With two species of the pine I am planning on growing ready to be sprouted I prepare my growing mediums to start them off. Many of the other species still need months in the fridge before they are ready. And the warm stratification seeds need another week or two before they go in the fridge. But two are indeed ready to be planted.
If they take, they will need a bigger pot to grow in, but for now these blocks will be fine. I am also planting some in dirt as well, but curious how well these rockwool starter plugs work. I have used them to great success with cuttings, but never tried them with seeds.
Worst comes to worst if they do not take I will just start my left over seeds and grow them in dirt. But these blocks are great as I can put them in the ground or pot when ready and no need to disturb the roots of the plant.
The two species of pine I will be planting are Pinus Pinea also known as a Mediterranean stone pine, umbrella pine or parasol pine. The other is Pinus Eldarica also known as Mondell Pine, Afgan Pine or Desert Pine.
First I must separate the sphagnum peat moss from the seeds, this takes awhile as I must find all 20 seeds in the dirt. I switched from paper towels to this medium half way through stratification. It helped a lot with dealing with mold.
Upon separating the seeds, I put them in a corner and count them.. missing one.. well damn I cannot find it. Its okay.
I do the same for the other seeds, even harder they are small things.
Since the rockwool blocks are more alkaline based on the material they are made of. I need to lower the PH, so I squeeze 5 limes in a gallon of water. Then I will soak the blocks in there before placing seeds inside.
I place most of one kind of seed in the blocks and the other in the dirt. But two will be a "control" so to say, I placed them in rockwool blocks too.
I hope it works well for seeds too. I cut them up and place them in the bucket.
Soaking them for around 20 minutes I take them out.
While the rockwool was soaking I put the other seeds in their dirt mediums.
Half of them are covered in the myco poweder.
We can see all the blocks lined up, I tried squeezing the water out of the one of the far right. Well I crushed it.. So the rest I just left soaked.
Ignore the cucamelon, that is a old label.
After getting the seeds for the plugs covered in myco powder I place them in the blocks. Separating the two so I know how each will do.
I used a sharpie pen and made little holes in each and placed the seed inside. Then scrunched up around the sides to seal on the hole.
So now I wait, and make sure each of the mediums have enough moisture.. But not too much. The blocks seem to be drying out on their own so that is good. I will only add water when they completely dry up. And the same for the dirt cells. Only giving them water once a week or so.
Hoping in a week or two I see them sprout.
Previous posts about this project:
@solominer/planning-on-growing-nut-producing-pine-trees
@solominer/starting-the-germination-process-on-my-pine-seeds