Need desprate help germinating my Sugar Maple Seeds
yms1975
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yms1975
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Are sugar maple Sammaras/seeds ripe now?
Comments (25)Yeah, it looks like the samaras were shed. Sometimes one windy day can carry them everywhere. They can hybridize. As Dax said, it is probably black maple. Black and Sugar can hybridize easily, and in fact, it's sometimes thought that the Sugar Maple cultivar 'Green Mountain' is actually a hybrid of black and sugar, but I don't think that has ever been proven. Sugar Maple, I believe can hybridize with any of the other "sugar-type" maples: Acer nigrum (Black Maple) Acer grandidentatum (Bigtooth Maple) Acer leucoderme (Chalk Maple) Acer floridanum (AKA Acer barbatum) Florida Maple or Southern Sugar Maple Acer skutchii (Mexican sugar maple) I don't know if it can hybridize with others, but I'm pretty sure it cannot hybridize with the other common Eastern maples, at least not the commonly found large ones (Red and Silver). I don't know if they're pollen-compatible, but the bloom times don't overlap, so it at least won't happen in nature. I also don't believe it can cross with Norway Maple (Acer platanoides), despite their superficial similarities, they're actually not that closely related. There may be some Asian maples they could cross with, but I'm not sure. Someone more knowledgeable can chime in I'm sure....See Morecan norway maple produce selfed seed, or seed with sugar maple?
Comments (51)Interesting, the publication by Wright also shows hybrids with Acer platanoides (Norway maple) and Acer negundo (Boxelder maple), as well as Acer saccharinum (Silver maple) and Acer negundo (Boxelder maple). It would be interesting to see such a study replicated, and for a full growth cycle for the hybrids to take place. I live in Utah, and the native Acer grandidentatum (Bigtooth maple, close sugar maple relative) flowers at the same time as the invasive non-native Norway maple in our foothills at about 4,500 ft. Sometimes bees cross-polinate them, I'm sure of it when both trees grow near. Bees still prefer the Norway maple for its showy and nectar rich flowers. Both insects and wind pollinate them, but mostly wind because sometimes it is too cold for bees to work. I have grown some potential hybrids between the Norway and Bigtooth maple, from a Bigtooth maple 'female' tree, and the seedlings were weak, waxy/glossy, and lime green possibly from iron chlorosis. None of those made it after a week......See MoreNeed a smaller tree for between 2 Sugar Maples
Comments (24)After the maples develop enough the smaller-growing tree is going to look squeezed. And I certainly wouldn't plant anything choice and expensive where it was expected that companion trees were going to overwhelm and spoil it later. Probably better to plant shrubs that will not try to grow up into the realm of the maples, read visually therefore as a third leg. And multiple specimens, of multiple kinds so it isn't just the one thing looking as though being hustled by two thugs: "Come with us, buddy!" Another thing to consider is adding more sugar maples later, to produce a grove effect with different age classes, as in a wild stand. This would look less stiff than having just two of them by themselves, spaced well apart. Since in grove planting the grove of multiple examples of one kind of tree is the feature - and not the individual trees - the spacing is closer....See MoreNeed some advice on growing maple trees, from seed.
Comments (5)Maple seeds germinate best when harvested and planted while still green and soft. (Of course, you don't do this before they have sized up fully). When picked instead after they become hard and brown then they have a full dormancy that has to be overcome. Which is what you have been trying to do. The purpose of this dormancy is to prevent the seeds from sprouting at a dumb time, like the middle of winter. So when a particular kind of seed is known to need alternating hot and cold periods to sprout what is being done is duplication of the passing of seasons, starting from when the seeds would drop to the ground during autumn in nature. If a kind of plant has seeds that sprout a root first and then a shoot later, during a different season then it may take quite awhile for them to be ready to be potted on. Also there are some kinds where different seeds from the same batch sprout at different times, perhaps over a period of several years. Again this will function as a safeguard, in this case assuring that if a given year turns out to have some killing event like severe cold or drought the entire generation is not lost to it....See Moreyms1975
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