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Catha Edulis (Khat, Qat) Seed Germination Tips Tutorial


Buttsack

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These are the seeds I sell and post out. The ziplock bags are small "snack" size, but you can use any size really.
Open a bag, spray water in 1 or 2 times. Mostly seal the bag but leave a small opening in the middle. Pinch either side of the 10mm opening and push together slightly to make an opening. Blow the bag up using your mouth then seal it. Give it a good shake to spread the seeds and water around. If the bag deflates just blow it up again, it usually lasts the 2 weeks though. Then put in a dark place at room temp. I did this on 20 August 2021.
The rest of the pics were taken 2 September 2021. As you can see germination rate is still good, around 80%. These were harvested December 2020 and kept in a cool, dry, dark place.
If you want to buy any seed it's 23 bucks for 150x seeds, all in one bag from tree number 4 which is Vienna White/Pink (running low on others), including tracked postage. Message me here or [email protected]

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These particular seeds have excellent viability -- especially for khat (which has been tricky for me in the past). Thanks, Buttsack!

Mine I just sprinkled on the surface of a pot, mainly crushed gravel, and gave a daily misting. Not sure about germination rate, but good enough for my purposes. 

It's another six months (I reckon) before they need to be transplanted to separate pots. 

 

 

 

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very nice offer, buttsack, and your germinating tek, is very smart and neat!

fyzygy's methode, is what i used to do, but let me add something to both of your methods.

 

i have in the past experimented with polarisation of catha seeds, and have established the information as follows.

 

i would suggest to orientate, the seeds in following fashion. make sure the seeds are placed into the potting mix, with the wing facing upwards, the same i would do, using the coin bag tek.

than just place the bag in a slant position, so the emerging roots have a space to, grow down to.

using the coin bag method, and moving the bag around (changing the orientation of what the seed thinks is the down direction) can lead to the root not forming in a straight fashion.

placing the seed "wing facing up" as well will make the embryonic root go straight down into the soil, whilst upside down planting the root will emerge at the 12 o'clock position and than have to bent to "go down into the soil.

 

plant the seeds ~4mm deepand use fine sieved seed raising mixture for the top 2cm of the soil.

once the seedlings have formed 4 or 5 leaves, on can inspect them and decide, which seedlings to keep and which to cull, in the same fashion a rose or fruit breeder would go about.

 

bs, you mentioned vienna white/pink, which suggests to me the mother plant was a seedling, can please elaborate on this and tell us, if it was self pollinated or maybe mixed pollinators where at work.

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

Seed from a big old red khat tree ... always fails to germinate for me. Lately I've tried Buttsack's plastic-bag method (above), again to no avail. Seed was collected less than 2 months ago. This particular tree seems to reproduce mainly via suckering. It's an old tree (grown from a cutting planted 20+ years ago) so maybe no longer fertile? 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I only managed once to get a seedling to maturehood, its flowering now and its a narrow leaf one. I also have a wide leaf var , also flowering.. Honestly its so easy to propagate through suckers, that I havent bothered again with seeds.  

 

Question:  both my narrow leaf and broad leaf vars seem to be self-fertile, and the little seed they do is usually lost with the air lol.

How are hybrids done if they are self- fertile?? or could I be wrong and only the narrow leaf one is self-fertile? 

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I reckon you'd prolly need to open up an immature flower by hand, and remove the pollen sacs before they've ripened, and while you're in there dump some nice fresh pollen from the other variety. Do this many times and grow out many seedlings and look for those that look like hybrids.

Edited by Halcyon Daze
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  • 2 weeks later...
On 18/12/2021 at 8:48 PM, sagiXsagi said:

I only managed once to get a seedling to maturehood, its flowering now and its a narrow leaf one. I also have a wide leaf var , also flowering.. Honestly its so easy to propagate through suckers, that I havent bothered again with seeds.  

 

Question:  both my narrow leaf and broad leaf vars seem to be self-fertile, and the little seed they do is usually lost with the air lol.

How are hybrids done if they are self- fertile?? or could I be wrong and only the narrow leaf one is self-fertile? 

so, we have posted a lot about this years ago, and i might add to hd,s reply.

 

1, at my location good flowers and seeds are produced only after heavy rain.

2, for hand pollination, and this is how ph was created, i put a plastic bag around the unopend flower.

than when it opend, removed the pollen stalks, by cutting them off with scissors. note this was done with premature pollen stalks.

than apply pollen from your cross breed to the stigma, note the stigma is mature if it "looks" wet.

than quicly put the plastic bag over the flower to avoid other pollen from fertilizing.

3, but my newer methode, is much easier and requires, no steady hands anymore.

let the flowers x pollinating by chance (or even help by hand pollinating) and than just grow all the seedlings and pick them by trait.

4, often this plant produces in fertile seeds, which look flat or not filled out, only try to germinate "fat" seeds. note in fertile seeds are produced by lack of moisture.

plants need to be planted in the ground to produce a good set of seeds...

5, to collect the seeds, you take the whole branch off, just when the seed capsuls are starting to split open.

than you put the branch in a cardboard box. maybe the long cut branch will still provide enough nutrients to the seeds over the next few days...

than you whip the branch against the card board, to get the subborn seeds out.

