rnlabarnes 6yr JBP Contest Thread Entry

[RobertB]

Ordered my 1oz Pinus thunbergii seeds from Schumacher Co on 12-NOV. I am going to get my two small boys to start a couple also to play. They are 4 and 6.

Very excited. Will probably start a little later around March or so when the weather warms a little as I do not have a greenhouse. Maybe I can purchase a small one just for this. We will see and I will post when Ive started, everything that's been done and photos. Looking forward to.

 

[RobertB]

Seeds are in. Now going to store in a dark cool place until beginning of March.

 

[RobertB]

Well, I decided that since I had so many seeds and have never done this before I would go ahead and start a batch. I pulled out somewhere around 200 seeds. I started counting my batch and the amount delivered seemed to be more than ordered by a good bit. I stopped at 500 and the other pile was more than twice the size of my 500 pile.

Since everyone seems to be stratifying first I went ahead and figured I would try that, since my seeds might need a little help to get going (no greenhouse, no heat pads). When soaking them for 24 hrs I did not know to start with warm water or ambient temp tap water, so I tried both. I roughly split the 200 seeds into and soaked in both warm and cool. The temp of the soak didn't seem to make a difference as about 70% roughly, sunk. I pulled the floaters out before the photos below. The purple coffee mug was the warm and the blue was the cool.



I decided to group up the floaters and place in the fridge anyways. Maybe these will sprout and be tough little guys.



Nice BB8 paper towels right... Hopefully the dye or whatever they use to make these doesn't hurt the seeds.

Here is a photo showing the overall pack within a random paper towel. Also, I made sure to really squeeze out the excess water in the paper towels.


Then I marked and placed both bags in the fridge. I plan on keeping probably for about a week. We have some low temps forecasted for this weekend, 28F ish, so I will probably plant next week. I plan on planting half (to a little more than half) in nursery flat with the humidity dome and the pther portion in small pots with different soil mixtures. The nursary flat will be super cheap potting soil. I might try some with sphagnum mixed in or even some in good ole turface fines (been saving these for two years trying to find something to do with these). Will keep this update. Once planted my plan is to keep outside in full morning to mid afternoon sun and bring in the garage when temps go down below 35 ish. I have a nice south facing window in Garage they can stay in for a few days as these temps very rarely last more than a couple days.



Hopefully these BB8 Paper Towels bring out the FORCE in this first batch of JBP. My first batch of pine trees ever.

BTW my bags are a little confusing. I am not stratifying for 24hrs. The seeds were soaked for about 23 hrs.

 

[dirk hoorelbeke]

When they sprout in the garage they have lower light intensity and might get leggy fast, making them weaker when putting outside. Don't start too early. Don't know your climate.

 

[RobertB]

Well the weather has warmed a little finally and I went ahead and sowed the seeds on Sat afternoon. Ended up not starting the non-sinkers. About half were placed in a covered platic tub to help retain moisture and the other half were placed in a wooden grow box I made this winter. I mixed seed starting soil with some fresh sphagnum hoping that the sphagnum might help with damping off if it becomes a problem.

I also started about 20 seeds in a rotisserie chicken box.

Curious to see if the covered vs non covered work better.

These are outside in basically full sun from morning till about 3pm. They are under a plastic covered shade to keep the rain off.

I will bring in if the temps dip to low. Right now weather is good.

 

[RobertB]

Started the first large batch of seeds yesterday the 1st FEB. That is the soak. I am doing about a 36hr soak this time. I started about 500 seeds and almost all sunk within 24hrs. I will wrap and place in fridge tommorow.

Also, I am very excited as I found my first seedling kicking out its tap root (from Jan Batch - must be the force). It was planted a little high in the mix. Hopefully they will be unstoppable soon.

 

[RobertB]

Started the first large batch of seeds yesterday the 1st FEB. That is the soak. I am doing about a 36hr soak this time. I started about 500 seeds and almost all sunk within 24hrs. I will wrap and place in fridge tommorow.

Also, I am very excited as I found my first seedling kicking out its tap root (from Jan Batch - must be the force). It was planted a little high in the mix. Hopefully they will be unstoppable soon.

Batch 2 JBP Contest.

Ok. Had some time today to get seeds into fridge. Put a little more time into this batch as I have the flue.. dam right. It had to be close to 500 seeds total that I put in fridge.

Floaters.


I decided to sort some of the batch into lighter colored seeds and dark. I gave up after two bags of each then just mixed them together.

Light colored seeds.



Dark Colored Seeds.



I then folder the towel around the edges, packed with sphagnum, the covered and folder other side. Wish i would have done something like this with my Jap Maple seeds as some look they are a little moldy. They are about 60 days in the fridge now.





Cover, mist then flip and fold.


I plan on letting these stratify for about 3 weeks.

 

[RobertB]

Really pretty impressive float test.

 

[RobertB]

So I started Batch 3 in the fridge this past weekend, 10FEB18.

Batch 2 planned to be planted this coming weekend, 17FEB18.

Batch 1 is coming along. The two that I started covered have germinated much faster than the batch I started uncovered (shown in wooden box 3). The uncovered ones are however just starting to come up.

Larger Covered box 1 - roughly 100 seeds planted.


Small covered box 2 - roughly 25-50 seeds planted (yes its a rotisserie chicken box).


Box 3 which is one of my small wooden grow boxes. - roughly 100 seeds planted.



Looking good so far.

