Sunny and warm autumn afternoons are the perfect time to carry outseed collectionfor spring sowing or exchange with friends. If the weather is good, it is worth taking a break from the autumn cleaning works in the garden and looking for mature seed boxes. Seehow to collect seeds , what the correctseed storage looks likeand ways to induceseed germinationwhen it arrives time of sowing.
Seeds collected in the garden
How to Harvest Your Seed
Forseed harvestingchoose only fully mature seed heads that guarantee he althy, viable seeds and abundant emergence. If the seeds show signs of any disease, they should be left behind, or better yet, along with the infected plant fragments, and burned. In this way, we will avoid the pathogen reappearing in the next growing season. Also, it is not worth collecting seeds that are not fully ripe, because soft, green seed shells indicate that the embryo, i.e. the future plant, is not fully formed. Additionally, such seeds easily fall victim to diseases and pests during the storage period.
"The quality of the collected seeds is also influenced by the way we carry outseed collectionWhen we are sure that the seed boxes are ready for harvest, we can cut the whole seed heads together with a fragment of the stem on which they are situated. Such bouquets should be placed upside down in paper bags close to a heat source for a few days, so that the seed heads fully open and the seeds dry.This will prevent mold and rot during storage. "
After drying, it is worth shaking the bag a few times so that the falling seeds fall to its bottom - it will be easier to get them out.
If the pods are particularly resistant and do not fully open, you need to use a different methodseed collectionPut a handful of seeds on the unfolded newspaper, roll the paper into a roll and firmly crush the contents. All the sprinkled seeds will fall out of the lower opening straight into the previously placed container.
Once we have our desired seeds in the container, it is worth making sure that they remain in it only without unnecessary ballast in the form of chaff. The easiest way to do this is by blowing out extra ballast or sifting the whole thing through a fine mesh sieve.
Storing seeds
Since we already knowhow to collect seeds , it is also worth considering their proper storage until sowing, because properseed storagehas a huge influence on suitability of seeds for sowing.In large seed companies, seed batches ready for storage are placed in containers and transferred to the warehouse, where there are strictly defined humidity and gas conditions. The significantly reduced oxygen content causes that all life processes of the embryo run much slower, thanks to which the seeds often gain twice as long life as those stored in a standard atmosphere. An additional plus resulting from the low level of oxygen in the warehouse is the reduction of pathogenic fungi and pests that cannot grow in such conditions.
AHow to store seedsin amateur conditions, where we cannot provide such storage conditions? Here, a cool and dry room is enough to store sorted seeds until the next season. Cleaned seeds should be packed in paper packets or used to store them in foil ziplock bags, available in many sizes.
Seed germination
Mother Nature has developed many survival strategies. Also in the case of seeds, there are several ways to counteract too earlyseed germination , which could lead to the destruction of delicate seedlings, appearing already in late autumn, due to the winter cold weather, There is a division into plant species in ecology whose seeds are undergoingrelative restandabsolute rest
The first group includes plants that produceseeds germinatingas soon as appropriate environmental conditions appear. It is mainly about appropriate humidity necessary to initiate germination, favorable temperature and light conditions. There are many annual plants here, the seedlings of which appear in late summer and usually die during the first strong frosts.
The second group includes a wide range of perennials, shrubs and woody plants, the seeds of which begin to grow only in the spring of the following year. The following are responsible for this course of events:
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- germination inhibitors , chemicals contained in seeds that inhibit the development of the embryo. These chemical retarders degrade gradually over a specific period of time. Only after their disappearance, the embryo can continue its development. "
- thick and hard seed shellsimpermeable to gases and water.
Hard shells are slowly decomposed by soil microorganisms, thanks to which oxygen-rich air and water necessary to resume life processes begin to reach the embryo. - physiological immaturity of the embryo .
After the arrival of warm spring days, the embryo continues to develop using the reserve substances to finally break through the seed coat and start germinating.
If we have plant species in our gardens, the seeds of which must undergoabsolute dormancy , and we would like to propagate them ourselves by sowing, it is worth using two proven methods to induceseed germinationThese are stratification and scarification.
Stratificationis nothing more than keeping the swollen seeds at a temperature of 2-3 ° C for a specified period of time. This corresponds to the natural course of weather conditions during the autumn and winter cold weather and contributes to faster germination of the seeds. Without this treatment, some seeds may not germinate even two years in anticipation of favorable conditions for the disappearance of growth inhibitors.
And so, for example, daylily seeds require a 1.5-month cold period to start sprouting, and the seeds of plants such as the Himalayan footer and ginseng take up to 7-10 months for this.
The second treatment sometimes used to wake up sleeping seeds isscarification , which is mechanical or chemical damage to the seed coat to facilitate access to the germ of moisture and oxygen-rich atmospheric air. It is usually made by filing the hard cover with a file or by etching with concentrated acid.For example, the seeds of dogwood that are edible under natural conditions begin to sprout in the second, and not infrequently, only in the third year after sowing. Subjected to a several-minute bath in sulfuric acid, they germinate within one year.
Emil Gwizdała
