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I have put some Acacia Acuminata (Raspberry Jam) seeds in hot water to soak overnight (250ml water, boiled and left to stand for 2 minutes in a cup, then seeds thrown in). I thought I'd post a picture showing the difference between a swollen seed and one that hasn't swollen yet. I wish I'd had the foresight to take a photo of the seeds before I put them in hot water - their size was extremely uniform. All the seeds looked to be almost identical in size. You can clearly see in the photo below that some seeds are definitely twice the size of others, the coat has taken on a slightly lighter colour and if you press the seed coat with your fingernail, you'll notice that it is very slightly 'rubbery', your fingernail will make a small impression on it and you could probably quite easily rip and slide the coat off at this point with no trouble at all. Compare that to an un-soaked seed and you'll break your nails before you'd even make a scratch on the hard seed coat.

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Good stuff! I find soaking in hot water only without scarification works a treat. let us know their germination rates in a couple weeks. My a.acuminata are about 4 weeks old now. I sprouted in course sand and take away container. A mistake I feel, as now the roots are slowly getting tangled and they're still a bit young to transplant. Have more seed coming so I'm gonna sow them in individual tubes.

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Hi, it has always amazed me how those little life forces contained in their rock hard packages can rest for many years in the soil and then

germinate when conditions become amenable. Mother Nature is a truly awesome power.

Some, if not most Acacias seeds can be induced to germinate quickly without scarification if they are sown at an advanced stage of

maturity but not at the rock hard stage. For instance, if you sow them when their seed coats are changing colour from green to brown

and still able to be marked by a fingernail. Just keep an eye out for fungus as they may be susceptible at this earlier stage of

development.

If you are visiting a region and seed is only available at this stage of development, then it may be worthwhile taking it at that stage, but

remember it can become desiccated so should be sown immediately when you return home.

Acacia harpophylla (Brigalow) seed does not develop a hard testa and remains relatively soft with a very brief viability by Acacia

standards.

Just a useful standby tip I picked up once.....may come in handy one day.

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Thought I would also show the differences of size in the Standard and Narrow phyllode variety seeds.

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^ Nice picture upside! About 50 of the 100 seeds I soaked have germinated, a few have since gone belly up because I didn't plant them correctly, but some are still poking their heads though. I planted so many because my previous attempts have been about 1 in 10 - I'm assuming it was bung seed though not operator error :) I'll post some pics later of the baby seedlings, and hopefully I can get a few shots of different stages of growth.

I'll have acacias coming out my ears if they all survive - happy days :)

Edited by IndianDreaming

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Thanks mate,, I put in about 25 on the 18/7 and I have 13 atm. And I just put in another 48 seeds from a different source a couple days ago. Half indoors and other half outside, both in a humidity crib and in individual pots.

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^ nice, if you get a chance, post a pic of your little babies.

I let half of mine soak for an extra week - I wanted to see if this helped at all, and it seems to have increased the germination rate a little. I've also left some in there for 30 days - I wanted to see if extended soaking kills them or causes them to germinate in the water. A few germinated, but they seem the same as the day they swelled, so we'll see if they sprout ok - I sowed them 2 days ago. I also had another few that in a separate glass that got a white hazy fluff on them which I assume is mould, fungus, yuk - so I put 2 drops of peroxide in the water and planted them elsewhere to see if they'll survive the fluff attack :)

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Very nice! I will need to wait for some light tomorrow to take pics. Good work, they look very healthy :)

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Cheers, I need to start weaning them off the humidity soon, and get ready to place them outside. Its still a bit chilly here at night so a few weeks slowly hardening them off and I think they will be ready for the great outdoors :-)

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Here's a few pics! The top 2 are grown outdoors right from the start (Acacia Acuminata), before they even popped their little heads out. The bottom one is an indoor, morning sun, window sill Acacia Floribunda

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Hi all.

New to entheogens in general but especially growing. Planted some acuminata and maidenii (soaked 24 hrs in boiled water, no scarification) seeds a couple of weeks ago. Outdoors but in a propagating tray. Im in the west here and its still quite cool and wet. They are in about half light, maybe similar amount to being in a window. So.....assuming the seeds are viable and I planted them properly (followed WWW instructions?), what sort of time frame should I be expecting to see some signs of life?

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Hi Cubism! I saw the first seedling poke its head out after about 12 days. Most seem to be 2-3-4+ weeks for me. Some are only just poking out now after 6 weeks or so. Be patient, when I first grew some plants from seed, I dug around to see if they were germinating and - well... they were, up until the point I broke their roots with my boofy finger!

