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

Those seed look good to me TN, I would say your good to go.

Hillhopper

Thanks guys for the quick responses. The reason for the dark coloring is that I let them sit for an hour or so to try and see the embryo better. When freshly cut they are definitely the milky white color of TnHunters seed. I split 5 more open today and think I've convinced myself that each had a 2 mm embryo. With the naked eye I can just make out a short elongated line, not the bulb shaped sack around the line, if that makes sense. Definitely less distinct than TnHunters but they were there in each of the 5 I split tonight. You still can't see them in the pictures, but I think its my camera/lighting. Anyway, here are two new photos. These seeds are from Scott Persons by the way. Wish I could get better pictures, but I've tried 2 cameras and different lighting already. Will do a float test tomorrow when my scale arrives. Thanks again!

Wrong picture, here's the split seeds. The insides are still darker than reality.

Hey guys I did a little experimenting just now and found something that makes those embryo's easier to see and photograph.

My wife had a lil pack of food coloring - 4 colors, red, green, yellow and blue.

I droped 1 small drop on each half of those seeds and let is sit a about 30 seconds and then dried off the excess with a paper towell.

Check out the results.



TNhunter

Hillhopper

I would not be happy with seeds like that either. Or happy with them not replacing the proper amount of seeds that you requested.

If I received the seeds that you did, Hsu would of lost me as a customer also.

My seeds came from Hsu and out of 4 lbs, I had about 20-25 floaters per lb of seed. I cracked opened a few and they were dried out and decayed.

I wish you well in finding a better supplier.


TNhunter

Coloring the seeds looks like a great way to highlight the embryo's. I take it, that you did'nt have anything to measure the embryos? If they are average size seeds, I would guess from the pics that the embryo is about the same as mine(2-3.5mm long).

Vafiddler

It's still hard to see the embryo in your pics. You should try TNhunters seed coloring trick and seed if that highlights the embryo better.

I think that there is alot of good and bad seeds out there. And it's obvious that its up to us the buyer to inspect them thoroughly.

Thanks for sharing the info and pics.

classicfur

Classicfur,

I did not measure the embryo's last night, but could tell by eye that they were about the right size.

This morning they are dried and shrunken up some and I checked them on my ruler and the smallest look to be just a little over 2 mm and the largest around 3.5 mm.

If you remember this same seed supplier from last year - again this batch is like last year with a high % cracked and smiling.

I took a gal zip lock freezer bag and poked hundreds of small holes in it, put the seed in, a little water and stirred them up good, and stored in the lettuce crisper drawer in the fgidge.

I hope to get to plant some this evening, and a lot on Saturday and all next week (off for Vacation) and will sure be putting some seed in the ground then.

Can't wait.

TNhunter

classicfur,
I dont think the people I was talkin with understood what I was getting at or were that knowledgable on the subject either. Im sure if I spoke with Paul he would have understood the chances of so many good seed being contaminated with that large of an amount being bad already. The ladies I spoke with seemed they were pretty much hired to answer the phone and take orders and thats it. Im sure it was just a bad batch I got a hold of but Im not payin this kind of money to gamble on a decent seed shipment. Seed dealers should know better than to just scoop seed out of a barrel, weigh em up and send them on their way. I have given them another chance to make it right, I sent the whole shipment back requesting the return of my money and the cost of the return shipping, also I enclosed a letter directing this matter to paul's attention with the bad seed in a seperate gallon bag so he could see for himself.

TNhunter
Id say those arms of yours will get a good workout by the middle of next week. I know your lookin forward to it.


Hillhopper

It's good to see that my photos of ginseng seed embryo's right out of the stratification box, have gotten the attention of so many people on this forum. We have all learned that splitting seeds open for examination is a must if we are to start understanding how to grow ginseng. Good seed is the start to good roots.

Classicfur - We have also learned that seeds are different in different locations, embryo's that are three quarters the size of the seed are not old seed left in the stratification box to long. They are just seed that are very healthy and ready to grow their small root before the ground freezes. Small embryo's may not be large enough to germinate the next year and may have to wait till next year to germinate. A problem that four or five people may have experienced last year, but now can see what works by splitting the seeds.

Returning seed thats bad will also show suppliers we are not to be fooled with the crap from the bottom of the barrel.

TNhunter - thats a great idea using food colouring, now on your camera select your best picture and use the digital zoom to resize the picture for you. Thats how I can get those close up shots

Guy

- some more good info that was sent my way.

www.nativeplantnetwork.org/Content/Articles/3-2NPJ109-111.pdf


Guy

I was going to try planting about 15-18 lbs of seeds this fall. But due to my shoulder needing a possible Shoulder Joint replacement surgery, I opted to only plant 3 lbs of seeds.

But my shoulder is feeling pretty good lately, so I decided to buy a pound of seeds from TNhunters seed supplier(Hardwood Ginseng in Minnesota). Since I had set aside $1200 for seeds I will try test some other seeds. Then I will see how these seeds germinate compared to the ones I got from Hsu. And will give an accurate germination rate comparison this next spring.

This is a post on how I calculate germination on a pound of seeds:

www.wildgrown.com/index.php/Ginseng-Foru...culations.html#10369

We will wait to see the results.

Hillhopper

I think that if the problem is directed to Pauls attention, he would deal with the issue of shipping bad seeds. And correct it!

classicfur