Phleb grow log

[El Presidente Hillbillios]

did you get any to a good size incog?

[Sallubrious]

Success !!!

I finally got one to come up. It's been about six weeks since it was treated with hot water and now it's finally poked it's head up.

After two weeks I did what Gerbil said and removed some pieces of the seed coats, then two weeks later nothing had happened so I removed the entire seed coat and planted them in a brunnings seed raising mix (I'll never buy that shit again it was full of chunks of bark) mixed with river sand.

I've raised heaps of acuminata,obtusifolia,maidenii before with no problems, but these things are in a class of their own.

I've got to wonder if there is something from their natural environment that is missing from the soil that assists germination, such as a fungus or bacteria.

[obtuse]

awesome mate looking good.

I think the seed coat think is the big limiting factor with these. and i suspect germination is a bush fire then rain based sequence, bush fire scaring the coat enough so that it breaks and curls off the seed, then rain helping wash it off as the seed is washed into a protective spot. Other thing with fire is i wonder if it helps with natural pasteurisation of the soil, or at least destroying eggs of nematode worms etc that may chomp into the seed (this has been my biggest problem, after working out the seed coat issue).

You are right about bacteria though, these are legumes so need the right association of bacteria to form nodules. when i planted out my phlebs thay had nice huge nodules on the health ones, the unhealthy ones had none i could see. but they are not necessary with germination.

I am beginning to wonder about the role of fungi in this situation. given lots of heat over a extended time period, as happens in summer, some bacteria actually are reduced in population giving way to heat tolerant fungi, such as trichoderderma that are known to used as biocontrol agents, and also known to promote plant growth. I wonder if the hot granite rocks which maintain heat over summer post fire may assist in the survival of seedlings during their first establishment phase.

Gerbil, any thoughts.

i think there are other factors but these strike me as the major hurdles.

Cheers, Ob.

[Sallubrious]

I've just had another one poke its head up today, the cell in the punnet that it was planted in had appeared to have dried out at one stage too. It's been almost 8 weeks since the hot water treatment.

I also had another one germinate but one cotyledon was missing and I can't see an apical meristem so it's a safe bet that it's fucked. A few others rotted as well, all I could find was partly decomposed embryo pieces in the mix.

It seems like rot has been the biggest problem, partly due to an extended cold snap and the second rate seed raising mix I used (brunnings)

I bought it in a pinch when most of the shops were closed and that's all BigW had. It was full of large chunks of bark and shit which I screened out and then mixed in river sand. It was still an inadequate mix.

@ Ob - I'd toyed with the idea of using a small fire to mimic the bushfire effect with the first batch of these that I fucked up, but decided against it because it seemed a bit risky and I didn't want to kill another batch this time so I never tried it.

I was thinking after reading your post about bushfires and PH, with most bushfires the ash is alkaline so maybe the PH of the mix is all wrong for these. Most seeds raising mixes are acidic which could support the wrong sort of microbial life. Maybe a watering with woodash mixed with water could give some protection from rot problems.

Hats off to gerbil, I haven't seen anyone else posting that has had success rates like his