TOPIC: This years seed arriving; let's see some samples!

Everything that is written on this subject says 10%,(by cutting open a random 10 seeds) is how you judge whether or not to keep the seed shipment and at 10% and over you should reject the lot.

Stratifying good seed is not easy, getting over 10% bad seed is easy. Even in a Lab setting 3% plus is common so don't expect that all the seeds will be free of disease. Anything under 10% is satisfactory. How does the embryo look?

guy

Out of 15lb, 9.5 ounces floated. The remaining seed I have about 10% in early stages of decomp. I just cut open 30 seed and sure nuff, 3 seed were milky white. The embryos that are visible are 1 - 1 1/2 millimeters in length. They said they would send a compensation shipment but i am thinkin on rejecting it all and buying elsewhere if that is possible at this point. They already have my money so I cant necessarily make them but I am not liking the looks of this.

Hillhopper

If that was my personal seed and I had no other recoarse then I would have to use it.

in hind site it maybe worth traveling around and maybe even staying a nite or two in a hotel to examine the seed before the money changes hands. I have two buyers that travel over 600 kilometers every year.

(Just like in the 60's and 70's see the product, examine the product then pay, but no beer first).LOL


guy

Man all of these reports of bad (or at least not ideal) seed is making me a bit nervous...

I have 2 lbs that should be here Thursday or Friday from one of the suppliers I used last year that I had really good germination from (but never checked for embryo development).

Hope it turns out to be OK.

TNhunter

Received my 5 lbs of seed today. If the picture loads correctly, here are 10 random seeds split open.

I'm really sorry the picture quality is so bad. Even in person I had trouble finding embryos. Very much like looking at last month's ultrasound (which they tell me is a girl)! Anyway, here is my interpretation of where the embryos are. I'm really not sure, so please help me out. If I'm looking at them right there are visible embryos in about 6 of the 10, with most of those being 2-3 mm in length. Embryo in seed 2 is about 1 mm, and I'm just not sure about any of the others. What do you all think? It looks like I may not have cut some of them perfectly in half.

vafiddler,

It's hard to say from that picture, but they look to be very dark inside to me (darker than any I have seen anyway) - could just be the light.

You might try looking thru the batch and find a few that are cracked/smiling or see if any have tails, and split a few of those open and see what the embryo looks like.

If they are showing those signs then should have a nicely developed embryo.

Then if you pick out another 10-20 random seeds that are not showing those signs and split them and check them out. Well they should have developed embryo too, may not be hardly as large but should still be developed to the 2-3 mm stage.

If you don't find that - could be a questionable batch.

The Hardings seeds that I planted late last winter, some were cracked/smiling and some even had 1/4 inch tails, so I just assumed the entire batch was good.

If I had cracked open 20 or so seeds that were not showing those signs - think I would have realized that the large majority of the seed was either green or just improperly stratified.

Good Luck to You!

TNhunter

Everyone,

I think that everyone should be looking for nice white pulp inside of their seeds with embryo's that are 2-3mm long. I think that seeds with embryo's that are 4-5mm long like Guy suggested, is unreasonable and is not what's necessary to make a seed have the ability to germinate well in the spring. That would be like saying that \"Only Ginseng plants that have tops that are 24\" tall and berry spikes that 6' or taller are the only plants that are of any value(like Billy's plants) and anything smaller than that, is not acceptable\". But nothing could be farther from the truth.

Everything that is written on the subject of of proper embryo size after stratification suggests that an embryo of 2-3mm is what we should be looking for. That's the size of embryo that my seeds have. And after planting seeds from the same seed supplier for the past seven years, I have no dought that they will germinate well next spring.

I just finished planting my 3 lbs and 15 oz of seeds on Tuesday. It took my two kids and I, two days to plants all those seeds. Like every year, it felt great to get them all in the ground.

Now I'm working on planting a bunch of Goldenseal seeds that my good friend Latt shared with me.

I noticed that a few of this years seedling are just starting to turn yellow. All the older plants are still green.

We just finished depulping all the berries I harvested and have now buried them for stratifying. I'm exicited about having some of my own seeds to plant next fall, and I hope they turn out well with this being my first try at stratifification.

Vafiddler, I do think that your seeds look brown and dried out. Perhaps it's the lighting. Also It's hard to see any embryo's. Perhaps if you take a close-up of maybe four seeds, we could see the embryo better. I know, I found it difficult to take good photo's of my seed embryo's. Good Luck!


Thanks,

classicfur

Well, I received my replacement shipment today from Hsu's ginseng. The compensation shipment didn't even come close to how many were bad, I am ticked off about this, I explained down to the 1/8 ounce how many floated and even the percentage that were going bad. We are going ahead and planting these seed this week and are about to place another order from a different source. They've definitely lost a customer.


Hillhopper

hillhopper,

Man - I feel your frustration - hope you have some luck at finding good seed soon.

My seed did arrive in the mail today - 2 lbs and I just now got to open one of the packs and check it out - looked good to me.

I just randomly picked 4 seeds out and split them real careful with a razor blade and did my best to take a good pic of them.

They were all nice and white/greenish inside, and I can see decent sized embryo inside all 4. The pic might not show it that good but I had just split them open when I took that pic. Classicfur said they may show up better a little later.

This was as good as I could get with my camera.



TNhunter