I split open several more seeds from my batch from Scott Persons, and am more convinced now that the embryo's are typically 2 mm. I tried food coloring but that didn't improve the pictures for me, so I won't bother posting more. For reference, I float tested the whole 5 lb batch and 2 oz floated (2.5%). I'd say there's another ounce or two of sand in the bag as well but of course that doesn't float. Anyway, we'll see what happens. Planted about 2 lbs weekend before last and will try to get in another 2 lbs this weekend. We don't have a lot of leaf fall yet in Virginia, at least where I am, so I'm a little worried about having enough cover. Fortunately, its been cool and not too dry. Next year I'll probably wait longer.
This is the first year I actually weighed out seeds instead of just trying to guess a seeding rate of 4 per sq ft. And boy am I glad I did. I'm now sure that I greatly under seeded last year, probably 2.5-3 per sq ft. The more successful plots had about 1 per sq ft that survived through the end of July so probably had survival rate of 30-40%. Not that impressive, but significantly better than I had before. From now on will be doing the detailed inventory that some of you recommend in the spring to measure germination and again in late summer to measure survival.
