Hick said:
#2 thing would be to make sure it doesn't say "Miracle Grow" anywhere on it..
Amen to that Hick.
And skunk as for the chips of wood, its not recommended for growing marijuana, however I like to have soil with some wood chips in it because when pot grows in nature theres gonna be all kinds of debris around it. I've done all of my growing with potting soil with a little bit of wood in it, and have always been happy with the results.
However GanjaGuru recently informed us that the best soil is Hydrofarm's Forest and Ocean I believe it was called, so I've been looking for that, but haven't been able to find any. The forest part of that title leads me to believe that the soil has a little bit of wood in it.
Another thing you can do to speed up the growth of your plants is to have half soil and half perlite. Perlite is a small porous pebble that retains water and nutrients very well and is just a good thing for nearly any type of plant. Make sure your soil has at least
some perlite in it.
You say you're worried about the wood chips killing the spouts? Shouldn't be a problem. My preference for germinated seeds is to plant them in jiffy pucks (look like little dirt pucks) but once you soak them in water they expand to a small cylinder shape with a hole in the middle for the seed. I like to soak the pucks in a dilute nute solution (nutes must be specifically for seedlings at this point!) for about 10 minutes, then I plant the seed about 1/4-1/2 an inch under soil and put em under the lights! Once they have formed they're first set of leaves I then plant them in the pot they will grow in for the duration of the grow. I have had
great results with this method.