Let Nature do it - Seeds I’ve failed with before

[Haines' Trees]

Oh, and the tray of cherries I put out of the winter, still bupkis. That’s what I get for not scarifying them.

The bald cypress on the other hand, have responded quite well to the natural treatment. There are 20 growing at the moment with more popping up every day

 

[Frozentreehugger]

It seems that my test group of cherries is pretty much done doing anything. No new germination in the last 7 days so I’m gonna call it good now. So here are our results of the 5 batches of 100 seeds each with a different treatment:
Control: 9% germination
Scratch: 21%
Sanded: 19%
Shelled before 24hr soak: 72%
Shelled after 24hr soak: 68%

So the conclusion we can draw from these results is pretty clear: any treatment at all will improve germination odds, but properly opening the shell via cracking it works best, either before or after a 24 hour soak in water.

I’ll be the first to admit that there were a few variables I could have controlled better in this experiment (weight of dry soil in each bag, mL of water added, I could keep going) but I’ll still confidently stand by these results. I had a second set, nearly the same, just without me counting out the seeds and this is what we have there:
View attachment 433546
No activity in the control, a small amount in the scratch and sand, while the shelled seeds went hog wild. Yes these have gotten away from me… bad tree keeper.

Well you solved the question cracking the seeds is obviously the answer . Great work

 

[Haines' Trees]

I don’t think I’ve made a satisfying ending for the BC seeds yet….
Not 100% germination but there are still ones popping up here and there. I’m happy enough with the results

 

[Srt8madness]

Beautiful! I've tried to start bc indoors under a 7" humidity dome, they get up to the top and get soggy looking.

 

[Haines' Trees]

Mid August update on the Bald Cypress. I’d say they’re going pretty strong.

There are 28 individuals growing right now. That’s a 2 inch roll of tape in the tray for scale; the tallest one on the right side comes in at 22 inches (about 55cm).

I’m gonna repeat what I did with these in maybe 3 or 4 trays, these were very easy to get to this point. No maintenance really apart from water, which they never say no to, and a small amount of Biogold scattered around.