acacia seed propagation

[phloom]

Ive bit of experience growing acacia from seed commercially. Heres the procedure we use:

mix: equal parts perlite with peat (havested or coconut). You can pasteurise it (65deg+ for 20 minutes) but its not necessary. Put the mix in a wide shallow propagation tray filled to just below the rim.

All the acacia seed (and most sclerophyll species) is prepared by pouring boiling water over the seeds just before putting them in the tray.

Spread the seeds over the tray evenly, and dont crowd them together too much if you have heaps of seed.

Cover the seed with a layer of vermiculite, just to point you cant see any soil or seed. Then label the tray and date it.

Watering it in with a fungicide is advisable (Banrot etc.)

Keep the trays moist, but not wet all the time. A heat bed helps escpecially in winter or cold climates.

Acacias generally have a good germination rate, and you should see green shoots coming up within several weeks depending on species and temperature.

Prick them out into a well drained potting mix when root branching starts *be gentle and use a chopstick or something.

Go forth and multiply

Edited October 23, 2007 by phloom

[Rev]

Thanks Phloom

I just wish we could get you a hundred or so phlebophylla seeds to run through the setup

I was looking through a pro nursery equipment catalogue today and i go weak in the brain, jaw and knees

and the salivary glands start inessantly ( think homer and pork rings)

droooool aaaaaargh

Root out those petunias and Tea roses! give me a pro setup and ill bring you the revolution ;) LOL

ive seen those steam setups at Uni - sweeeet

so many potential plants are lost cos media isnt pasteurised

except the ideal is to then reinnoculate with probiotics

on a small scale a microwave oven is substtutable

[phloom]

what was that rev?....you are going to bring the revolution with tea and roses!? sweet.

Yeah, you really dont need to pasteurise the mix, as long as your tray and bench etc is clean. And having a fungicide handy is really useful for dealing with rot (usually caused by overwatering and poor airflow).

I forgot to mention sunlight....it isnt neccessary until they have fully emerged. Then move them into filtered light or maybe 2-3 hours morning sun for a few weeks, increasing to full sun after a few more.

They wont do much coming into winter, so spring is the best time. So maybe ive jumped the gun posting this now? oh well.

viva la acacia

[Gunter]

I recall one place that had a germination method where they were planted in some soil and then a few inches of pine needles piled on top of the mix and burned.

I like your method and will try it this spring!

Maybe I can plant in the ground and use the boiling water?

[indigo264nm]

Thought I'd add to that if you wanna make the most from a small ammount of seeds (A. obtusifolia seem a bit stubborn in this department) boiling\hot water soak for 24 hours, pick out the swollen and plant those, and then repeat with the boiling water on the other seeds until they swell.

[Rev]

I prefer nicking seedcoat with a scalpel with rare seed

im less likely to forget about them and soak too long that way

[toby]

We've been using (since December) a plug and cell mix for all propagating, and had atleast, equal results.

Saves hours spent shredding bales of coco peat, and getting covered in perlite dust!

[lampy]

the best success i have ever had when germinating acacia was to soak the seads in boiling water and then let cool and sit for a FEW DAYS.

Only found out about it when putting some into boiling water and forgetting to take them out. I then had to go away to work for a week, on returning i found nearly all of the 30 seeds had just sprouted in the water. The seeds were then planted in some old cactus mix and vermiculite. I now have 30 healthy seedlings.

Seems to be faster and more reliable than other methods?

[obtuse]

I have had the same.

Did the standard nick, soak in hot water. but forgot about them, to find them all growing nicely, much faster then normal in my experience.

I would assume care should be taken to not let them sit too long in case of rot etc.

Worthy of more experiments i think.

anyway, cheers, Obtuse.

[Mycot]

I prefer to use sandpaper rather than nicking as there is less chance of damage to seed. The outermost cuticle(the shiny bit) is what stops water penetration so one doesn't have to take off much. A few hours soaking in normal temp water and then placed on moist medium works for me.

[Torsten]

if you want to process large numbers of seed via sandpaper you can glue a sandpaper sheet to the inside of a tin or jar and place couple of spoonfulls of seed inside and shake for a while.

[Mycot]

I also wish to add that when the seeds germinate they are placed into their more permanent growing medium. Seeds that haven't swollen(where the scarification has been a little insufficient), where others have germinated, are reputt through the sandpaper treatment.

[Mycot]

Since A.phlebophylla was mentioned above, gardeners must have some awareness of differences in germination periods for differing species. While many acacia species and legumes may have germination periods of a couple weeks and most acacia will germinate within a month, A.plebophylla generally has a much longer germination in my observation. That is one month on the inside, with about three months as the average and five months on the outside.

[Torsten]

Since A.phlebophylla was mentioned above, gardeners must have some awareness of differences in germination periods for differing species. While many acacia species and legumes may have germination periods of a couple weeks and most acacia will germinate within a month, A.plebophylla generally has a much longer germination in my observation. That is one month on the inside, with about three months as the average and five months on the outside.

Phlebophylla seed has a much more leathery seedcoat than most other acacias. This may be an adaption to the hard granite slopes that would quickly scarify other species.

Many phlebophylla seeds will die without germination which prompted us to investigate the reason. We found that nicked seed would swell, but the seed coat would not rupture beyond the nick, essentially strangling the germinating seed. HW treated seed would frequently just sit bloated until it rotted. Some bloated seed would partially rupture, but then present a similar problem to nicked seed.

So we treated some seed by nicking and others by HW and sowed all seeds in light coloured medium. Any seed that did not germinate within 10 days was dug up and the seedcoat was scored 80-90% with a scalpel around the equator, carefully avoiding the eye. In some cases the coat fell off in others it didn't. A few seeds were rotten. The healthy seeds were placed back into the medium and about 80% germinated within 2 weeks.

It appears phlebophylla seed has adapted to be reliant on a combination of mechanical scarification AND fire for best germination, or maybe fire has a more appropriate effect on the seedcoat than HW treatment.

My next experiment will be with fire treated seed and with seed that has a score engraved into the equator of the dry seed and then HW treated or nicked.

[incognito]

ive had good success just steeping in boiling water for an hr then sowing in a free draining mix.

[phloom]

like jono signiture says, trial and error.

Spose it doesnt really matter if you got a kilo of seed, on the other hand with phlebo......

good to see youre figuring it out T

Edited October 23, 2007 by phloom

[incognito]

Now THATS an avatar.

[cannaboiler]

hey guy's i think i'm reasonably clear for acacia seed germ tech's now after reading, i would like to know if the Phlebophylla would grow in the sunshine coast region, Or am i best forgetting that breed for here, Im asking because i read about it's temp range in the wild way different from here of course, 7 to 40/50 degrees c On Rocky ground.

It's prollly worth asking, rather than dismissing the idea, due to strategies etc. Obviously i don't want to plant if there's only a slim or No Chance of Success.

i'm pretty excited about this Spring!!! Sevral New species to work with @ the minute A lot of New Widely varied information being processed