a closer look at
seed sowing with Production
Administrator, Amy Hoeschel
Each technique of
plant propagation has its benefits and costs. This is the final
installment going through four categories of propagation—from what
they are to how and why they are performed—and interviewing the Production
Specialists who lead the charge here at North Creek.
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| Amy Hoeschel, Production Administrator. |
Today, we’ll be learning about the most traditional method of plant
propagation—seed! We’re speaking with Amy Hoeschel, Production
Administrator, about where we get our seed, why seed is good, the process
of sowing seed, and the waiting game.
Give a general
walk-through on how we sow seed:
Each seed has a plan
(how many plants we will create for the year) and we have tried and true recipes to grow the seeds. Recipes include things like treatments to the seed, weeks it takes for seed to germinate, and whether or not the seed requires light or darkness. If seeds require a pre-treatment, like scarification* or stratification**, we’ll provide that first. Then, we’ll sow the seed using a vacuum Blackmore seeder in 288 seedling trays with regular growing mix and, depending on whether the recipe calls for it, a top coat of coarse vermiculite. Trays are watered in, placed in heated greenhouses (about 70°F) and allowed to germinate. Once the first true
leaves come in and the seedlings have rooted to the bottom of the 288 tray,
we transplant the seedlings into larger plug tray sizes.
Where do we get our seed?
Our seed comes from a variety of sources: several species are collected from the seedbanks on our property, while other seed we have permission to collect locally. Additionally, some seed is collected by local plantsmen,
including Dale Hendricks, and sent to us. We also rely on suppliers such as
Ernst Seed or Jelitto Perennial Seed.
What are the benefits of using seed?
Most importantly, genetic diversity. Each plant has a little bit of
variation which helps make the plant species gene pool stronger, overall.
Out of the propagation types, sowing seed is the only form of propagation sexually produced. A lot of seed we grow is for the ecological market and the plants don’t propagate well using other methods. Most plants in the wild propagate themselves readily by seed and we’re just mimicking that process. Seed is the largest propagation method at North Creek, with over
37% of our plants propagated by seed. It is very affordable—thousands of seeds for very little cost. From a production standpoint, seed is good because we can react to germination issues very quickly. While this isn’t necessarily true for everything, it is mostly true—as you will find further along in this interview.
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| Samples of seed. |
What are some
challenges of using seed versus other forms of propagation?
Well, for the seed themselves—there’s always a chance that the wrong seed was collected or that there is seed contamination, especially if someone else is collecting the seed. Seed contamination is when a plant crosses with another species and makes a hybrid cross and no longer shows the phenological traits desired, such as habit and flower color. If there is contamination or a mix-up, we won’t know until the plant grows and for some plants, not until they flower. The flowers are usually the best way to tell if you have the ‘pure’ version of a plant because they’ll show the most differences. Another factor is seed shortage—this happens especially if there’s been a weird growing season for the mother plant, with a drought or a cold rainy summer. Bad growing seasons affect seed viability and every year has the potential to be a gamble.
While seed is generally the easiest propagation type,
things can go wrong. If you sow all your seed and find germination is poor
—due to whatever reason—you’re pretty much done for the year and left waiting for the current year’s flowers to set seed for next year. A prime example is Iris versicolor. We purchase fresh seed and immediately put the whole year’s crop into a pre-treatment. If we get poor or no germination—because of something wrong with the seed—then that’s the whole year’s crop. If this occurs, we have to wait until the following year to try again by seed. In comparison, when something happens to a bad tissue culture crop, you can always get more tissue culture. The same thing from when plants do not take well from cuttings - you can wait for the stock plants to regrow and take more cuttings.
What is the general timeframe for seed to emerge? How long does it take for an average crop of plants to finish, from beginning to end?
Generally, plants emerge from the seed within 2-3 weeks. For a plant to go
from start to finish—it depends on the species and it can also depend on
the size of the plug tray because it takes a Landscape Plug™ LP50 or LP32
longer to ‘finish’ and fully root in versus a horticultural 50 or 72. A
72-cell tray has the potential to finish in 10 weeks while a majority (from
start to finish and not including the time it takes for pre-treatments)
takes between 12-14 weeks. A crop sown in a LP50 tray will commonly finish in 20 weeks. Treatments can add on as much as 4-16 additional weeks of production time.
What is the fastest
plant we grow?
Our fastest crop to grow is probably Asclepias syriaca because we direct sow the seed into the LP50 instead of transplanting the seedling from a 288. Crops finish in 8 weeks, and we have found the plant is much healthier without the transplant shock.
The slowest?
Our longest seed crop is probably Asarum canadense because
we have found the best technique is to collect the seed locally over the
summer, sow it outdoors, let it do its thing all winter, pot it up into our
LP50 in May and then give it another 23 weeks (until October) to finish. By then, it will realistically be sold the following season. Nearly 2
years!
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