#seed germinator

[bionicsscientific1]

🌱 The Role of Seed Germinators in Labs 🌿

Seed germinators provide controlled conditions for studying seed growth, helping researchers in agriculture, botany, and environmental science. They regulate temperature, humidity, and light to ensure accurate testing of seed viability.

Learn more here: https://medium.com/@bionicsscientific82/the-role-of-seed-germinator-in-laboratory-738ad8462547

[gummi-ships]

Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance Commands - Cure ~ Cura ~ Curaga

[hello-delicious-tea]

I have no sense of proportion when it comes to starting seeds. All of the pots not currently in old salad clamshells are full of assorted varieties of tomatoes.

[anxiousapplepie]

Considering how vulnerable they are to it, I bet forest fires would be their worst nightmare, and thunderstorms even more dangerous. How do Roses deal with forest fires, especially if they're needed for the environment to prosper? Some seeds only germinate after fires have burned through after all.

Most Roses choose to live in places where forest fires aren't a threat (or as big a threat as it could be), but for those Roses who live in the wilds and forests with the Dragons? Well. Let's just say every summer, at the height of Mage's season, most Roses are terrified have a VERY healthy respect for the forest and Dryads while all the Dragons set themselves on fire XD The best protection against wildfires is trusting the ones who keep the forest too green and alive to burn properly, after all!

[balkanradfem]

Seeds germination report!!

First paper towel seeds germinated in only 3 days! I was too busy to post them immediately but I have proof it happened:

The first one is cantaloupe, other two are big tomatoes, and cherry tomatoes. I'm going to sow tomatoes first because the other one is going to need more resources.

That big tray of tomato seeds is the most important tray I'm sowing in the entire spring. This is going to be the most of my plants, and the most of my food. There's about 100 potential tomato plants in here, though I just need about 30. This is what's going to end up creating tomatoes I'll eat and cook into salsa and pizza sauce and other sauces, what I'll can all my other veggies in because the acidity will preserve them. I spaced a few rows of seeds evenly and then realized I had too many seeds so I just scrambled the rest and we'll see how they do! The smaller pot is cherry tomatoes; they're going to be my dried storage crop, I'll have sun-dried tomatoes from them! And they're likely to start producing earlier which I love.

Now the cantaloupes... I need 2 plants, so why did I germinate this many? Well. I wasn't thinking. My seeds are 3 years old, how should I have known they would have 90% germination rate? I don't have the unlimited soil it would take to grow all of these correctly, so I just stuffed them into a tray, and I'm cringing so badly just looking at this. They're going to grow so big, so fast, there's no way they could all fit in there, even 2 per pot is insane, they all need individual  large pots. We're just making do and I'll gift these to the plant lady she loves cantaloupes too.

* 2 days later *

I forgot to check my seeds yesterday, so today I found more germinated stuff!

These are early cherry tomatoes, orange and yellow tomatoes, and a germinated clementine seed! If you remember, I mentioned putting some clementine seeds to germinate and this one was first to activate, and it's sprouting two roots currently! Which I don't know what it means but I think it's whimsical and special so I love it. It makes me feel such a rush holding an tree seed that is activated because that one is starting a journey of becoming an actual tree, that can produce fruit, isn't that wild? In what other context can you hold a whole tree baby in the palm of your hand? Wild.

I'm slightly worried about those cherry seeds because I am slightly late in sowing them, you see how long these sprouts are? They're already in the phase where they're trying to get out of the soil and they're going to be disoriented now, they've chosen their direction and now I've messed it up. But at least a few of them will make it, I believe!

I didn't have extra soil to plant a whole tree so I got some already-used soil, I think it's going to be okay because the trees grow so slowly and I will fertilize this when it's time. I mean maybe I'm wrong but I'm about to find out if a little clementine will like this! Any time I tried to plant an orange tree it failed but I've never tried a clementine and I actually prefer the clementine taste, I love the acid.

