Scarified acacia seeds

[Undergrounder]

I gave a few obusifolia seeds the hot water treatment, only a couple have plumped up so far so i'll leave it for a while, but something really annoying happened. You know the little white bit attached to each seed? I'm guessing its vitally important and the action of the hot water caused roughly half of the seeds to lose their white bits.

Does that mean those seeds are stuffed? can i stick em back in with super glue or something?

[ENtiTY]

Haha glue it back on with super glue hehe. Maybe a really small zippy tie might work better haha.

Sorry but what you posted cracked me up .

Ok now that I have had a laugh I can help you out. The white to yellow bit serves no puppose at all other than to attach the seed to the seed pod as far as I know. Since your seeds are no longer in their pods their not important. The seed will swell and germinate fine with out them.

To improve the effeciency of the hot water treatment, Acacias respond well to a bit of a filing from a small file or emery board. Not to deep, experiment a bit to get a feel for what works. If done right and the seeds are fresh you will get 100% to swell.

Thanx for the laugh

[Undergrounder]

PHEW

Thanks for the good news, i thought i'd stuffed up royally. I usually work with orchid seeds - they're completely different. I thought the white bit was like a plant placenta or something.

[Coschi]

I've been using a nail clipper to nip a bit off (at the round end, not the eye)

10 out of 10 swelled up nicely, just waiting for some sprouts

i've found with MHRB at least that even a little damage to the embryo doesn't seem to matter, but it can make those first pair of leaves look out of shape (they're actually missing the bit you cut off.. strange). But once they get their secondary pair they're fine

[BlackDragon]

The little white bit is called an aril.

Apart from attaching the seed to the pod, it serves also as the seeds mode of transport in a way. The aril is highly fragrant and tasty in some species, in some species its sweet. This sweetness/frangrance attracts ants or birds to the fallen seed, where they collect and transport the seed away to another location away from the mother tree.

Edited February 2, 2008 by BlackDragon

[Undergrounder]

Thanks for the help and info..

half of the seeds plumped up after repeated hot water treatments and soaks and after i gave the second half a once over with a nail file, they followed suit. I filed right down to the white part in some of them but your post coschi tells me that shouldn't be a problem. All of them are now sown and i checked a random seed today to see that it was germinating nicely.

[telemetric]

afaik from exp, plumping is not necessarily needed for sprouting as i have ones that dont sprout from just hot water

[tonic]

i've found with MHRB at least that even a little damage to the embryo doesn't seem to matter, but it can make those first pair of leaves look out of shape (they're actually missing the bit you cut off.. strange). But once they get their secondary pair they're fine

You germinate Mimosa hostilis root bark??!!??

I agree with telemetric, though I find that the ones that have swollen from hot water treatment do germinate a lot faster, if they are viable in the first place that is. I have also noted that one or two seeds that didn't actually swell during treatment dis still germinate, albeit many months later.

[Coschi]

eh hmmm Actually I mean HBWR yeah yeah HBWR

[Undergrounder]

I agree with telemetric, though I find that the ones that have swollen from hot water treatment do germinate a lot faster, if they are viable in the first place that is. I have also noted that one or two seeds that didn't actually swell during treatment dis still germinate, albeit many months later.

Yeah with my previous attempt with acacia seeds they took about 3-4 weeks to germinate because they didn't swell. Im happy for 15 mins of filing to save a month of waiting.

[telemetric]

ill have to try it next time, as i too had some that took ages to germinate

[Ace]

i've found with MHRB at least that even a little damage to the embryo doesn't seem to matter, but it can make those first pair of leaves look out of shape (they're actually missing the bit you cut off.. strange). But once they get their secondary pair they're fine

I think the reason for this is due to the fact that within the seed casing, you will find a tiny little bub plant curled up with it's two 'seed leaves' (cytodylons [not sure on spelling]) on the outter most part of the internal organs (sorry, cant find any diagrams on google atm). You must have nicked the seed leaves before they'd germinated. Probably nothing to worry about, but you might end up damaging some of the other goodies held within the seed if not careful in future. The internal contents of a seed are actually quite remarkable. Really is just like a little bub

Also, one should be sure to plant immediately after nicking/scarifying/damaging the seed coat, or losses would almost certainly be made.

[t st tantra]

in t's talk at ega he recommended sacrificing a seed by cutting open to see what the set up was.

t s t .

[Vertmorpheus]

I've seen someone using a simple setup to scarify large amounts of seed for reveg etc.. basically take a milo or coffee tin, make a hole in the dead centre of the top and the bottom ends, stick it on a simple axle (coathanger or heavy fencing wire should work fine,dowel, whatever you have), atttach wire to a stand... so you have a mini "compost tumbler" ... like a clothes dryer? Right... now cut some fine grit wetndry sandpaper so you can roll it up then pop it inside the can, unravel it so it fits around the inside, lining the sides neatly... a few dabs of glue would help... now you can basically load it with half a cup of seeds, close it all up, and spin the fucker by hand checking now n then until you have a decent average level of the hard coat being worn off (this is good for removing hard seed coats without nicking that as mentioned can damage cotyledons, or worse, if you do it from the other end!) then you can soak em in smoke water or whatever you want and theyll swell nicely.

VM

[ThunderIdeal]

that sounds like a top idea, in my tiny experience i have found scarifying labour intensive.