A GOOD grower recognizes... makes slow deliberate changes, observes, makes more changes if needed.
But why change a method and materials that have been giving 95+ % germ on all seeds, even 5 yr old seeds.
My mephisto seeds were supplied from a US site, namely Georgia, immediately upon opening again after 3-20.
After 13 yrs, I'm still no expert but I have ironed out a few methods that always make my grows easy and provide quality meds.
I've just gone through 9 mephisto seeds along with 5 various others of 3 different breeders....all except the mephisto popped and are growing as we speak.
When promix and biobizz are growing all other plants, you've checked variables that can be controlled, it simply boils down to seed problems. It's been easy to isolate a culprit but it doesn't tell you why.
Oh, I'll try mephisto again perhaps and hope I get mature viable seeds like my money expects.