Garden Experiment: Can Starting Seeds in an Instant Pot Increase Germination Speed?

I recently saw a social media post in a gardening group claiming that an Instant Pot can greatly increase the speed at which garden seeds germinate. I decided to put it to the test.

1 Instant Pot

8 Ziploc bags

Paper towel

Water

4 types of seeds: cucumber, goji berry, runner bean, and ghost pepper

At the time of this experiment, I independently wanted to start some cucumber seeds, so they were first on my list. After that; however, I wanted a diverse seed grouping that included both seeds considered "easy" to grow, and more challenging. Beans are well known for their relative ease of germination. Even kids often experiment with starting beans because of their quick and impressive sprouts. So runner beans definitely are a good option.

Next I considered the very tiny goji berry seeds, which often are known to be hard to germinate.

Finally, I put in ghost pepper seeds. Superhot peppers are notorious for the long times it takes them to germinate. I thought that adding ghost peppers would give me a very good outer wall of how long it might take to germinate seeds.

An old stand-by method for getting seeds to germinate is a damp paper towel inside a Ziplock bag. This also allows great visibility to see what is happening, since the bag is clear. I decided the Ziplock/Paper towel method was the one I would use.

As we are testing the efficacy of an instant pot at decreasing germination times, in addition to the seeds going into the instant pot, we must have identical seeds remaining out. As such, I divided each of the 4 types of seeds into 2 groups: one growing in the instant pot and one growing at room temperature. All other potential variables were the same between the 2 groups.