View Single Post
  #18   Report Post  
Old 25-10-2014, 10:17 PM posted to uk.rec.gardening
Michael Bell Michael Bell is offline
external usenet poster
 
First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Feb 2007
Posts: 231
Default Sterilising alder seeds with hydrogen peroxide

In message
"Christina Websell"
wrote:


"Michael Bell" wrote in message
. uk...
In message
Chris Hogg wrote:

On Thu, 23 Oct 2014 20:57:17 +0100, "Christina Websell"
wrote:



"Chris Hogg" wrote in message
m...
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.



I don't know what gives you the idea that either Jeff or I were
encouraging him in what we said. Between us we made it clear that
smoke treatment would neither sterilise nor promote germination of
alder seeds. Threads on usenet drift. Michael has been around long
enough to know that.


Indeed so. Smoke is a diversion from my main interest: alder. But it
might be of interest in getting Sequoia to germinate.


Michael Bell



OMG. Michael, don't start on sequoia. You are a very kind person but you
need to give up on trying to feed the world with seeds.
It's not possible.


Sequoia is a wholly separate project. My partner in this is a man who
wants to leave sequoia trees all over the place like a kind of Johnny
Appleseed. It is HIS project.

Michael Bell
--

---
This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active.
http://www.avast.com