Thoughts on Early Germination?

Haines' Trees

Shohin
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Location
Naperville, Il
USDA Zone
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I pulled my JWP seeds from warm strat today to move to cold. I inspected the seeds, as you do, and found a trio that have decided to sprout before going through the cold strat process. D09BBBBF-7643-461E-A93F-91FED11FC78E.jpeg
In previous years I’ve left these early germinating seeds in the bag for cold strat to try and slow them down, but for the most part they’d just become a food source for mold.

I’m torn between dropping them in a pot and seeing if I can keep them alive until better weather or just forgoing the headache of having three seedlings to babysit inside. It’s waaay too cold right now (I’m in the Chicago area) but I do have a setup with lamps, growing domes, and heating mats since I also have saguaro cacti that I’m growing for kicks.

Thoughts and opinions?
 

JeffS73

Shohin
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South Yorkshire, UK
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Personally, I'd sow them! They're so slow, you'll welcome any small advantage. What regime did you use for scarification and stratification? My JWP germination rate was poor last time I tried. Are you root cutting?
 

Haines' Trees

Shohin
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Location
Naperville, Il
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That’s sort of what I was leaning towards, since everything is set up already.

I don’t do any scratching of the seed coats, just a 24 hour soak in room temp water followed by 60 day warm -> 90 day cold. Im pretty sure JWP germinate at a lower rate than other similar pines. Last year I had probably the best rate I’ve ever had at about 70%. Last year I did some minor root cutting on some of them and I didn’t lose those ones at a higher rate than the ones I didn’t. We’ll see what happens once spring comes around. That might be when I know for sure.
 
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