How do you grow them to be sunflower micro greens? Do you grow them in a certain medium, or just in a tray like you would with (wheat/barley/etc) fodder?
First I sanitize the seeds by soaking in either a 1:9 bleach and water or 1:5 3% hydrogen peroxide solution for 20-30 minutes to kill mold spores and bacteria as well as soften the seed coat. I skim any floating seeds off the top and only plant the ones that sink (floaters have very poor germination rates). Then I rinse thoroughly. After that I toss them into a clean mason jar with netting over the top (dollar store nylon mesh laundry bags work great) and leave them in a dark cabinet. Once or twice a day I fill the jar with fresh tap water give it a shake then drain.
Once the seeds have 1/4 roots on them I plant in a 10 x 20 seedling tray. Sunflowers prefer a medium like coco coir or potting soil, but I have been successful planting them on wet paper towels as well (I prefer the paper towels because after I take the greens I want I can toss the rest, the root mat and the paper towel to the buns and they eat the whole thing). You don't want to see much substrate under the seeds. You can sow them like fodder, but it's a bit wasteful as you would need to sow very thickly for them to get a good root structure. Then I put a second seeding tray on top, bottom of tray directly on the seeds, and I put weights in the top tray. Usually two bricks. The weights help the microgreens grow nice and compact. I don't remove the top tray and weights until the plants basically push them off.
I harvest for humans just before the first true leaves appear. They are delcious. Sweet, crunchy, hearty and a little nutty tasting. I let them grow a little bigger for the buns than what I prefer though.
takes about 10 days start to finish depending on temps.
