My germination process

[Neofolis]

My new attempt at germination.  I have followed Kris' tutorial as closely as I could with a little experimentation, where I was uncertain.  I will document below, with pictures, the steps I went through.  If anyone can tell me anything I should change for next time, it would be very much appreciated.

Firstly the seeds, all from RPS "New" listings.

Alsmithia longipes

Areca vestiaria

Asterogyne martiana

Calytrogyne ghiesbreghtiana

[Neofolis]

Three more species.

Heterospathe minor

Pholidostachys pulchra

Pinanga glaucescens

I wasn't sure whether or not I should remove the fibres that were attached to some of the seeds, but I decided, as I wasn't sure, I would leave them as they were and give them a soak.

[Neofolis]

I wasn't sure, when soaking, whether containers should be open or closed.  After asking on another thread, Frank (Tropico) said open is more normal, but I had already got things moving by that time, so being unsure, I did both.  Half of each seed type in open containers and half in closed containers.

As you can see, I put the containers in my new heated propogator, although I didn't switch it on, as I thought with the seeds being on the bottom of the containers, they may get exposed to too much direct heat.  Instead, I put the propogator in my polytunnel, which has been mostly between 27-28°C/81-82°F day and night, which I assumed would be warm enough to keep the water at a sensible temperature.

I decided to put the cover on the propogator, because I didn't want my misters cooling the water in the open pots, but I left the vents on the cover open.

[Neofolis]

On the first water change, 24 hours later, I was a little unsure about the water temperature.  It seemed a little cool, but still not wanting to burn the seeds with bottom heat, I continued with the same approach.  I boiled some more water, waited for it to cool to a reasonable temperature and then drained off the existing water and replaced it.   After 48 hours, I repeated the process, only this time, rather use boiled water, I used some warm RO water, which I thought probably made more sense.

After 72 hours, it was time to end the soaking process, so I drained the containers and put the seeds of each variety back in one container each.

I then rinsed these and the other containers with a weak bleach solution, these with the seeds in them.  I noticed that Jason (Kamipalms) mentioned not to use bleach on the seeds, but thought I would stick with Kris' tutorial.

I then labelled all of the pots to avoid future confusion and left the seeds in the containers to air dry for 30 minutes.

Sorry the pictures in this post are all quite similar.  I had thought it may be better to put the seeds on some kitchen towel, but didn't have any means of sterilizing it and wasn't sure if would stick to the wet seeds.

[Pivi]

Nice Corey!

I wish you a good luck.

Seed propagator looks great.

Keep it comming  ::

[Neofolis]

I had tried to obtained some sphagnum moss from a local shop that used to keep some, but they no longer had any, so I had to use the coir (coco peat) that I already had.

I then soaked the coir in boiling water.  I wasn't sure how that would affect the bucket, but it survived OK, alhtough it did a bit of a funny shape for a short while.

I didn't have time to get proper ziplock baggies, but I noticed in Kris' thread that he had used normal resealable bags, which are avialable from my local supermarket.

I purchased the small size, thinking they would probably be large enough, but on opening them found them to be even larger than I had expected.  I labelled them with a permanent marker and placed them in alphabetical order.

[Neofolis]

I decided to use the containers and bags for germination, as I have seen Bo use, what appear to be,  some fairly shallow containers before and I didn't want to take the chance of the bags not being as air tight as they should be.  I divided the seeds into three and set about getting them into the coir.

I squeezed the coir as best I could to remove excessive moisture.  I wasn't sure if I had actually squeezed to much out, but after hearing many people here say that only minimal moisture is required, hopefully it will be fine.

I filled the shallow containers to about half full and pushed to seeds about half way into the coir.

I then sprinkled a little more coir over the seeds, so they were barely covered.

I put the lid on, complete with lablel and moved onto the next container type.  All of the containers are supposed to be air tight, according to the manufacturers.

[Neofolis]

I selected the correctly labelled bag.

Then put some coir into the bag.  Because the bags are quite large, I only put a fairly small amount of coir in the bottom, as it has also been mentioned that very little medium is required to facilitate germination.  Also I didn't want to run out of coir half way through the seeds.

Again, I pushed the seeds half way into the medium.

Then gave the a light covering with more coir, as I had done in the containers.

[Neofolis]

I then sealed the bag, but I wasn't sure about air in the bag.  With the Alsmithia, I squeezed all of the air out of the bag before sealing it, but with other species I left the air in.

I then repeated the process a third time with the taller containers.  Filled half way "ish" with coir.

Seeds pushed into coir.

Seeds covered.

[Neofolis]

Then lids pushed on firmly, to ensure that it had sealed all round.

Two hours later, yes, I was being rather slow and deliberate, after repeating the process with each of the other species, I had this.

