Why pre-sprout seeds? Have a look at the following webpage: http://tomclothier.hort.net/page11.html
Besides the cool graph at the top, there’s an even better chart further down that shows some interesting facts. Check out peas. Peas will sprout at 41 deg. F. They’ll sprout just fine (86%), BUT they take about 36 days to do that. Hmmmm, that’s a month plus after putting the seeds in the ground with nary a green sprout to show for it. If you can get those same peas to 68 or even 77 degrees, you’re going to see action in as little as 6 days and have a higher percent germination to boot. Peas like to grow in cool weather, but it takes some time for them to sprout under their ideal growing conditions. I pre-sprout them indoors (where it’s easy to get to 68F) to get a jump on the germination so that I can get shoots up and growing before too long. These babies in the photo, Oregon Giants, are destined for the soil tomorrow, Monday, Feb. 14th. I soaked them for about six hours on Saturday, then have proceeded to rinse them a couple times since soaking. Look how they’ve fattened up! They’ll slow down a little bit once they hit the cool soil, but as soon as we get a day or two in the 50s, I’ll be looking for those modestly folded leaflets and tendrils to come poking up. Pre-soaking is the wake up call these peas need to practically leap out of bed this time of year, rather than spend a month or so hitting snooze after snooze.