"Chris Hogg" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 21 Oct 2014 18:54:09 +0100, "Christina Websell"
wrote:


"Jeff Layman" wrote in message
...
On 20/10/2014 17:28, Bob Hobden wrote:

I believe they use Hydrogen peroxide to wake up Protea seed, at least
that
is what I was told to do.

There has been some success with it, but the best thing to use is smoke
(as smoke water or paper discs which have been exposed to smoke, rested
on
the seed compost, and gently sprayed to allow the smoke to soak into the
compost).

--

Jeff


that's enough, Jeff. If you want to be cruel I'm not allowing it.

It's very unlikely that smoke germination would be appropriate for
Alder, if that's what you think Jeff is suggesting. It's an
evolutionary adaptation by plants exposed to wild-fires. Many South
African and Australian plants respond well. It may be because young
seedlings won't survive a wild-fire, but after fire has swept through,
there's nothing left to burn, and seedlings can get established to the
point at which they stand a chance of surviving the next fire.
Chemicals in the smoke trigger the germinating process.

I've used it myself on a number of occasions to encourage germination
of South African proteaceae (as Jeff said) and SA heathers. Can't say
how successful it was though, because I didn't do an unsmoked test
alongside it.



Michael is unlikely to breed huge alder seeds to feed the world (although
it would be great) so I suggest you don't encourage him too much because it
will lead to him being very disappointed.
And I wouldn't like that.