TOPIC: Got a little planted today

Trying out some seed from Missouri...

The producer says this is from woods grown sang and that his woods grown has some 25-30 year old wild mixed in to help with genetics.

The seed looked almost black when I first looked at it, but a lot of that washed off. Like it had been in some really black soil or something. Many of the seeds were still darker than what I have been planting after washing.

I did a float test, in 5% Clorox solution for 10 minutes and had around 30 floaters (from 4 oz of seed).

TNhunter

Embryo check.. I was not all that impressed (compared to other seed I have planted).

Did find a couple out of 10 that had decent embryo (pic below) but the others were very small, and some I saw nothing but clear white.

I put them down in a good location, that has wild stuff present. I have been harvesting seng from this hillside for many years, and now putting down some seed there.

I did mostly small spot planting... just here and there.

Putting down a dozen or so seeds in a spot like below.

Trying to keep it as natural as possible in this location.

It was good to get out in the woods again and get a few seeds in the dirt.

I will let you all know how these do next spring and thereafter... as I will be keeping an eye on them to see how they progress compared to other seed I have tried.

This seed is quite expensive.. not going to plant a lot of it until it proves to be superior.

We'll see.

TNhunter

TN,
Your soil looks pretty darn good to me. I have heard you say your soil isn't the best. But I am going to go big next fall on soil that isn't near as good as what yours looks like. I may be crazy for trying this next fall but I intend on doing something I have never done before and that is to amend the soil. Going to till in a boat load of leaf litter and add some gypsum.
Thanks for the pics and sharing.
Latt

Latt..

Just up the hollow a bit from this spot the soil tested at 1500 on Ca.

After 4 years of growth there I have some 3 prongs, but mostly still 2 prongers.

On down the hollow to this spot there is quite a bit of wild seng, but it does not get real big. Sort of like the majority of the area around my home place, mostly small to med sized 3 prongers... even at 30-40 years old. It does produce some nice ball roots though.

TNhunter

TNhunter,

I've been doing a lot of small spot planting also over the years.
I dug about a 1.5 lbs. this year and while I'm seng hunting every time I see a good looking place I'll scratch out an area and put down a dozen or so seeds.
I've planted places I haven't been back to in over 4 years or so.

Thanks for the info TN. I really appreciate it. It is going to help me a lot with this new venture next fall.
Also on those seeds in the pic, it looks like seeds from two different stratification boxes were mixed together to me. Not necessarily a bad thing I guess assuming they were stratified correctly. I have not seed blond seeds come from a box with dark seeds all mixed together. I am not expert of stratification. I have bought a lot of seed though and usually they are all blond or all darker. Interesting to see them mixed like that. I bought seed once from MO and they did very well. As a matter of fact they did significantly better than some others.


Rootman- I bet those spots you haven't been back too are doing well assuming the deer and poachers stay off them. Hope to see some pics of those areas when you get back there someday.


Latt

Fellows,
I read all of your post and looked at the pictures you provided as well. I was also thinking of the thread that Loggy posted, about all of the beds that he made
with that huge number of pounds of seeds. My thoughts about these types of beds that both of you are making is: Does this type of planting stir up more disease potential in the future?
I would be very interested to see TN and Latt plant some by just taking the small end of their spade and cutting a one inch deep trench right through the leaves, and dropping seed into it. After doing this, take the spade turned sideways and cover back over the seed and then tamp it down. I would love to hear a report a few years later about how each method did, in regard to having losses to disease. If you try any like this, let us know.

Hugh