I had the same problem with my kumquat seeds. Here is what I did last December. I peeled the seed coat of fresh seeds and sprouted them in moist paper towel and after they sprouted, planted them in light soil mix. Have 70% survival rate for seedlings :))

sunshine since you and I have kumquats I would like to keep tabs on your kumquat adventures.

6b Steve

Ok, Steve! My seedlings are not going to see sun any time soon. Very bad weather :(

hibiscus the best answer is all that you mentioned. I use rooting powder on my pea seeds and we will see how it works. In the winter time I'll put my seeds in a sealed container an place them in my heater duct. In the summer I put them in a baggy with a damp napkin in my translucent bath room window. Kumquat seeds are the

hardest to grow and have a much lower survival rate of anything else i grow.

once they are growing I put them under light at sunset to complete their 16 hours of light. When spring come the will go into bottomless gallon tins set up on top of 5 gallon buckets so excess water will flow intto the 5 gallon bucket with its own plantsring of beets in 5 surround towering tin above with seedling kumquat tree.

below shows before the beets grew

aerating the kumquat tree roots.

Housing a larger tree under light and aerating it. this tree sits like this all winter.just add

vacuum daily for 10 seconds of suction.kumquat trees need lots of aeration holes.

6b Steve

I ended up using a chamomile tea soak overnight. Then back to a fresh paper towel. After a few days, I ended up planting them in potting mix. Now, the long wait, watching them grow slowly.

I also ended up losing an earlier germinated seedling, apparently to the damping off that I have heard mentioned, particularly affecting meiwas. I didn't get the top of the soil dry fast enough after a watering. I only have a few meiwas to work with, so this was especially tough. Most of my year old nagami seedlings look pretty good, and due to the advice I've seen, they are all getting planted so some of the brown stem is above to soil line. Now that I've seen those pics, I may end up increasing aeration holes, too.