After a few days in the dirt and the blocks, I am starting to see signs of life coming from the seeds. Using the mycorrhizal fungi on some of them seems to be having an effect already with faster growth than the others. They spent the last few weeks in the fridge, simulating winter time. And now they think its spring, so they are emerging under my florescent tubes. Now they will grow and soon be too big for those little plant cell they are in. But for now I will wait for their roots to form more.
Using a mix of dirt and blocks we will see how well they do in each. Honestly I did not split them up evenly, so most of the Stone pine seeds are in dirt and most of the Mondell pines are in blocks.
Its so funny looking when the pine seeds emerge from their seeds.
I inoculated the seeds with mycorrhizal fungi, the label columns have the fungi and the non label columns do not. It would seem there is faster growth coming from the "myco" side. Very interesting...
Wondering how soon I will need to transplant these in bigger containers. Maybe a few weeks, need to start thinking about their next pot size.
Seems like the dirt seeds are doing better, but honestly I would have needed to split them up evenly to really tell. The Stone pine seed is much larger than the Mondell seed. So I am guessing the Stone pine may just grow faster and bigger.
I would not be surprised if they caught up though.
Using these trays works well for watering, all the water stays cleanly inside.
On the non inoculated side we can see growth as well, just not as fast.
Seems like the stratification worked.. Using sphagnum peat moss in ziploc bags seems to work well.
Soon we should see them shed the shell and start growing outwards.
At first I thought they were growing upside down, so I started pulling up around it and saw it was rooted.. lol I guess this is normal.
Its been going well with these seeds so far, its easy going now. But I think a few months from now, to a year they will be a lot to deal with..lol
Glad to share these posts on Hive, it lets me go back and see their amazing progress.
Above is one Korean pine that emerged before its stratification process was over, it just wanted to get started..lol! Well the other Korean pines will be waiting longer unless they do not emerge too. They will go through a cold stratification process after they finish their warm stratification that they currently are going under.
Rockwool blocks:
I spotted a few seeds emerging from the rockwool blocks as well, they are mostly the Mondell pines. But a couple have the Stone pines in there too, but mostly in the dirt.
Been misting the blocks as they need more moisture.
Turning one over we can see a root coming through the backside. When the roots are coming out more its ready to be planted.
Soon more of the seeds will be done with their stratification and will go into dirt. But for now these seeds will keep growing, forming new leaves and roots. I will need to feed the fungi that is living on the roots, as they need to eat too until the plant can feed them itself. So lots to do to care for these little seedlings with their fungi partners.
Previous posts on this project:
@solominer/planting-the-pine-seeds-in-starter-plugs
@solominer/planning-on-growing-nut-producing-pine-trees
@solominer/starting-the-germination-process-on-my-pine-seeds