I love how this applies to winter sowing. I think trudi actually mentions this in the FAQ's somewhere too. When your seeds are outside they get the dark all night and that is enough to fill the requirement. :)

It says that on pansies and/or viola instructions, to cover them with newspaper B4 they germinate.

But some say they don't bother to cover them for WS'ing, so I didn't either, or I might have sprinkled some seed starter to cover but read the seeds work their way to the top anyway from the elements? Maybe floodtheleast is right except they'd get some darkness if sowed inside even under lights.

The infamous, "needs darkness to germinate" one of my favorite sowing instructions from the seed companies.

Just one problem with those instructions. Someone forgot to tell mother nature about this requirement.

The purpose of a plant making seeds is to reproduce that plant, instead of letting it go extinct.

So the deal is, the plant makes seeds so it can continue to reproduce.
The seeds drop on the ground, get carried away by the birds and dropped by them one way or another.

When the conditions are right, these seeds germinate on their own. They don't have any hands to dig holes and bury themselves in the soil or pull soil over on top of them so that they have "darkness to germinate".

Yet low and behold, they germinate on their own, go on their merry way to grow and bloom.

If they really, truly needed darkness to germinate, darkness like 24/7, the plant would be extinct by now.

A few years ago a friend and I did an experiment with some viola seeds. tiny seeds that i would press down on the soil and out they would go. We sowed some of them on the top and the others we sprinkled soil on top to cover them up, they "needed darkness to germinate".

Out they went with tags to mark which one started out being covered with some soil

Results?

equal germination in both of them, covered with soil and getting brilliant sunlight on them.

It may be, though, and I just thought of this. The needs darkness to germinate, may be referring to indoor sowing under lights. If they don't get night time darkness and grow lights and day light is left on them 24/7, then maybe they wouldn't germinate at all.

Remember, growing indoors under lights is not a natural process of germinating seeds, it's artificial.

With wintersowing we are essentially starting seeds the normal, natural way with a little boost with our home made little green houses.

Fran

Fran, like you, I have always questioned this piece of information on seed packets and disregarded it. In my opinion, most seeds are in darkness when they germinate (under the earth). I grow some plants under lights, but I do not germinate them under lights - I germinate them between coffee filters placed over my heat vents in a dark corner of my dining room . I think the requirements for germination are warmth and moisture. As you said, this information is probably meant for those green houses which have very bright lights on 24/7.