in 15 years... on my plant .... i dont think i have seen a cone .. nor pollen ...

wouldnt the first issue be.. whether seed is available ...

or do you already have a source???/

ken

I have tried seed.

Tip: Don't do what I did.

0.0% germination. Sad.

I have tried this, with moderate success. I germinated some seed in a greenhouse and some seed outside in South Georgia during a cold winter. The germination rate in the greenhouse was good, but the damping off was 100%. The germination rate outside was less good, but there was no perceptible damping off.

So you might germinate in a warmer environment and, then, quickly move the seedlings outside.

I have sown Pseudolarix in the past and got decent germination. Seed has to be fresh as it has a short term viability. It is also important to realize that Pseudolarix has a naturally low fertility rate with many empty seeds. Germination is enhanced by a cold period (1--5 degrees C. / 33 -- 41 degrees F.) for 1 to 2 months.

Young plants in pots should be protected from severe frost. (I didn't and lost my plants in the winter of 2012).

This post was edited by GardenPrince on Sun, Nov 23, 14 at 15:35

How much growth in the first season should I expect? 2" like Pinus strobus, or 2' like metasequoia?

"It is also important to realize that Pseudolarix has a naturally low fertility rate with many empty seeds"

That's only because most seed is collected from fairly isolated cultivated plants. If it was collected in the wild where numerous trees grow reasonably close to each other, I'd expect a 90% germination rate like most other Pinaceae.

"How much growth in the first season should I expect?"

My prediction would be 10-15 cm. Less in an area with cooler summers, more if you give it extra light and warmth.

Resin

You're right, I shouldn't have written "naturally low" when it comes to fertility rate. If a couple of Pseudolarix trees are growing together the fertility rate may be decent to good.

In an article in Arnoldia (journal of the Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University) on Pseudolarix it reads: "that most trees reported in cultivation seem to have a low or erratic history of seed production. I believe that this is due to a lack of cross pollination, since many old specimens are grown as lone representatives of the genus in any geographical area. "

Source: Gary L. Koller, "Outstanding Plants of the Arnold Arboretum: Pseudolarix amabilis" Arnoldia 40 (1980) 224-234, citation on p. 231

Pseudolarix Arnoldia Article

My original note about low natural fertility was mainly written to prevent disappointment when trying to grow Pseudolarix from seed. It is difficult to buy Pseudolarix seeds that have a good fertility rate. Seeds usually come from stand alone specimens. Furthermore you may get seeds that have lost viability because they are not fresh.

Growth rate of Pseudolarix amabilis: 10 to 20 centimeters per year.

The couple times I visited the Arnold, there were numerous seedlings around their group planting of large coning trees!

I have germinated them two separate years - I too had issues with damping off.

Well, I sowed an entire packet of seed from Sheffields. All are moldy now after a week, and they are only slightly moist, same way I germinate Metasequoia and Abies seed.

That's too bad. I'm not having ideal results this year either, but I certainly don't blame Sheffield because I have a 15+ year history of not very good luck with tree & shrub seeds. (with a few notable exceptions here and there, like the picture I've posted before of a now very large Araucaria angustifolia in Alabama...which I started from seed in 2000 and moved South via plant swaps! The fate of the other 4 I distributed is far funnier, but I digress...)

No germination at all on PInus bungeana, origin supposedly China: most of them floated in water which I assume is a bad sign.

A few Picea smitheana are germinating, as are a couple Pinus patula. (yes I know Patula is, especially, a long shot - I'd hoped to plant a whole bunch of seedlings in a sheltered spot and select for a hardier one)

No Larix principis-rupprechtii yet.

Seeds have been on the flats for at least 3 weeks now.

I just soaked my Pinus bungeana seeds and some floated. With a very sharp knife I removed the outer seed layer of the seeds that floated and most of them did contain a seed.

I sowed Pinus bungeana before (stratification outside in winter) but did not get germination. I then removed the seed layer with a sharp knife taking great care not to damage the actual seed. I put the seeds in a zip lock bag with some slightly moist sharp sand and stored it at room temperature. Germination followed in 2 weeks time if I remember correctly. I've done the same with my latest batch of Pinus bungeana seeds and will report if and how soon they'll germinate.

Pinus coulteri is starting to form a root and will appear above ground in 1 to 2 weeks. Seeds were outside all winter.

Abies pinsapo rotted away and I blame this on the very wet weather in January. Next time I will stratify them in the fridge.

Abies squamata ( 'flaky fir'): seeds still look healthy but so far no germination.

Thanks for the tip, Garten Prinz aus Niederlande! (yes I know that's German; I only know a handful of Dutch words, but a few more German ones)

Sorry-these were from Schumacher's. I ordered from both places this year and misspoke. Still, I don't blame them. It happens.

I have sprouting so far:

Quercus macrocarpa (from private owners in TN and OH)

Quercus coccinea (Sheffields, AR seed source)

Q. michauxii (Sheffields, AR source)

Q. xsternbergii (TX) thanks, Dax!

Q. xschuetti (MO) thanks, Dax!

Q. prinus (PA) thanks, poaky!

Aesculus flava (self collected in MD)

Cercis canadensis (from local MD woodland tree)

Cladrastis kentukea (Schumacher, unknown provenance)

Metasequoia (Schumacher, from China)

Acer japonicum (Sheffield, from Oregon, only 3 of 33 seeds sprouted)

Acer sieboldanum (same as above but six sprouted of about 30)

Acer micranthum (thanks Dax

So far no succes with:

Pseudolarix

Liriodendron chinensis

Carya lanciniosa (still waiting for germ)

I most likely will have to give a lot away, I don't have the room for all of these, but it has become an addiction!

Davidrt28: I'm Garten Prinz on the German gardening forum Garten-pur!

