Marcel

A while ago there was some discussion on this forum (and AE as well) about Frankincense (Boswellia sacra) seeds and germination. If you're lucky enough to find the seeds, you're then blessed with the fact that they have horribly low germination rates. Internet lore seems to say 1-2%! There's also the widespread belief that they are only viable for a few weeks. I must say, being somewhat of a newb at gardening, these facts turned me off a whole lot. Then, out of nowhere, our own WoodDragon contacted me asking if I wanted in on a whole bunch of seeds from a reputable source. This source said that they have 8-10% success and that they've found this rate to be consistent with 5 year old seeds. I said "What the hell? Why not?!" and a few weeks later I had a packet of 100 Boswellia sacra seed. Woodie bought "Cultivation of Boswellia: Sacred Trees of Frankincense" by Jason Eslamieh and graciously transcribed some of the seed germination info for me. With the help of this book and WoodDragon's Australia specific interpretations, I came up with a good soil mix and germination method. WoodDragon: Thanks heaps, buddy. You're a good guy. Anyway. Here we go. Here are the notes from WoodDragon: Based on this I used some of my favourite coarse sand mix: Nepean River Sand. This stuff is dusty, so I washed it carefully. I got myself a 20cm plastic pot and trimmed it to make it shallower. Then I got some good bulk organic veggie garden soil mix. It has no ferts or water-retention agents in it. It's also quite sandy, as you can see here. I mixed the Nepean River Sand mix with perlite at a ratio of about 50/50, and added the soil mix (from which I discarded the bigger sticks and rough bits). The final mix was about 20% soil mix, 40% perlite and 40% river sand. Here are the seeds. They're diamond-shaped and quite papery and not quite as red as they appear in this photo. They're about ~3mm long. I placed the pot with seeds sprinkled evenly on top, covered in a light layer of perlite, on top of my DIY heat mat (100W aquarium heater siliconed into a hole in the side of a large cake tupperware box). The pot is in front of a large north facing window with opened shutters stopping direct sunlight. The temperature has been fluctuating between 22 degrees in the night and 32 degrees during the day. I covered the whole pot with a DIY dome with humidity regulated with foil over the top opening. I misted lightly every 3 days. Six days later (today) I awoke to one of these. Throughout the day, 2 more of these guys showed some sort of life. It's early days still, I know, but I thought I'd throw this up and keep you all informed as they progress. Hope the rest of you attempting this fickle beast get something out of these notes.

YES.

That was great. What a varied and lovely bunch of nutters we are! So many great laughs. Lovely to see old friends and make some new ones. Sorry we had to bail so early. Work responsibilities and besides, I miss my wifey if we're apart for more than a few hours. I hope it didn't rain too much on Saturday night. See you all soon again, I hope! -M

This is the icon weatherzone is using to illustrate Oberon weather this weekend. WTF? It's raining giant DMT crystals!

Some of you may already know, but I am a video artist. I'm currently preparing for a short (<2 min) video for an exhibition later in the year. What it requires is a biggish bunch of people to pass a short bit of wood around a circle, and finally into a fire. Each person looks at the camera for about 10 seconds before the camera and the wood move on to the next person. Nothing weird. Nothing incriminating. No lines to learn. There'll be a text added over the top in post-production. I'll probably be shooting at the Oberon camp on the Saturday afternoon. Please let me know if you're interested in being in the video!

I'm bringing my friend, Mr Always-The-Guy-To-Have-With-You-When-Camping and he's always got wood chop tool-age and blowers and all the rest of it. That said, when we camped out there a few weeks ago it was all pretty damp which makes for an annoyingly smoky fire. All the more annoying when you're trying to get as close as possible to the fire to not freeze your ass off. I'm super excited! I'll bring lollies and chocolates and sweet stuff.

Wait. Incog, you say 11th and 12th? That's a Sunday and a Monday, isn't it? I'm in as long as it's a weekend date. Amaz! Can't wait to catch up! Woot!

Aw! Thanks man! I will try. What dates are we talking again? 11th and 12th of May?

Maybe. I'm going back to study mid year, so I'm pretty swamped with applications and catching up and stuff. I'm pretty keen though. I miss all youse guys. And I wanna meet Watertrade. And if the Melbs people are coming, that would make it a freaking blast... I'm 80% confident that I'll be there.

