact, coffee germplasm preservation is a serious problem, as most genetic resources of arabica are conserved only in actively growing crops. I'll stick with the commodity green coffee beans for my insignificant house plant experiment. Now you might be asking about selecting the best seeds out of a batch for germination. The short answer is: don't worry about it. Small and light coffee seeds are somewhat less likely to produce vigorous seedlings, but research has shown that hand selecting them doesn't actually work all that well. You would need a mechanical density sorting table for that. The smallest seeds are often sifted out at the farm and sold separately as "peaberry" anyway. If you find any of these small, rounded mutant seeds, they can be discarded. But also commercial coffee has the endocarp removed mechanically with abrasive wheels. The largest seeds are forced into aggressive contact with these wheels and the damage that results to the endosperm gives worse germination. So depending on processing, the smallest and largest seeds could have the best or the worst germination. If you must sort your seeds, discard any with obvious insect damage, cracks, or ones that float in water. There are several established methods of testing arabica germination rates before planting. Electrical conductivity, exudate color monitoring, tetrazolium, and hypochlorite soak tests have all been studied in coffee. However, since the gold-standard of germination testing is well... germination, we won't bother with any of those yet. We will just sow everything and see what works. Check the research report if you would like to read about those tests yourself. In all likelihood, we will have less than a 30% seedling survival rate with an average emergence longer than 70 days for even the best cupboard coffee. It is a good thing that coffee is so cheap. However, I might just have that one trick to massively improve germination rates that "big coffee doesn't want you to know about". So wherever you happen to get your seeds, the next step is to establish the best conditions to promote germination. Coffee does not possess dormancy. Oddly enough, coffee buds do show some indication of dormancy but that's just a cool fact that you don't need to know for the test later. Coffee seeds do not require scarification nor any other specialized trigger to initiate germination. Adequate heat and moisture are all that is needed. Don't you dare take sandpaper to your coffee seeds. Even a little bit of damage to the endosperm is sufficient to wreck germination. Unless, of course, you are lucky enough to obtain seeds with their endocarp or "parchment" intact. In which case, simply squeeze the seed between your fingers until the parchment cracks and gently remove the bean. Coffee seeds are best germinated at 25 to 27 degrees Celsius in the light. Research has shown that while light may delay germination (a bad thing), ultimately light increases the total number of properly formed seedlings (a good thing). A fact that was not discovered until relatively recently making it very difficult to compare the conclusions of older and newer research. Coffee seeds are quite large and therefore take a long time to fully hydrate. Soak your seeds in water until they reach a weight plateau indicating the start of the second phase of imbibition. That should be about 3 to 4 days if you don't want to weigh them dozens of times. Properly aerated and disinfected, coffee can benefit from soaking for 12 days or more. Many species benefit from exogenous growth regulators like giberellins, kinetin, and abscicic acid. However, it appears that coffee has a delicate germination sequence and these hormones at the wrong time and/or concentration can be detrimental so it is best to avoid them. Seeds often carry with them many deleterious microorganisms. Green coffee, in particular, has been shown to harbor aspergillus and penicillium fungi both of which can overtake your seeds quite quickly leading to the aformentioned crying. Disinfection normally isn't necessary since fast-sprouting plants quickly develop their own natural defenses against these microorganisms. However, our green coffee will be sitting there mostly defenseless for weeks or months. We need to reduce the competetion as much as possible. Some combination of soaking in bleach, hydrogen peroxide, ethanol, or fungicides is necessary to extinguish these opportunistic fiends. However, all of the methods of disinfection have the potential to harm the seeds so a balance between germination and decontamination rate is warranted. The only option is trial and error, batch to batch. Don't forget that you and your growing media are also a potential source of contamination, so use the appropriate disinfection for those as well. Sterilize your media by autoclave. Wipe your surfaces and tools with disinfectant. Take a shower once and a while. And now... the protocol for starting coffea arabica seeds: First, disinfect your growing media, tools, and work surfaces in the appropriate manner. Most media can be sterilized in an autoclave for one hour at 121 degrees celcius and that is what I have done. You can also pastuerize your media in an oven or microwave if you don't have a pressure cooker. We can always add beneficial microorganisms (such as mycorhizzal fungi) back in once the seeds are sufficiently developed to ward off any attack. Five or ten percent household bleach will work for most surfaces and tools. Second, we need to prepare our seeds for germination. Some research has shown that dried arabica seeds do not tolerate the sudden rehydration process that is typical for home gardeners. Simply throwing the seeds in water can imbibe them so fast that it causes the plant cells to burst. The loss of cell integrity is so dramatic that you can use the color left behind on soaking paper from the burst cells as a means to identify dead seeds. Now comes the "one trick" to arabica seed germination: Heat shock. Before anything else, soak your seeds in 40 degrees celsius water for 4 hours. A sous-vide cooker is ideal for this purpose. I am using a PID controlled hot plate but the same can be accomplished by placing a large pot of water on the stove. Adjust the stove such that the temperature is steady for at least ten minutes before exposing your seeds. As mentioned before, anything more than 45 degrees celcius can be damaging. As for why this works, I can't say exactly. If you want my personal speculation, I would say that it is some combination of enhanced enzyme activity (specifically oxidative enzymes), heat shock protein induction, and an increase of membrane fluidity. This is as far as my biochemistry knowledge extends. There may be variations of this protocol that work better: Lower temperatures for longer