The bags and various containers were then returned to the propogator, still in the polytunnel, this time with the bottom heat on and the vents closed.

As it was not possible to spread everything out so that each container was touching the warm base, I stacked things a little, but made sure that at least some of each species were directly on the base.

[Neofolis]

I had thought about adding all of this to Kris' thread, but didn't want to ruin his masterpiece, so here is my thread.  Is there anything I should have done differently?

Who wants to take votes on what, if anything, will germinate?  What will be first, how soon, etc.  I am going to try to avoid checking anything for at least a week, rather than face the disappointment every day, I may be able to cope better with a weekly disappointment.

[Pivi]

Yeah, you don't need to check everything often.

It will just go on your nerves...

You can leave it like this for 2 weeks and then start checking once a week. Make sure there's no more moisture than it has to be since that can be your biggest enemy.

Good luck!

[Neofolis]

Thanks Petar, I will try to restrain myself for two weeks.  I made sure the medium was well squeezed out and the containers appear to be air tight, so hopefully the moisture levels will be OK.  That may have been one of the biggest flaws with my previous germination attempt, too much moisture.

[bgl]

Corey,

I'm sure you'll get great germination results. I don't have experience with all of these species so can't speculate which ones are likely to be the first ones to sprout BUT Areca vestiaria is a quick and easy seed to germinate. Pinanga seeds are generally also fast and easy. I've had mixed results with H. longipes - sometimes getting zero germination and at other times getting some seeds to sprout but not with a very high percentage. My guess is that some seeds (assuming they're all fresh - which I knew mine were) have very specific requirements as far as the moisture level in the germination medium goes. If it's too dry or too wet they just won't germinate. Others couldn't care less - they will germinate in great numbers no matter what!

I normally don't even check on my seeds for the first two months or so, but I typically just germinate them in room temperature without bottom heat.

Good luck!

Bo-Göran

[Logolight]

Corey, nice work.  I would for sure check the containers every other day, at least to make sure they are retaining their moisture.  Also, my experience has shown that one day the soil looks fine but 3 days later there are signs of fungus.  So keep an eye out for that too.  Although my understanding is that coir is more fungus resistant.  

Good luck.

Dave

[Neofolis]

Thanks for your thoughts Bo.  I tried to use ambient heat previously, thinking that my polytunnel is a plenty warm enough environment.  It may be that heat wasn't the problem, but I have noticed that despite the air temperature being quite reasonable in the polytunnel, the soil temperatures are often rather low, so I thought bottom heat may help.  As the water temperature during my pre-soak seemed low, I appreciate that liquids feel cooler than air, I didn't want to take the chance of insufficient heat causing poor results.  I can only assume that the lack of solar radiation in my polytunnel is the reason for solids and liquids staying cool, while the heater and lights do a reasonably job of increasing air temperature.

Dave, I think I will struggle to not check things regularly anyway.  If I notice anything that I suspect to be out of the ordinary, be it a fungus or otherwise, I will be straight back here asking a million and one questions again.

I've just thought.  Something that I didn't adhere to on Kris' tutorial was the dark room part at the end.  Where the propogator is positioned, it is in partial shade, but still a relatively well lit area.  Would I be well advised to cover it, to reduce the amount of light entering?

[Kris]

Dear Neo  

first of all i would like to call you Neo,since iam a fan of the Matrix Movie series,so that name is a favouriate.so don't get me wrong when i call you by your memebrs name..

And seeing your work iam simply stunned by the amount of dedication & strain you have put in your work ! as Bo Goran has state you should get fairly good germination rate with that procedure,and iam tempted to add this thread's link to my thread since iam trying my level best to added lots of seeds varities to that thread so as it will be benificial to all new memebers who want to practise this palm seed germination for very first time.

And iam very glad that my work was of some use to you.

But as i always said there is no substitute for fresh seeds and iam also very proud of our memebers who take pains in distributing free seeds to thy forum britherin,those that they grow in their gardens...i must admit that this site is the best & sweetest site since all,if not most are so willing to do their part in propogating their perticular species in other countries & geographical locations..

And Dear Neo what i recently noticed is socking of soft seeds_just 24 hours is sufficient and for hardened shells like Jubea,breha armeta..3 days of socking will do.to my surprise i found that more the socking those seeds grow fungus or mould in them..even some cycas species exhibit this problem !And never use perilite along with the coir dust,they create havoc..to the entire germination process,the seeds germinate the roots rot due to the excess water retained by these perilite compound !

lots of love to you,

Kris  

[Neofolis]

Thanks Kris, your thread was invaluable, so I will largely have you to thank, if my germination rate improves.  Hopefully in a year or so, I will have lots of healthy seedlings to find homes for, of course I will be keeping one or two of each species.

I should probably get some fungicide, so that I have some readily available if a problem occurs.