Hey everyone, here's a new problem for me that hopefully you will be able to help me with:

A few of my seeds this year basically don't seem to be able to tell which way is up. They germinate, and then they sort-of curl themselves back into the soil and start growing downwards. Some of them manage to peek out of the top of the soil, reach daylight, and then dive back down. The ones that don't emerge from the soil, I've dug them up and discovered that they've all curled back to their seed coats. I'm perplexed at why this is happening.

A further bit of information, all of the seeds that have displayed this behavior were ones that I pre-soaking in water overnight. Some of them I also sprouted in coffee filters. But not all of the seeds which I pre-soaked have had this problem, some of them have emerged from the soil normally and are now growing fine. These are the types of seeds which have displayed this problem: green arrow pea, mayocoba bean, morning glory, and 4 O'Clocks.

I guess my main questions are, 1) what exactly is causing this to happen, 2) what should I do to avoid this happening in the future, and 3) can these seeds be helped/saved (thought I'm pretty doubtful about this, I'll probably have to consider them a loss).

Thanks, as always, for your invaluable advice and expertise.

~ Melody