[PDF warning] Pretty detailed vegetable seed saving guide

submitted by useless_aether from seedalliance.org

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[–]magnora7 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

What I want to know is why some seeds suck so much, mainly fruit seeds. I have planted blackberry, blueberry, strawberry, orange, apple, grapes, and NONE of them sprouted. And I put down hundreds of seeds of each, from different seed sources.

Apparently with almost all those fruits, people generally buy a cutting or part of a plant, and do not use the seeds. I find this bizarre. Apparently I don't understand fruit horticulture very well. My neighbor has a bunch of orange trees that are loaded, and I'm envious haha

[–]useless_aether[S] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

to germinate, some seeds need special treatments, like exposure to high/low temperatures (forest fire/deep freeze), or scarification, or a good soak or to be dried for a month or two before planting. also some human cultivar seeds lost their germination capability and are only propagating vegetatively.

usually its all done by grafting scions onto rootstocks. the rootstocks are usually the original, wild (resistant) varieties of the scion or wild almonds or what have you. the same deal with grapes. grafting is not hard to do with a grafting knife and some practice. and a bit of wax to protect the area from drying out.

there is also a technique, when you maintain moist soil around a tree limb for long enough for it to grow roots there. pick a limb that you would prune anyway, upto one inch thick. rig a tupperware or even just plastic bags might work. the hard part is to keep the soil in place and moist at all times. when there are roots, saw off the limb and plant as usual.

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

also some human cultivar seeds lost their germination capability and are only propagating vegetatively.

I guess that's the part I didn't really understand. Thanks for the explanation! Very interesting

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

So can you just go to a gardening store and buy orange tree branches, and graft those on to a tree? I assume it only grafts on to special types of trees, not just any random tree. Like I have a crape myrtle tree, I can't just slap an orange tree branch on that, right?

[–]useless_aether[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

there are exceptions, but the best is to stick with the same type of fruit, in this case citrus. you could have five types of apples on the same tree, but not kiwi, figs, pears and oranges on the same tree.,

for example, i would aim for early-, mid-, and late season apple varieties on a single tree or both sweet and sour cherries on a single tree and so on.

usually what you buy at a nursery is already grafted for you, but yeah, use it however you want,

i would practice grafting on any piece of decidious greenwood / tree before moving to fruit trees.

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Thanks! How do they get a new tree though if the seeds don't work? Can you turn a branch in to a new tree by soaking it? Is that how all new apple trees are made?

[–]useless_aether[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

most seeds do work, they are just finicky or need a little help from us. once i looked into starting black locusts from seed and they need to be treated w boiling water... with notoriously difficult seeds they use like a 100 seeds just to get a couple of seedlings. but i found mango and avocado seeds sprouting in my red wiggler bins. i had strawberry seeds sprouting while still on the mother plant. my walnut and hazelnut trees are also producing viable seeds. otoh i pruned my cherry severly last year and in response it sent up around 50 shoots all around it. but those are all coming from its root stock so they are wild cherries. which is fine, they are delicious, and, when i want to do some cherry grafting in the future, i will have plenty of rootstock.

edit: right, so rootstock is started from seed and the scion is either a cutting or was also started from seed

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

most seeds do work, they are just finicky or need a little help from us. once i looked into starting black locusts from seed and they need to be treated w boiling water... with notoriously difficult seeds they use like a 100 seeds just to get a couple of seedlings

I dunno, I really tried. I had several hundred of each, and I even 'stratified' them as suggested, which is basically a simulated winter. Even after that, none of the hundreds of seeds sprouted, I was so disappointed!

That's crazy about the boiling water.

Maybe I just got a bad batch of seeds.

Cherries sound amazing.

Thanks for the info! I think I'm going to buy some fruit trees soon. I'll probably just buy the whole tree to keep things easy.

[–]useless_aether[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thanks for the info! I think I'm going to buy some fruit trees soon. I'll probably just buy the whole tree to keep things easy.

the best way to go about it. but! my first purchase was from a big hw store and they mostly died. then i bought some from a big box gardening center and they mostly worked, but were 5x more expensive. then i tried a small nursery nearby who are mostly specialized in flowers and they also died. at last i found a university research facility that also sells to public and they were both cheap and had the most viable stock. or maybe i was just getting better at planting them :-)