6, than like panning for gold you shake the box, this will make the seeds collect at the bottom and corner (keep box tilted).

than remove all the debris which collects at the top, and the seeds will be collected right at the bottom.

Edited by withdrawl clinic
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  • 11 months later...
On 02/11/2021 at 6:41 AM, Buttsack said:

Then put in a dark place at room temp.

I have seed that has sprouted tails, using this Buttsack method.

What's the next step? When/how to plant into what kind of growing medium? Soil, or something sterile like vermiculite?

I've heard the seedlings are prone to damping off, so figure it might be best to get them out of the bag asap. 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

the ziplock methode, is very good for lots of different seeds.

i would only use it though if i doubt the viabilety of the seeds, and or want to have a very low labour input approach.

in other words, you only add a bit of water to the coin bag the seeds arrived in and done!

if something germinates, you place the small seedling into some potting mix later on.

this methode, saves a lot of work, and only seeds that germinated get processed....

but it has disadvantages as well, damping off issues could get worsend, and moving and planting a tiny embryo, is at time risky buisiness.

if the seeds are located without polarisation (planting a seed the right way up) and if the bags oriantation is changed, the emerging root will spiral or tangle itselfe up, which is far from ideal.

if you know the seed will germinate, than planting out into seed raising mixture (searls) into small individual pots is the best.

like this the seedling never gets disturbed, untill it's bigger, when it gets repotted.

 

polarisation: every seed has a spot where the root comes out of the seed coat, if that spot faces upwards the root has to bend itselfe downwards to go deeper into the soil.

the root knows where "straight down" is but if you inspect the ziplock bag, and put it down, in a different orientation the seeds root get curled up.

as well this happens because if you lay down a zip lock bag, ther is no space for the root to go down into.

always place the zip lock bags upright, against some support, and make sure the seeds dont move inside the bag.

 

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My method is a lot more chaotic, and I deprive them of any fixed orientation until I remove the young seedling -- at first sign of first leaves -- from the humidified plastic bag. I let them find their own way, once I place them in small pots of coarse sand/perlite, although DIY potting mix has worked well also. Germination rates were significantly higher and faster for me using the ziplock bag, than any other method I tried. 

 

As pictured:

(L) I used my fingers to pick them out and place them gently into the 4 x square cells, and within a few days they had shot upwards

® a few days later I flushed out the remainder and poured them into the prepared circular pot, where they righted themselves in a matter of days

 

I don't let them dry out, give them a small amount of water each day. So far, so good. 

 

I'm a seed sprouter from way back, so don't think keeping the bag upright or still is critical at this early stage of development. After all, there's no medium to support their orientation with respect to gravity or light. I throw my ziplock bag around any which way, primarily to prevent standing moisture. 

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After I split the pods and extract what I can of the seed, I sow the "empty" husks too (i.e. chuck em on top of a pot, with a handful of soil, sand etc over the top, and wet it once a day). Stuck seeds have begun to germinate that way, but it's taken a couple of weeks for them to break through. I didn't have much success using the takeaway container method, probably didn't wet my media properly (lots of condensation gathering but surface of media remained dry). Ziplock bag is definitely fastest, in my experience, but only for the naked seeds (no pod or husk material, as it attracts microbial growth inside the bag). 

 

UPDATE. Split pods with seed have germinated much faster than the winged seeds alone: compare top and bottom halves of plastic container, pictured. All were merely scattered on the surface and loosely covered with sand (i.e. I didn't orient the bare seed, as recommended by some). Hard to see, but only 1 or 2 new seedlings have emerged on the "bare seed" side. 

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Edited by fyzygy
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  • 2 weeks later...
On 10/01/2023 at 11:41 AM, fyzygy said:

 

 

UPDATE. Split pods with seed have germinated much faster than the winged seeds alone: 

 

thats very interressting, and a new development.

about how long this seed (or any seed in general) might stay viable:

rule of thumb, the smaller the seed, the faster they loose viabilety. allways store seeds in the fridge, catha seeds in the butter compartment stay viable for 3 years and more.

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A rogue snail just ate all my best seedlings, the ones with their first true leaves. It ignored all the rest -- I'd already noticed that snails didn't seem to bother them, which had given me a false sense of security. Oh, and snails aren't as averse to mint as some would have you believe (I put my pots out in the peppermint patch overnight). Just a quick heads-up. 

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and did you see the snail, "legging"it with increased speed, after she had the qat chew?

but seriously, maybe the stimulant in the qat, is an anti feeding agent, produced by the plant.

animal consumes qat> get's stimulated> moves further than usual>inebriated>can't find the spot where qat grew again> plant survives

 

i know very little sience, regarding why plants contain activas which can heal, or have other benefits to animals and humans.

my mate told me, he grew a crop of radishes, now over the hot summer. he said, "the seeds germinated much faster" than in spring/winter.

the radishes were so hot, he could not eat them. this made me think, and come up with this theorem.

 

cold weather> seed germs slow>doesn't worry about snail attack as seedling(no snails around yet)>radish only a little spicy, as pretador nummers still low.

hot weather> fast germination (seed knows warm weather means lots of pretadors around already, beeing fast reduces risks))>radish too "spicy" to eat for humans and cattapillars and co.

Edited by withdrawl clinic
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