Today, I destratified my holly seeds, after they had spent 60 days in warm stratification and 61 days in cold stratification.
The good news is, they didn't dry out.
The bad news is, they got mold.
Hmmm...
In the beginning, I think there were about 30 seeds. Some got buried, some stayed on the surface of the CryoVat. The mold is of a type that seems to operate only on the surface. Therefore, it is possible that there may still be live seeds in there somewhere.
Whatever.
I planted them in #18, previously a lychee / baobab nursery which never seemed to stay moist. I'm pretty sure everything in there is dead; on the other hand, it never got moldy, either. So I remoisturized it, dumped in the CryoVat, and raked it in.
When I think about it, the CryoVat was scalded soil, which may account for the mold being only on the surface. Or not. Whatever.
Then, I threw a few of my harvested morning glory seeds on top of the holly nursery. Partly because I'm not having any luck with sprouting lately and morning glories are easy to sprout, but more importantly, because I have trouble maintaining suitable conditions in my nursery planters. The little geranium pots with the coffee, kwyjibo, baobabs and cherries are always either too dry or too wet. (Good news though, no mold, except one of the kwyjibo seeds rotted completely. I'm guessing it wasn't clean to begin with, seeing as none of the other pasteurized soil has any issues.) And the thing with seeds is, you can't tell if it's too wet or too dry until they're dead. So I figure, morning glories will let me know whenever it's too dry, and absorb excess water quickly when it's too wet.
That being said, if you're gonna try the same thing at home, don't go too crazy with them. Morning glories are jungle plants, they can tolerate disgustingly wet conditions that favour mold. In fact, jungles are pretty much built on mold. So just because your morning glories are happy, doesn't mean everyone else is ok. It's just a guideline, really.
To get back to my poor holly seeds, now that they've spent four months in stratification, they're still supposed to take "16 months to three years" to sprout. That is to say, we should get something some time between February 2013 and October 2014.
Um...
That's not gonna work. I can't say for certain that there are any mold-free seeds now, but I'm pretty sure there won't be in three years.
Thus the moral is, I must try again. But this time, I'll seed them outside in a large container. That seems to work much better for stratification than messing with small containers in the fridge. If I seed them at the end of June, they'll have two warm months and two increasingly cold months, and then come inside just as the ground is freezing outside. That's a much better approximation of natural conditions.
Better yet, I'll make two batches. One will come inside at the end of October, one will stay out on the balcony. The more methods you try, the more you might succeed.
Also, I need to identify the perfect monitor plant. It has to be fairly shallow-rooted, to monitor conditions near the surface, where the seeds are; and it has to be fussy about moisture levels, and have a clear way of communicating when it's unhappy, and whether the problem is too much or too little water.
Hmmmm... I'm thinking nemophilas.
Ah well. As I always say, there's always next year.
The good news is, they didn't dry out.
The bad news is, they got mold.
Hmmm...
In the beginning, I think there were about 30 seeds. Some got buried, some stayed on the surface of the CryoVat. The mold is of a type that seems to operate only on the surface. Therefore, it is possible that there may still be live seeds in there somewhere.
Whatever.
I planted them in #18, previously a lychee / baobab nursery which never seemed to stay moist. I'm pretty sure everything in there is dead; on the other hand, it never got moldy, either. So I remoisturized it, dumped in the CryoVat, and raked it in.
When I think about it, the CryoVat was scalded soil, which may account for the mold being only on the surface. Or not. Whatever.
Then, I threw a few of my harvested morning glory seeds on top of the holly nursery. Partly because I'm not having any luck with sprouting lately and morning glories are easy to sprout, but more importantly, because I have trouble maintaining suitable conditions in my nursery planters. The little geranium pots with the coffee, kwyjibo, baobabs and cherries are always either too dry or too wet. (Good news though, no mold, except one of the kwyjibo seeds rotted completely. I'm guessing it wasn't clean to begin with, seeing as none of the other pasteurized soil has any issues.) And the thing with seeds is, you can't tell if it's too wet or too dry until they're dead. So I figure, morning glories will let me know whenever it's too dry, and absorb excess water quickly when it's too wet.
That being said, if you're gonna try the same thing at home, don't go too crazy with them. Morning glories are jungle plants, they can tolerate disgustingly wet conditions that favour mold. In fact, jungles are pretty much built on mold. So just because your morning glories are happy, doesn't mean everyone else is ok. It's just a guideline, really.
To get back to my poor holly seeds, now that they've spent four months in stratification, they're still supposed to take "16 months to three years" to sprout. That is to say, we should get something some time between February 2013 and October 2014.
Um...
That's not gonna work. I can't say for certain that there are any mold-free seeds now, but I'm pretty sure there won't be in three years.
Thus the moral is, I must try again. But this time, I'll seed them outside in a large container. That seems to work much better for stratification than messing with small containers in the fridge. If I seed them at the end of June, they'll have two warm months and two increasingly cold months, and then come inside just as the ground is freezing outside. That's a much better approximation of natural conditions.
Better yet, I'll make two batches. One will come inside at the end of October, one will stay out on the balcony. The more methods you try, the more you might succeed.
Also, I need to identify the perfect monitor plant. It has to be fairly shallow-rooted, to monitor conditions near the surface, where the seeds are; and it has to be fussy about moisture levels, and have a clear way of communicating when it's unhappy, and whether the problem is too much or too little water.
Hmmmm... I'm thinking nemophilas.
Ah well. As I always say, there's always next year.
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