null_void's japanese black pine entry

null_void

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I've been told by several people that pines are not good trees for beginners. I believe them - I had no plans to start working on pines until I had at least a few years of experience under my belt. After all, there are plenty of types of trees out there, right?

But then you had to go and frame this as science. I am not a scientist (unless you count computer science), but I am quite a big fan. This I can do. So I ordered some seeds from treeseeds.com, which arrived last week. As others have reported, they sent an abundance of extra seeds.

Order #1009
Placed on: Jan. 27th 2018
1x Japanese Black Pine Seeds
Select: 100 seeds

Order #1026
Placed on: Jan. 28th 2018
1x Japanese Black Pine Seeds
Select: 100 seeds

seed_packs.jpg

I will only be using the seeds from one of the orders - the other package is for someone else. I'll admit that I was too lazy to count the seeds - not a great trait for someone claiming to like science. ;)

I would like to try a number of growing condition combinations to see what happens. I planted a control group tonight - 36 seeds straight into a tray. I'm following the soil recommendations found here for this group - a mixture of akadama, pumice and lava covered with some coarse sand. I suspect that different soil types might be interesting to experiment with, so if anyone has recommendations that they'd like to see, feel free to mention them and I'll see if I can get my hands on the components.

control_seeds.jpg
control_tray_2018-02-06.jpg

The rest of the seeds are soaking. I saw a suggestion (on the page mentioned above) that one might try both hot and cold water for soaking, which seemed like a reasonable suggestion. In the picture below, the left glass contains cold water and the right glass contains hot water. It was interesting to see that some seeds in the hot water sank almost immediately. I wonder if that has to do with the change in density of water at different temperatures?

soaking_start.jpg

I do plan to cold stratify them once they've finished soaking. Here's hoping some of them live! In six years, maybe I'll be ready to style a pine. If not, then maybe I can at least hand a few over to people at my local club.
 

null_void

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The seeds finished soaking today.

soaking_end.jpg

The temperature of the water certainly made a difference between which seeds floated and which sank, though who knows what kind of correlation that might have to germination. It occurred to me about 24 hours in that I probably used water that was too hot (the seeds on the right). The dispenser I used heats water to a fairly high temperature (presumably high enough to make tea or coffee, but not boiling). While I'm sure the temperature dropped fairly quickly, I have no idea how heat-tolerant pine seeds are. If this batch ends up being dead, I'll try soaking a new batch at room temperature.

I placed each batch inside a paper towel with some moss, and sealed them in bags. They went into the refrigerator tonight.

cold_stratify_start.jpg
 

null_void

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About a month after I planted my control group, the first seedlings are just starting to break the surface. Not sure if that's a normal amount of time. Apparently the seeds have migrated toward the edges of the cells I planted them in - maybe I'm watering too vigorously or something?

sprout1.jpg
sprout2.jpg

My other seeds have been in the fridge for just under 30 days now. Probably time to plant some of those.
 

Wires_Guy_wires

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JPB were my first ever bonsai seedlings. Something close to 3 years now, and still going strong. Ok, I've lost 200 out of the 210 because I just didn't care for them 3 years ago..
Your substrate seems a little wet for pines, they have a tendency to rot at the stem base if that's the case, especially in warmer environments. Sowing in a coarse substrate is always a good idea, but I've noticed way less issues when it comes to watering, drought, cold and heat if I'm using a more 'regular horticulture mixture'.. I use a 50/50 potting soil/sand mixture and they take around a month to germinate as well, even without soaking them first.

Anyhow, good luck with them! I'm considering joining this contest as well.
 

null_void

Seedling
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JPB were my first ever bonsai seedlings. Something close to 3 years now, and still going strong. Ok, I've lost 200 out of the 210 because I just didn't care for them 3 years ago..
Your substrate seems a little wet for pines, they have a tendency to rot at the stem base if that's the case, especially in warmer environments. Sowing in a coarse substrate is always a good idea, but I've noticed way less issues when it comes to watering, drought, cold and heat if I'm using a more 'regular horticulture mixture'.. I use a 50/50 potting soil/sand mixture and they take around a month to germinate as well, even without soaking them first.

Anyhow, good luck with them! I'm considering joining this contest as well.

Alright, thanks for the advice! I had just watered them in this picture, but I did notice that the sand seems to stay wet for a long time. Maybe I'll play around with the soil mix when I plant my other seeds and see how they do.
 

Anthony

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Try this for the first time ------------ just learn to keep them, healthy.

You can try the fancy stuff next year,
Good Day
Anthony
 
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