WSteinhoff 6 year JBP contest entry

[wsteinhoff]

I went ahead and ordered my seeds since it looks like spring is coming here early in south-central Ohio. 1 oz from Sheffields Seed Co should arrive Monday.

 

[Anthony]

Please start a forest on x acres of land.
1 ounce, my goodness.
Good Day
Anthony

 

[wsteinhoff]

 

[wsteinhoff]

Soaked overnight in hot water. Very few floaters out of the roughly 1700-2000 seeds.



Planted in coconut fiber and placed under lights.


Since I have so many seeds only a couple hundred probably ended up spread around in the flats. These will be seedling cuttings. The rest will be stratified for a month to compare it's effect germination rates.

 

[wsteinhoff]

I had asked @Bonsai Nut to remove my entry from the contest. He suggested I close my entry with my experience. No seeds from Scheffields germinated. Why, I have no idea but I will not buy from them again. I bought a small amount of more seeds from treeseeds.com which germinated very well, same as they did last year. I went into the greenhouse yesterday to find that tray of seedlings decimated by what had to be mice. No other seedlings were touched, just the pines. Being now months behind I have no plans to buy more seeds.
My takeaway from this experience is where to buy and where not to buy my tree seeds and that my seed trays should've been covered despite being inside the greenhouse and up high off the ground. I see nothing wrong with my growing methods and can only assume the Scheffields seeds were too old. Especially since buying from another supplier and giving the same treatment to the seed gave me high germination.

 

[dirk hoorelbeke]

Thanks for sharing. Not fun to lose a crop like that. More time to focus on other stuff...

 

[wsteinhoff]

More time to focus on other stuff...

Yep and that's exactly how I'm seeing it. I thought it'd be fun to do this contest but when I think about it I'm actually much more into deciduous trees.