Here's a pic of one that I pulled out to replant - its a struggling one that's about 5 weeks old and was planted in a clump of about 8 seedlings, you can see the root going through a piece of bark! - when they're planted so close, they seem to form a tap root and don't branch out much - but I've noticed when they're planted singly, the roots branch a lot more - they're friendly to their neighbour it seems.

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This is one that has been growing about 5cm away from any other seedling.

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Cheers for the advice mate. Its all new to me so Im expecting a bit of a learning curve. Although its usually patience that I struggle with hehe

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If gardening teaches anything, its patience! I've lost a lot of plants poking around or over loving them :) I planted my first Acacia 2 years ago - out of 40 seeds only 2 survived, and they're the 2 that I forgot about and didn't pamper :)

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There are various ways of making hard-coated seeds germinate. I think they've been covered pretty well above! I thought I'd summarise, and add a few bits.

Sow 'em while they're still soft (but mature) straight out of the pod - this works really well for NZ natives like Kowhai (Sophora)

Soak them in near-boiling water. Take out the ones that swell. Repeat for those that don't.

Sandpaper them lightly, or shake in a tumbler lined with sandpaper, then soak. Take out the ones that swell. Repeat for those that don't.

Chuck them in acid for a minute or two to etch the seed coat. Rinse. Soak in water. Sow the ones that swell. Otherwise repeat.

I think most if not all Aussie Acacia / Racosperma is fire-evolved, i.e. the seedlings will do well in a bed that has ash / carbon in it. You can just chuck wood ash in your potting mix, or even use some activated charcoal. Apparently activated charcoal is the thing for cation exchange and so on.

If you scrounge around on the forest / bush floor under the trees you want to grow you will probably find lots of seeds lying there in amongst the litter. Saves buying them.

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A few days ago some pots with phleb seeds in it got knocked in the wind. I recovered 2 of the 3 seeds from the mess, and noticed they hadn't yet swollen or split. They were on the cement for about 30 mins and both of em cracked open. Today I have 2 new phlebs to the family.

Maybe a combo of moist paper towel and dry periods exposed to some heat will help with harder germing types.

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Ok,, so I'm down to about half a dozen seedlings left from my first batch of narrow leaf acuminata.

here is one who's phylodes are entering the flat leaf stage,, exciting times

:-)

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So my babies are quite healthy and strong. Just have to ease them into outdoors next.

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How is everyone else's going?

:-)

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Wow - they're looking very healthy upside! I'll get some shots of the ones I put in around the same time as you - mine are only half the size or less. They live outside and the conditions up until now haven't been particularly favourable, and I've managed to wipe a few out with lack of water, over watering, high pressure 'squirt out of the pot' etc... Hopefully have some shots later today/tomorrow.

I bet you're stoked with that lot - they look very healthy. They look to be inside, what sort of lights are you using, do you have a shot of the setup? I've only done them on the windowsill, not artificial light.

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Cheers ID, I'm very happy with their progress for sure :-) I'll take some pics of the set up later and detail it. Just sowed some more today, acuminata narrow phyllode and maidenii. I'm doing it a lil different this time,, will document that also.

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Here's my set up,,

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cactus seedlings on right under a dual baton cool white fluro setup.

on the left is my leafy plants.

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in here is 2x 2ft twin fluro's

One houses 2x tri-phosphor tubes the other 1x tri-phosphor and 1x cool daylight tubes.

18 hrs light and 6hrs dark.

A little $10 fan from bunnings circulates the air with the door slightly open as there is no exhaust fan.

I also use those sticky fly strips in there as the soil attracts some stinging itchy flies.

Any questions feel free to ask

Cheers

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I got some A. Tenuflora seed from another member here, soaked with almost boiling water for 12 hours 8pm to 8 am and then planted at about 10 into individual pots of potting mix.

By the next day they had 2 leaves showing on 2 out of the 5 seeds I planted - i take it this is good then!

I have 2 different lots of acuminata heading my way, and some acacia aroma (farnesiana) so i'll have to see if I can replicate my success with these others!

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I have only used the boiling water method. Produces quite good results. I have read tho that some Acacia's seed coats are very hard and perhaps the water treatment may not be enough?

Here is my latest,, A.Acuminata narrow & A.Maidenii

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The seeds in the native soil mix with coarse sand sprouted more seedlings than the soil mix of mostly coarse sand.

An updated pic 3/2/14

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Edited by upside
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So these maidens and acuminata are 8 weeks old tomorrow :-)

Their growth rate with the soil mix compared to mostly propagating sand is very noticeable. I started both trays in different locations, but after 2 weeks moved them together. The soil mix is heeeaps better! Those seedlings are almost, well if not more, twice the size. I'll need to upsize their pots soon ;-)

I'd love to try some Koa and/or Phleb if anyone can help?

Cheers :-)

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soil mix

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propagating sand mix

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Edited by upside
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