Sounds like you did most things alright, you could have sterilised your medium with boiling water and I would have used a thicker layer of media - 2-3 mm will dry out fairly quickly.

Bil seeds are brown, you might be worrying over nothing - they should shoot between 7-10 days under your conditions.

I wouldn't throw them out for a month, I have found Billbergia seedlings to be very forgiving - don't give up.

Lisa has a great little guide below that I have used to grow bils from seed.

If they do die, a photo might help for the post mortem.

Rick

Here is a link that might be useful: Neo seed growing tips

You can sterilise your medium in the microwave for about 4 mins also. I normally use about 1cm thickness to plant on.

What color were the seeds when you popped them out of the berry/fruit? What color was the berry/fruit, was it ripe enough I wonder? Did you clean them of the gooey gel? I think everyone has slightly different cleaning/sterilizing methods for the seeds and I think some people don't even clean off the fruit's juice/gel.

Can you post a photo, rogiert? Brown color doesn't signify rot to me. If you see fuzzy white mold or fungus growing on the seeds, that is another matter.

Hi rogiert,
I am nowhere as experienced as some of the experts on this forum but I do get reasonable results by sowing my seed in take-away food containers which are 1/3 to 1/2 full of damp Coir Peat and which have been microwaved on high for 5 minutes with the lids on.

When they are cool, I just squeeze the seed (goo and all) straight from the berries onto the Coir Peat. I seperate the seed as best I can with a pair of stainless steel splinter forceps and then spray it with water from a hand held sprayer to help distribute the seed even further before I then replace the lid.

The seed capsules below are neoregelias, but I use the same method with Billgergias as well.

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I then put the containers on a wire-mesh shelf on the wall of an enclosed north facing porch in good light but no direct sun.

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After that, the plants get no more water until they are transplanted. The plants below have had no water since they were first sown and as you can see, there is still sufficient moisture to support growth.

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Hope this helps in some way, all the best, Nev.

Nev,

That is a very tidy looking set-up, I'll have to eat a lot more takeaway and try and copy it.

Thanks,

Rick

Hi Rick,
You can also get the containers at Woolworths for $2 for a pack of 5.

All the best, Nev.

Hi all,

Thanks for the follow up.

They were ivory colored before i placed them on the soil. I had another Pod which was rotten: Same brown color as now, so i figured: Maybe their rotten.

About the soil: I got it from a friend who sells sterilized spagnum in his webshop. The Peat was boiled a few minutes in a pan with boiling water.

The pod looks like a round ball with hairy substance out of the end (dead flowers). It has 2 rooms per pod with each 20 seeds. I keep forgetting the Billbergia name, but i got it from a german friend.