Posted by Tom Broome on 3/10/2008, 9:32 pm, in reply to "Encephalartos Gratus seeds"
205.188.117.67
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: I recently acquired a batch of gratus
: seeds, and have found a fair number
: of them have a problem. The seeds
: have been cleaned, sowing time is in
: may, however, the "hatch"
: where the radicle should emerge has
: a black fungus on them.
: With the 'enemy' rot at the 'gate'
: so to speak, would it be advisable
: to treat the seeds with a
: fungicide?, and if so, what kind?.
: I do have a few 'strong' kinds
: available.. By the time the seeds
: are sown, the rot likely will spread
: if untreated.
:
There are a few batches around right now, but if you got some of those $1 seeds being offered a few weeks ago, I know your problem very well. I got some of those and was sent some extras because they were not 100% good. I cut some open and they were already black inside and half dried up, and can't be saved. Some are just going bad now. What I did was soak the seeds in a bleach solution (usually about 10% clorox) That will clean up anything on the surface in a matter of minutes. It wouldn't hurt as well to soak the seeds in a fungicide (I like Daconil personally)or instead of making a water solution with that, you can make a paste by mixing it thicker and it sort of sticks to the seeds better for a longer time.
This may be an advanced method for germination and I don't want anyone trying this unless they have some experience, but if a seed like this batch that has full sized embryos already (I checked, they did)you can carefully remove the hatch and the seed will sprout within 2 to 3 days. This works on Enceph seeds that are still good that have been sitting around for up to 2 years. When I first experimented, I did this, and ferox seeds that had been in the medium for close to 2 years, all the ones that were still good all sprouted in 2 days. With this recent batch, I did this, and got 80% germination of the good looking seeds within 4 days. I potted the bad looking ones seperately and a few of those came up as well.
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