TOPIC: Anyone else having trouble with germination?

Whitjr

Seedlings that are just coming through the mulch or have just emerged but have not spread their leaves out completly are sensitive to frost. If it's a mild frost, it usually just deforms the leaves but does not kill them. Does not seem to effect older plants. But it takes a very low temp this late in the spring to cause a damaging frost in the woods.

I might add that I experienced a frost several years ago that caused deformed leaves on seedlings , but did not kill them.

classicfur

but they were smiling no?. Smiling is a sign of embryo growth.

guy

Guy

No smiling seeds, but healthy embryo's. Over 80% germination.

classicfur

It's a lot warmer here where I live near greensboro, nc, so my backyard bed in the wood line behind my house is not subject to the cool in the mountains. We have already had some 90 degree temps.

That bed is up, and it looks like the count of seedings that are up is about 50 there. We planted a bit less than 1/4 lb back there. If there are approx 7000 seeds in a lb, then 1/4 lb would give approx 1750 seeds.

50 ./. 1750..... 3% germination there so far. I can't find any seed in the leaf mulch to look at.

I've got a big population of squirrels back there, we have moles here as well, and the ground back there is not really woods, it's old tobacco field edge that hasn't been loved very much. It's a sorry faxsimile of real woods soil, even with the addition of lime and gypsum.

I'm not saying that this an \"apple-to-apple\" comparison of what the seeds are doing in my mountain beds... due to the vast differences in soil/weather. That's my hopefulness anyway, that the beds in the mountains are doing better...

Well, a few new ones are still coming up. I'm just trying to figure out if I did something wrong.

I put out three beds last fall. The main bed got a little more than a pound of seeds, and has so far yielded maybe 100 plants. A second bed is on the other side of a flooded creek, can't get to it. A third small bed, sort of a last minute thing, is doing better. I didn't cover the main bed with mulch, that may have been a factor, as the small bed got a leaf covering by default.

Notes for next fall: Answer this question completely. Put out a series of beds: one bare ground, one with mulch. Try rake and scatter, and use the precision seed planter (what I used last fall) on another, seedstick on another. So far the one conclusion I can reach is - for both bed and hillside plantings, bare ground is not good.

And I wonder if the heat/drought of last fall was an issue.

The 2YO roots I put out last fall have done great, evenly divided between 2 and 3 prong, and at least one 4 prong. Found one root that had been uncovered by erosion, just the bottom tip still in the ground, and it had put up a 2 pronger. Covered it up, it's doing well. I want seeds from that one, a tough little fellow.

And all the rain has the wild ginger, bloodroot and trillium really coming up. Got one part of the hillside that's thick with jack in the pulpit.