And then in the last picture I actually caught a cantaloupe sneaking her way out of the soil! Even though I planted them so catastrophically I still love seeing them poke their lil heads out, ready to be soaked in the sun. They're going to turn into monsters and there's nothing I can do but for now they're my cute little baby monsters.

[jensownzoo]

So I decided to use up all my old carrot seed this year. The most recent packet is from 2016 which didn't seem so old until I did the math. My oldest packets were from 2004 and so probably won't do anything but add a teeny bit of organic matter given that they're TWENTY YEARS OLD, but why not? I'll get all new seed next year if I need it; until then I'm going to vastly overseed the rows and hope for the best.

I also decided to try the cornstarch slurry method for germinating carrot seed. It's supposed to help keep the seed moist during the longish germination period. It worked really well for getting the seed fairly evenly spaced too.

Anyway the recipe is 2 cups water plus 4 Tbsp cornstarch (for one whole packet of seed), bring to a simmer until thickened, then let cool all the way to room temp. It will thicken up more as it cools.

Pour into a ziplock baggie (I used quart size), add your seeds, zip close and slosh around to evenly suspend the seeds. (I added 3-4 packets of old seeds, so mine will look seedier than normal)

Then snip a tiny bit off of one of the corners (about 2-3x bigger than the seeds) and use it like a pastry bag to draw a line of seed jelly down your row. I recommend doing this in a shallow groove to both contain the jelly as well as allowing you to place a board or something on top (for those of us with hungry wildlife) until germination starts.

This really went so smoothly that I'm going to look up what other surface-sown seed this might be good for.

[kihaku-gato]

Only one germination between the tulip trees and ginkgos so far, but I'll take it. Viability for the former can be hella low and the latter's viability can be pretty variable (though from personal attempts- also fairly low). I hope we get a few more this March at least.

I still mill on the variables for ginkgo viability sometimes.

The very obvious one is if the trees are getting properly pollinated; dioecious as they are, female trees need male trees to wind pollinate nearby or else you'll only get infertile nuts, and most female trees I've collected from (this case Guelph Arboretum, past cases the Western University campus in London) tended to have a fair bit of distance from any form of partner male trees, fairly sheltered from wind. If so, there isn't a whole lot I can do unless I can find more female trees elsewhere in Ontario; only other ones I know of are in Toronto which- dear god no, never going to that big of a city that far away.

The more grasping-for-straws/hope theory is harvest time; they tend to be ready in October, but I was only able to gather for these in November (was it late November? Idr). It gets very cold in November and ginkgos require 2 months warm stratification before the cold- could the "early" cold/frost be killing the embryos? Unlikely, but as I said; it's me grasping for straws since I can control when I go on seed gathering expeditions moreso than whether a female tree got pollinated at all or not.

At the rate this has gone so far though, I may in the future look into grafting female scionwood amongst closer male trees to try to get better luck. A long term slow investment, but it's something.

[raccoonzinspace]

Trying to grow some of these things:

Unfortunately I can't germinate any seeds indoors because my cats tend to specifically target any houseplant that looks even remotely edible the day they're planted.

And by that, I mean all plants. Even if they have grass available, I guess the seeds I'm germinating look more appetizing. Especially Boo, because he's still technically a kitten. XD

[baejax-the-great]

Made the worst focaccia today (salty and chewy) but I got started on hot tomato summer so accidental cottage core trucks along

[windyservice]

All six apple seeds germinated, so I put them in some soil. This is my first time growing apples, and I'm pretty excited to see what I get. I don't expect them all to survive or bear fruit since I got these seeds from grocery store apples. But there's only one way to find out.

[the-hwaelweg]

I should get Fridays off to rotate my blorbos. Also people need to stop setting trashcan fires; we JUST got the dumpster fire under control *checks notes* nevermind it appears we contained the dumpster fire by putting it in all these various trashcans

[balkanradfem]

Seed starting!

