My sea buckthorn is covered in red berries. Would that be seeds in there.?

Yup. Seeds in there. Wait for the leaves to drop, and the berries to start deflating. Buckthorn is a low sugar fruit, so the birds will leave them on until later in the fall.

Once you pick the berries, what I did was to soak in hot water for an hour, mash the fruit, use a collander to separate fruit skin and pulp from seed.

Buckthorn I planted one per cell.

Similar technique works for roses, but viable seed is more scarce in roses, so I put 4 seeds per cell, and thinned.

Maple seeds have very erratic germination, and it's hard to tell a good seed from empty ones. So I just planted in flats for the witner, then this august transplanted to cells when they have 3 leaves.

I don't need buckthorn, however. I've got several bushes that produce good crops. I also have good sources for buckeye, chokecherry, redosier dogwood, and peking cotoneaster.

Oaks (Acorns), Red maple, sugar maple, Norway maple (double winged seeds) Hawthorn? Norway spruce (need a half dozen closed ripe cones.) Norway fir/European fir. (Have to climb the tree, or depend on a squirrel's help. The cones fall apart before they fall off.)

So do you have enough Amur maples now? I could mail you some keys if you need more. I might have cotoneaster berries too, any interest in those?

Hi I got a question for you. I have a large Balsam fir with tons of cones that are dropping seeds. Are these seeds fertile without another fir near by? Thank you ingrid

Amur maple is good, thanks. I have a dozen cotoneaster bushes that are just full of berries. So far I've not gotten them to sprout yet, however. I think they may have a double dormancy period, so my flats are left in place until next year.

I also have cranberry cotoneaster berries

@beegood

Hard to say. Many conifers are self fertile. They don't get help from bugs, but use the wind instead. But typically the female cones are much further up the tree than the male cones. So odds are that the most of the time a tree is pollenated by a tree that is somewhere upwind. A lone tree on the prairie will be unlikely to have many seeds. In the city however, wind is turbulent and gusty. So a cone may well get pollen from the same tree.

Spruce trees on the Canadian shield where I've canoed can be so prolific at making pollen that the bays of lakes are yellow with it, and it flavours the water. (turpentine and alfalfa sprouts)

So if it is producing seed, it is probably viable.

If you would like to collect, I bet the easiest way would be just spread a tarp (or several tarps) and climb the tree and shake it -- or throw a rope into the tree and shake it.

Or leave the tarps there for a few days with a rock on each corner.

All firs have cones that fall apart on the tree, shedding a mix of seeds and scales. Of course shaking the tree will also produce lots of last years needles too, so you will have some sorting to do. This can be done with a mix of fans (the seeds blow further than the scales I bet) and seives. (seeds are smaller than scales.)

Most conifers have stratification requirements. Plant in multicell packs. Any good loam+peatmoss mix should do. plant the seed about twice it's diameter deep, pack, and put about 1/4" of fine chicken grit (any feed store) The chicken grit is a slight weed deterent, a good moss deterent, and helps retain moisture. Set outside.
Keep damp all fall. Ignore during the winter.
When tulips start poking their noses up start looking.

Most commercial growers put 2 or 3 seeds per cell, then when the are 2" high clip all but one. Their space is so expensive (heated greenhouse) that the labour of clipping is cheaper than having too many empty cells. Plus a seedling with two empty cells nearby gets more light, but needs more water, and so uniformity becomes a problem.

I would be interesting in coming by to look and possibly photograph your tree for my web page. Would you would PM me your address so I can come around for a visit?

I'm not interested in seed at this time, as PRT can supply box quantities of balsam fir seedlings at quite reasonable costs. (Any Edmonton area readers who would like a bundle of these or alpine fir contact me privately at sgbotsford@gmail.com)

You're probably right about a complex stratification for cotoneaster. I get a lot of bird-sown volunteers but I have never tried to plant one on purpose.