 

[RobertB]

Seed city.

The strawberry tray had definitely worked the best. These pics of the rising seeds are batch 2. Batch 1 are getting cut / trashed tomorrow.

 

[RobertB]

Finally got to take my first cuttings from batch 1.

Qty 15, 4x4s. All the 4x4s and 3x3s were both filled with med sized lava on bottom to cover drain holes. I basically tried two soil mixes. Half is 1 - Pearlite, 1 - Builders Gravel, 1 - Optisorb DE. All was sifted to be greater than 1/8" but less than 1/4". Second soil mix is 1 - Pine Bark, 1 - Builders Gravel, 1 - Optisorb, which is closer to my typical mix as i normally use Pine Bark in everything. For the section of the pot where the seedling is placed, I tried two mixes. 1 - sand. 2 - 1 part seed mix, 1 part pearilte, 1 part Pine Bark Fines.



3x3s


all ready to start cuttings.


Cuttings taken about 1" from needles.


Then holes with large gauge wire.


All small pots ready to go with my old trusty root hormone, although i can say ive had the best sucess with any cuttings and this stuff. Thats why I used the Dyna Gel on the larger pots.


These will be covered with the domes from a seedling pack like shown in above photo on left flat. Not sure how long but at least for a little while and out of direct sunlight. But very bright shade.

Larger pots with dyna grow rooting hormone. Stuff smells funny.





Last pic shows some that i just trimmed the tap root and potted up normally. I went ahead and put several in some of the pots to try some clumps. We will see. The others are juniper cuttings and serissas.

 

[RobertB]

Oh the biggest one, i barely trimmed the tap root and potted in 1/2 gal container with mix 2. Placed in full sun. I have these dam things springing up all in my other plants which are in full sun (birds?) so I thought what the hell. Will get pics of that one if it makes it.

 

[RobertB]

Started third batch of seedlings in leftover seedling mix yesterday. With our current weather, they will probably be up in a couple days. Probably at least two weeks till seedling cuttings on batch 2. So far the cuttings from batch 1 appear to be doing fine.

 

[RobertB]

Well these things have been growing like crazy here. They are popping up everywhere. The grass, other pots, hanging pots... love it.

Time for the first part of batch 2 cuttings. These were started in the strawberry container where I used a thin layer of sand over the growing medium. Surprisingly, with no pics, but some of the seedlings I pulled up had decent root systems. Its like the strawberry container did some air pruning or something as at least half the seedlings on the edge of the container had a root system rather than just a long tap root. Maybe some more things to look into in future. These probably could have done pretty good without the cutting process but last night I was focused on starting cuttings so that's what I did.

First prepped the containers with soil.

I started by filling the bottom layer with large 1/2" to 3/4" lava. Then filled the gaps with 1/4" to 1/2" pea gravel to about 3" from rim. I then poured my mix till it was about 1 1/2" from rim. Mix consisted of roughly 1.5 parts Screened Pine Bark, greater than 1/8", 1 part Peralite greater than 1/8", 1 part Builders Gravel, screened to 1/8-less than 1/4" and 1 part DE screened greater than 1/8" (optisorb).

Pic of lava rock with pea gravel filled to 3" from top.



Bonsai soil added to 1.5" from inches from the top.


I just used a piece of a toilet paper roll to make the slot for the cutting mix. Was trying a more systematic approach. Filled with bonsai soil around paper roll.


Sand filled.



I skipped the photos of the seedling cuttings. Like I mentioned I should have taken some pics of the seedlings growing around the edge.




A couple close up shots of the some of the cuttings potted up.

 

[namnhi]

Very nice. Wish I have the time. Good luck

 

[RobertB]

Well just couldn't help myself so I pulled one of my first batch cuttings out of the sand to check it for roots. This is what I found. Looking promising.



This is a photo of one that Im not sure how its doing. I would say about 25% of my first batch look like this.


Here is a shot of one of the ones that is looking good.



Here is the photo or my largest seedling from the first batch that I potted in 1/2 gal container. It doesn't seem to be doing great but it does look like a back bud or something starting on the lower left. This has been potted in pure fast draining bonsai mix and is watered twice a day.


Cuttings from 1st batch doing well. To early to tell on second batch of cuttings. I am trying lots of different things with second batch so we will see.

 

[RobertB]

This weekend I started three trays of cuttings. Here is a pic of 1 of the trays.



Here is my cutting bench as of now. Its filling up quick. Having to move my JM seedlings to other areas to make room for the JBP seedling cuttings.

Also, one thing to note, it seems like my seedling are taking about 4 weeks from the time they shed their seed cases till when they are ready for cuttings. I also noticed that while taking some of these cuttings, some of the seedlings had very redish stems, all the way up to the bottom of the needles. Some of the other ones only had red areas around where the seedling entered the soil. Also seemed like the seedlings with the more red stem was further along than the green stem seedlings.

Here is a snapshot of my bench that is covered.

 

[RobertB]

an update. it appears that all of the first batch including the ones that dont look all that great have rooted, as i cannot pull out of soil mix.

 

[dirk hoorelbeke]

This is becoming a nice progression and report. My cuttings from 3 years ago all took. I like your approach. Tx for the update.

 

[RobertB]

This is becoming a nice progression and report. My cuttings from 3 years ago all took. I like your approach. Tx for the update.

dirk, thank you for the kind words. This is serving as a good platform for me to help remember everything. I also have notes at the house but this is convenient.