If you've never started a seed, you might thing the only way to do it is to put it under some soil, and water it. And you'd be kinda right, that is what seeds want from you! Some light, wet and warm soil and some time to push out of the shell, to greet the sunlight. But, seeds aren't great at recognizing if they're in soil or not, and will activate if you as much as put them in some water.

From all the seeds you have, some of them are probably not going to sprout; it could be because they're unhealthy, or damaged, or too old. The percent of your seeds that will activate is called 'germination rate'! You can test the germination rate by trying to sprout 100 seeds, if 80 of them sprout, your germination rate is 80%.

However sometimes seeds can fail because it's not warm enough where they're planted, or it's not wet enough; if they start drying out during germination it could be lethal to them. That's why the paper towel method is very good for getting the maximum of your seeds to do well.

Paper towel method is: putting the seeds into a paper towel, spraying them with water, then putting them into a plastic bag or a container, and sealing it shut. This way, they're warm, damp, and they cannot dry out, because the plastic is keeping all that water inside. This method means they activate a little quicker too! If a seed needs 7 days to germinate in soil, she usually does it in 5 days in a paper towel. I also like it because this way, I can consistently check if something has germinated or not. You can't pull the seed from the soil every day to see how it's doing, but you can pull it out of the paper towel, as long as you put it back in within 10 seconds.

I still don't germinate all my seeds this way; I will usually put some tiny seeds directly into soil, just because it's difficult to handle such tiny germinated seeds one by one, so I'll plant onions, basil and herbs directly into soil.

Seeds that are originally from cold places also need something called 'cold stratification', which means they need to think it's winter before they'll activate. You'll get this from strawberry seeds, lavender seeds, apples and some other fruit and trees. For these, paper towel method works but they need to spend some time in the fridge before they'll go ahead and grow! I've managed to get apple seeds to start this way.

The only potential downside to this method is that you might forget you put your seeds to germinate, and if you don't check on them regularly, they'll fail in the little paper bag. Once they've started growing a sprout, they need to be put into soil, so they can get proper oxygen and establish themselves in the ground; they'll need air and sunlight after that point.

[jensownzoo]

Minor amount of transplanting done this morning.

My two pots of Thai sweet basil have grown sufficient roots so into a deck railing box they go.

They've got nasturtiums and a French marigold to keep them company. And of course because of squirrels:

A nice protective grill to keep them put until the box fills out a bit more.

My original transplant of Thai sweet basil flanked by parsley in another deck railing box but in the back. Yes there is a wire napkin holder upturned over the basil (squirrels again). Doing good despite a decent amount of shade throughout the day. The direct-seeded French marigold is just starting to get hints of true leaves. So many came up that I'm going to have to start transplanting some of them out of the box next week.

Volunteer coleus growing in a decent-sized pot on the porch. Since coleus and pineapple sage are both thirsty bitches, I decided this was a good place to transplant the rooted cutting.

One of the two surviving cuttings is definitely healthier than the other. I'll give the second one a chance, but if it hasn't perked up in a week or so it'll get culled.

Two cells of loofah (luffa, luffah...however you want to spell it) seedlings in one of the raised beds in back.

And here's the structure they'll grow on. The loofah and passionflower vine can duke it out, one on each side. Hopefully by planting out the loofah now it will lure all the striped cucumber beetles into the back of the house so next month I can plant cucumbersnin the front with fewer problems. Probably not as I think the best strategy is just timing, but I can hope.

Volunteer redbud tree that I had to remove from a garden bed. Put it into this Tidy Cats litter bucket planter with the extra Chinese cabbage to see if it wants to be a tree. If so, I'll retransplant it later when it's big enough to stand above the ground cover in the side yard.

Bonus flowers:

The peas are going nuts. Hoping for a good crop. What I don't use right away will get blanched and frozen for stir-fries later.

[ellensilica]

Drosera glanduligera seedlings from the seed bank seedlings are a few weeks old (as of January 2025); the seeds were collected in the field in 2008! The center image is a standard agar plate size (like 8 cm) - the seedlings are very small!!