or higher temperatures for shorter periods of time. However, there is only one mention of this kind of treatment in the research literature so I am following it to the letter for now. That article reported near complete restoration of germination potential when the dry seeds are subjected to heat shock rehydration even after more than a year of storage. So I think it is worth a shot, as is. Third, seed disinfection. As mentioned before, coffee seeds are full of harmful fungi. They remain lodged in the coffee seed center cut and the silver skin layer, and even burrow their way through the bean itself. Fungi are particularly difficult to remove since they have substantial biological mechanisms to detoxify chemical disinfectants so we are forced to used the strongest broad-spectrum ones available. They are, however, quite small in comparison so they will be overwhelmed by our disinfectants long before our large coffee seeds will. A relatively easy and benign disinfection procedure is to soak the seeds in 10% bleach for 20-30 minutes. A gentle pre-wash with soapy water for a few minutes will remove any large contaminants and assist the bleach in penetrating the seed's center cut. If you continue to have contamination issues, adding a pre-rinse with 70% ethanol for up to ten minutes could help. Additionally, increasing the bleach soaking time up to 2 hours or using a higher concentration (up to 100% household bleach) could be used. Note that I did not say 70% isopropyl or rubbing alcohol. That will damage your coffee seeds. If you have problems with germination, try reducing your bleach soaking time. However, if you have single digit percent germination rates, chances are that disinfection isn't the real problem. After your disinfection process, rinse the seeds with water three times to remove any traces of disinfectants. Fourth, imbibition. Coffee benefits from an extensive soaking period upwards of 12 days in ideal circumstances. However, the benefit is mostly limited to the first stages of growth where the extra water jump starts the germination process. After that period of about 75 days after sowing, the effect size is reduced since coffee seeds can absorb water as needed from the growing media to catch up. Direct sowing is adequate in the long run as long as the media is kept at the proper moisture level and temperature. I am going to soak my seeds for three days to minimize variation among treatments and to mitigate those times when I will inevitably forget to water the seeds. More importantly, however, the soaking water should be kept at the ideal germination temperature of 25 to 27 degrees celcius. Bottled or distilled water should be used since it is sufficiently sterile and free of contaminants. Once your seeds are heated, disinfected, rinsed, and soaked it is time to sow. I will be sowing these seeds in various media to demonstrate the variety of options available. Vermiculite, coconut coir, sand, soil, peat, perlite, and mixtures thereof have all been used to germinate coffee with only minor differences in growth. I even threw in some expanded clay aggregate and rockwool cubes for you exotic types. Coffee beans store a large amount of nutrients in their endosperm, so incorporating fertilizer in the seed starting mix isn't strictly necessary. Soilless media is just fine for the first few weeks after germination. If you soaked your seeds, you might be able to just make out the root as a white protuberance on one end. Plant this side down approximately one bean-length beneath the top of your growing media, being careful not to damage the radical. If you did not soak your seeds, simply place the seeds on top of your media and cover with a light dusting of additional media. Your goal is to block out the light while minimizing the need to push material out of the way of the growing shoot. And since we are assuming that less than one out of three seeds germinate, planting at least three seeds in each space is warranted. Despite the triplicate sowing, there is still nearly a one in three chance that none of the seeds will germinate. Curse you statistics! That is why I will be using replicates of twelve to ensure better than 99% chance of getting at least one germination. If you only have a couple of seeds and adequate space, plant each in a separate container to maximize their potential. In order to get up close and personal with the eight stages of germination in a later video, I have also sowed some seeds on flat and pleated filter paper in petri dishes. This is the standard protocol for research. Petri dishes provide ideal conditions for germination while offering a full view of the developing seeds. It generally isn't used for commercial operation because of the extra labor and cost involved. But you and I have lots of time on our hands, as evidenced by the length of this video and the fact that you are still watching it for some reason. A few layers of coffee filters, paper towels, or kraft paper rolled up in a black plastic bag will give similar results in a more DIY fashion. Since these seeds will be exposed directly to light, they should be kept in opaque containers to promote germination. Once they have established roots, they can be transferred to growing media exposed to light for proper development. Finally, place the sowed coffee seeds in an incubator set to 25-27 degrees celcius with day-night lighting. Heating is necessary for good germination, so if you don't have a temperature controlled incubator, use a seed starter heat pad. Monitor the temperature to ensure that it does not go above 35 degrees celcius for extended periods of time. Coffee seedlings are tolerant to overwatering, but not dehydration so err on the side of too much water. We don't have to worry about damping off and other diseases since we sterilized the seeds and media. Use a light spray to avoid disturbing the soil covering of you direc-sowed seeds. Also, make sure to provide adequate air flow for your seeds especially if you choose a denser growing media like sand. They will need quite a lot of oxygen during germination. And that's it. Just wait for up to three months and you should have at least a few seedlings. Only time will tell, however. If I don't upload a followup within 90 days, you will know that none of my methods succeeded and you shouldn't have watched this video. Maybe in 3-4 years I will have some seeds for which you too can leave some glowing Etsy reviews. Bye for now. ... many species benefit from exogenous growth reg[unintelligible] Ooo... this one's going to be difficult. Ok light. You're not... What are you doing. Some admittedly understandable quarks of internat.. Quirks. Quirks, quarks. Quarks are for physics. However. However. 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