Hairmetal4ever: Seed-aholic! (It takes one to know one!)

You can see pictures of the seeds that germinate for me on Garten-pur (see link). Especially good germination on 3 Stewartia species and Chionanthus retusus (Schumacher).

Garten Prinz Germination

Hugely OT but linguistics has always been an interest of mine.
I was curious where the rather odd Dutch word tuin for garden comes from; since it is so unlike other western European terms: garden, garten, jardin in french and spanish; giardino in italian.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tuin
Well, it comes from a proto-germanic word that is where the English "town" came from. But this underscores an interesting property of Dutch, how it seems (to this native English speaker anyhow and probably to germans as well) very, uumm, "ancient" sounding. In fact if you listen to people speaking Old English (there are examples on youtube) it sounds superficially more like Dutch than modern English. I can "fake talk" German very well. reading a newscaster's closed captions. With Dutch I get hopelessly tongue tied. But Dutch is overall an easier language to learn than German because the grammar is more like English.

Anyhow, back the the matter at hand...I'm glad someone enjoys raising trees from seed, because I don't.
I must say I LOL'ed at "Acer japonicum (Sheffield, from Oregon, only 3 of 33 seeds sprouted)" because with how weedy my Acer palmatums are, I can't imagine any Asian maple of that complex being hard to germinate or lacking in fertility. I was just looking at my beds and I feel like after pulling literally scores of JM seedlings last year, I need to do at least another 40 just to get the situation under control again. Granted they have come in handy at times when I needed another JM somewhere! I selected one form that seems fastigiate; I kick myself for not saving a form that had slate-like orange leaves, hard to describe although I bet if I visited a large enough collection of them like the Buchholz nursery I would find something similar. There was a dwarf with oddly curled leaves but I figured, "I can always buy something like that if I need it", and just got rid of it. It looked like it could have been a natural hybrid of my 'Green Hornet' with my big red palmatums. The world hardly needs more JM cultivars but at least they are interesting weeds to pull.

Hairmetal, that is an impressive list! At least you were not bored this winter. That Acer % seems extremely low, maybe a bad batch. This was my first year growing from seed, and I am pleased with the results so far. Sheffield's was my source for Tsuga chinensis and diversifolia. 90 day stratification on those. So far I have 50%+ on chinensis sprouted and about 70% of diversifolia. What do you do with your 1st year seedlings, just over winter them in the garage or do you use a cold frame or something?

Growing from seed is pretty fun and I didn't feel my patience was tested too bad, but grafting... that takes patience. I did a limited number of strobus grafts this year and got 50% takes, but I have had the trees inside since December, and it's still too cold to even start trying to harden them off. I'm hoping I can keep them healthy for another month, until I can get them outside and call it a success. I will do a post about my grafting experience then.

David, your gotta throw those JM seedlings in an observation area somewhere and see if anything cool pops up! I never weed the JM's... even if they turn out to be nothing special, it's free understock!

Ok, I did get *one* Pseudolarix seed to sprout. Saw a radicle about 1/4" on one seed, just as I was about to toss the whole flat. So I put it in its own cell and threw the rest out, after carefully going through to make sure no others were sprouting.

I am so glad I found this thread. My favorite part of gardening is experimenting with seeds, cuttings and grafting.

This year I collected a lot of seeds from my own conifers and have them planted up.

Regarding damping off. I have a few things that I do to prevent damping off in my seedlings:

1. Use a soiless medium. I use peat moss and perlite. I use 1 part peat moss and 2 parts perlite.

2. Make sure your soiless medium and containers are sterilized. A few years ago I got lazy and used the same containers I had the previous year without cleaning then up with bleach water and had a disaster. A lot of my seeds rotted.

3. Add a fan and allow it to blow over your germinated seedlings. Be careful though it will require a close eye as the movement of air requires much more water on your seedlings. But this REALLY helps me. I also believe it makes my seedlings stronger as it mimics the wind in nature creating stronger stems.

You all probably know all this but thought I would mention what is working for me.

***
Japanese maples
What I would not give to be able to grow them outdoors here. I pay good money to purchase them for pots so that I can grow them around my ponds. I wish mine would set seed. It would be so fun to experiment with them.

Enjoy those seedlings you all are finding.

Regarding Acer:

Although the iaponicum and sieboldanum were said to be "fresh" seed per Sheffields, they may well have been fresh when they were sent to Scheffield, but by the time they were received from the original source, sorted in package, and then I found them on the website a week or two later, order them, and receive them, they probably weren't as "fresh" as they once were. It would be different had I collected them myself locally. Still, three seedlings for a few bucks? Can't complain too much about that.

Maples seem to fall into a few groups as far as seed viability goes. Most of the Asian maples in the palmatum/japonicum group seem to have the same issues with needing fresh seed for good viability. Same is true for rubrum and saccharinum.

However, I have gotten 90% germination from two year old Acer saccharum seed after proper stratification.

Next year I want to try trident maple, Acer burgerianum. I'm not sure if those store well like the sugar maples, or poorly like the others.

I fail growing JM from seed as well. That's strange because other maples like red, norway, boxelder, sycamore and so on sprouts with ease. Snakebark maples are also tough, all the more desirable maples seem harder.

My guess (emphasis on guess) is that Acer buergerianum stores really well. I bought seed in the autumn and when it arrived it didn't look very fresh. Sowed it in December and germination started in early April.

Some Pinus bungeana seeds started to germinate in a zip lock bag (rather slowly):

I've had issues with maples where the first set of "real" leaves gets some sort of fungus or pathogen that reforms and curls the leaves. Sometimes to the point of death. Mostly just deforms them. Anyone know the cause?

Pinus bungeana germinating last week: