Whats the oldest seed you've gotten to germinate?
jmsimpson9
15 years ago
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sprouts_honor
15 years agoaulani
15 years agoRelated Discussions
what are your hardest seeds to germinate...
Comments (33)Often when seeds are hard to germinate, it's because they have not been given the proper conditions. I use a heated, lighted greenhouse to germinate most of my seeds. It is kept at 75 degrees during the day, a little cooler at night. Works great for all Solanaceae, Cucurbitaceae, and Fabaceae, which love heat. I couldn't get celery to germinate there, though. That did better in my unheated basement, under conditions which would have rotted the others. I tried growing Martynia (the young pods can be eaten like okra), and attempted to start them in peat pots the first time as transplants. Only 1 of 16 cells came up - disappointing. I threw the dead cells on the garden, and turned them under in the Fall. In June the next year, almost all of those "dead" seeds germinated! They just needed cold treatment to trigger them. It turns out that the best way for me to grow them, is to just let them volunteer. C. chinense peppers often have delayed or staggered germination for me, even from fresh seed. Same for some eggplant; "Casper" has staggered germination even from new seed, while "Diamond" has nearly perfect germination even after 5 years. Go figure. Parsnips give me poor germination, but I'm probably getting them in too late... my soil is generally too waterlogged to plant in Spring. They might be better winter sown, since wild parsnips grow in my area. Bitter melon germinates well in the heated greenhouse - when the seed is only a few years old. It doesn't age as well as cucumbers or melons, though, and has more sporadic germination after about 4 years or so. Some gourds have given me trouble, but that was usually seed from swaps, of unknown age. They can have very prolonged germination. Chilliwin, I've had winged bean seeds sent to me that had zero germination - completely dead. Good seeds will respond to soaking. Soaking them overnight, and planting only those which expand the most, has worked well for me. Those which are slow to expand can be soaked for another night, after which you will probably get a few more good ones. Old seeds can sometimes be revived by a nitrate soak. Add 1 tsp. of a high-nitrate liquid fertilizer to a gallon of water. If an organic fertilizer is used (such as manure tea) then boil the solution to destroy pathogens & allow it to cool. Yeah, boiled manure tea... wouldn't that smell great in the house. ;-) Plant the seeds in sterile seed starter, then soak the pots in a tray of solution overnight, and drain any excess in the morning. If any additional water is needed to keep the soil moist, use only plain water (if chlorinated, allow the water to air out overnight in a bowl). This technique will work on a wide range of seeds, from beans to tomatoes. I had some yardlong bean seed that was sent to me, which looked shriveled & under-developed. The first time I tried to start them in pots, I got 0/32. The next year, I tried the same seed with the nitrate soak method, and got about 60% germination. Too bad they turned out to be daylength sensitive. :-(...See MoreSeed germination and seeding rate for KBG
Comments (8)My advice, and I've seeded a lot of KBG and other mixes, is this: don't put too much down. It's tough to tell when that is, but I'll try to give you a guideline or two: 1. Go get your toothbrush, and set it on the windowsill, with the bristles sticking upward. Imagine that that's your grass, three weeks after seeding. If your seed comes up that dense, every last grass plant will die, except for the ones on the outside edge, about fifty of them, that can actually get some sunlight. The rest will die. No sun. Too closely packed together. Too much seed got put down, too close together. You even got germination, eh? Too bad. They'll all die, except for the ones that are able to get some sun. So in this example, that's TOO CLOSE TOGETHER, or too much seed in one place. That's obviously one extreme. Let's go to the other extreme. If you plant just a handful of seed, to where the ground is barely speckled with some seed, but you can see all the dirt, with a few white flecks (the grass seed), it's too thin. Each plant will likely come up, and be healthy. But you'll have bare spots, even after the grass sprouts, and the fact that KBG spreads out (over a year) won't make up for the fact that you've got a thin lawn there, and could have done better. That's the other extreme. Here's how to find the middle, that successful middle ground. Keep in mind that this is an APPROACH, a way to get started. Bestlawn's advice, just above, is correct: if the seed maker wants 5lbs of seed to cover about 2000 sq feet, you should measure out 2000 sq ft, and decide that that package will be fully used, in that staked out area. But here's how to get started. You, or somebody in your family, enjoys fried eggs. More than that, you or they enjoy pepper on those eggs. Not scrambled, but fried, over easy. When you put pepper on those eggs, you don't DUMP the pepper, you sprinkle it, moving the pepper shaker, so that a nice, evenly distributed amount of pepper is all over the eggs. You look at it. If there isn't enough pepper, you sprinkle it again, very evenly, perhaps even more lightly, but you're adding more pepper, and when you're done (with that application), you'll look at it. Again. If you moved too fast, you'll even more lightly sprinkle the pepper, evenly, and then you'll look at those eggs, until the pepper is JUST RIGHT, as Goldilocks said. Here's the deal. Don't tell me you don't like pepper on eggs. Somebody does, in your family, or circle of friends. Fix the eggs. I want you to, with the pepper eater at your side, lightly, lightly, sprinkle the pepper on those eggs, evenly, to the VERY POINT, that the pepper eater says "NO. No. That's too much, and I'm not eating those eggs. I could have lived with it, last time, but this last bit you put on there, hey, it's just too much, and I wouldn't eat the eggs. I'm not going to do it. Gimme some new eggs, or take these away." That's it. Take a very good look at those eggs. With evenly distributed black spots, the pepper, and now imagine that that's your dirt, with a bunch of evenly distributed white spots (your KBG seed), at about the same density. Nicely, evenly spaced, but you're only going to apply it up to a certain point. That's it. YOu're there. You're done. Move along, and seed somewhere else....See MoreWhat's the fastest growing flower seeds you've planted?
Comments (11)I started some monkey flower seeds (mimulus) back in February, probably about a month ago, and they've been under lights since they germinated. They started blooming yesterday. I had to make myself late for work because I was compelled to pinch all of the buds off so that they would branch out and bloom once I put them outside in a month or so!! Also, I have black eyed susan vine (thunbergia) growing indoors under lights and theya are HUGE! I keep pinching them back as well....See MoreWhat is the 'oddest' pre-treatment you've run across?
Comments (3)Just the other day I was reading an old thread on GW, and a poster was saying he scarified some Black Mondo grass seeds by mixing them with sand and grinding them between two boards. He said it simulated what happens to the seeds when they are swallowed by birds, get ground up in their gizzards, and are then pooped out. I was thinking it might be easier to just rub them between 2 pieces of coarse sand paper. But whatever works right? LOL Gizzard: Also called ventriculus. a thick-walled, muscular pouch in the lower stomach of many birds and reptiles that grinds food, often with the aid of ingested stones or grit....See Moredenninmi
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