To speed up germination, we normally use chemical pre-treatment (hydrogen peroxide, sodium hypochlorite etc) or anoxia. If you want to avoid the use if chemicals, better use anoxia; we do this by simply covering the grains in an air-tight container kept in a temperature-regulated germination chamber. We have observed that combination of chemical pretreatment and anoxia enhances bioactive composition better than anoxia alone. And in our experience, when the grains are dried properly, the chemicals do not pose any hazards. Moreover, when anoxia is used alone, the grains tend to grow molds after a short incubation. When we optimized using chemicals, the molds dont grow as much. 

All chemicals either made by mother nature or by man are toxic at a certain level!

Paracelsus stated that already centuries ago; only the dose determines toxicity!!

Water can be lethal if a person drinks more than 10 l at one time, to give one example.

Thanks a lot for the interesting insight. I will always try to keep Paracelsus in mind the next time I am tempted to drink a lot of water. 

I think it would be interesting to start with small doses of sodium hypochlorite, since it can also serve as a disinfectant.

Please Dr. Imam, can you  kindly share the safe levels (concentration) you normally use in your experiments? We also use parboiling as for downstream processing, Do you think this will help to further eliminate residual sodium hypochlorite? Our lab cannot verify that at the moment

We soak 500g of grain in 1 L of 0.1% sodium hypochlorite (v/v) for 15-30mins at room temp. After draining, we soak again in 1L of 0.05% hydrogen peroxide (v/v) at 35 degrees for 6 hours. With the water drained, the grains are then sealed in air-tight containers for another 18 hours at 35 degrees. Finally, we spread the grains on trays at 50 degrees until the moisture content is 8-13%. 

I am not sure if parboiling will eliminate any residual chemicals, and although that is theoretically possible, we have not tried it. We have determined that drying alone works for us, and we have not observed any signs of toxicity when the grains are tested.

Hope this helps!

Good luck!

This certainly helps. Thank you very much for sharing you experience with us.

I forgot to mention we normally use husk / rough rice for germination processing, which has other advantages, but tends to slow down  the process (especially the hydration stage).