I had a hunt out there last weekend. Heaps of Saffies and Amanitas. Not so many Slipperies. And probably the biggest number of subs I've ever found out there. I imagine that it's going to really amp up over the next couple of weeks. G Spot (left side of the road when heading to Jenolan Caves) is especially messy and trashed at the moment. But there's that nice grassy field across the road that's pretty sweet for camping. Temps are reaching zero at the moment. Ouch. And in my experience, Oberon zero is colder than zero anywhere else...

I can hardly believe it! Congrats, and thanks Torsten for being our messenger and sensible representative. Now... Too bad I live in NSW....

Lovely! Where in the world did you find this baby?

I have a blewit patch across from a sub patch, two blocks from my house! Sorry! Had to boast!

From experience, when organising an event on facebook, all you need to say is "THIS IS NOT A DOOF" and things will be just fine. I love the idea, but if it's a NNSW thing, maybe it could be timed with the cube season... And preferably during the school holidays so that I can make it a family holiday. It's a good idea. I miss eth and Amaz and all the other Victoria crew!

I thought this thread was about me.

I used to use Dreamweaver but recently redid my shop website using wix.com. It's a web-based site builder and it's stupidly easy to use. Cheap too. I've also heard good things about virb.com.

The future is here! I know it's probably not what you're looking for, but I fucking love my iOS music equipment. I don't use the iStomp thing linked above, but I use an iPad with JamUp and various other effects/loopers/synths/etc running through a high quality Focusrite i/o box. I have so much good equipment for live performance now, and each new thing at this point is only a few bucks, so I can experiment and play around with little regret.

For rhetorical clarity, Torsten, could you tell me: where do you stand on the "gun debate"? Do guns, as objects in and of themselves, have a role to play in gun crime? More specifically, do you believe gun ownership should be restricted in the interest of public safety?

We're spoiled here in Australia. In Poland EVERYONE goes mushroom picking. During season, if you're not deep in the forest by sunrise you're probably too late to find much, and even then, a whole family hunting for a whole day is lucky to go home with one measly basketful between them. After 30 years here, my folks still can't get over the fact that even in a bad season with relatively huge crowds, there are still so many mushrooms in the pine forests.

I had a chat with a bunch of Ukrainians out Oberon way about a month ago. They had big plastic crates that they were filling up with Saffies, all quite professionally. They said that they sell them to grocery stores like Harris Farms. Apparently the tv show Masterchef has made several references to Saffies and they are in high demand, retailing for $16/kg. I was a little pissed, because they had picked quite ruthlessly, but I didn't give them too much shit. They were very defensive and apologetic and even embarrassed. It seems that every non-commercial hunter they cross paths with gives them an earful. The problem here is stupid fucking free-market capitalism, not the middle-aged Slav in the forest. It's a paradigm in which anything is permitted as long as it makes a buck. This May Day, march with fellow reds in memory of the workers AND the Saffron Milk Caps.

Nice finds, Room, but no, those are not Slipperies. They are a native bolete species which happily grows in a mycorhizal relationship with introduced pines. I know a lot of people that make no distinction between them and Slipperies, and pick them for eating, so they're probably edible (or at least not toxic), albeit not as tasty and tender as Slippery Jacks (Suillus luteus/granulatus). My call is to ditch them and keep hunting. Slipperies can still pop up in huge numbers quite late in the season. The biggest haul I've ever had was from mid June, down in the Southern Highlands. And it's not likely that anyone has cep prints here. Reports of Boletus edulis in Australia are limited to a dozen cases, if that. What's more, they're infamous for their reluctance to yield to the cultivator's attempts to grow them, so you'd have to be pretty skilled/lucky/blessed if that's what you're thinking!

This forum is awesome.

Smoking 30 cigarettes in one go will make you hallucinate too. Doesn't mean it'll be fun... Also, they AREN'T legal. At least not in Australia.

Wow. Great thread, planthelper. I've been hoping to get my hands on this plant for ages. I worry about the chances of the seeds/herb getting through the post, however. Is it problematic? Anyone in Australia having luck growing it? From seed?

SallyD! We had a beautiful thing going! You killed it!