I am planning to induce the different osmotic stress using PEG-6000 and plants will be grown in hydroponics till 14-15 days to study the root's parameter.

But while inducing the stress using PEG-6000, do I need to germinate the seeds first and then transfer to the hydroponics ? or Can I directly germinate the seeds under stress from the very beginning (i.e. putting the sterilized seeds on the media)?

I wish to mimic the field conditions for the study since I will use the selected genotypes for field experiments.