Erythrina (Coral Trees) Seeds

I did a bunch of erythrina seeds, soaking them first and then nicking the ones that did not soften or swell. About half of them softened and swelled. The other half had to be nicked. I tried an emory board but didn't work so I switched to a toe nail clipper which worked OK. You could hear a little crack when you broke through. I am not that confident that I did a good job, I might not have gotten through the shell or damaged the embryo. I was unsure so l left some of each species uncut just to see. I can always crack them later as I am using the paper towel method to germinate. The first coral trees I did without any pre-treatment and got OK germination so we shall see if this does any better. The seeds are bright orange and red and some stain the water and media. The ones I already did germinated pretty fast, so we should know pretty soon. Even if only a few germinate of each species there are going to be lots of coral trees

Some of the Erythrina are already sprouting in and it has only been two days. A little fungi on a couple of them, but I separated out the affected ones and dumped them when I transferred to the filter paper, which works much better than the paper towel. Seeing the beginnings of sprouts in the Solanaceae, particularly the daturas, less so the brugmansias.

Transferred about 8 of the coral trees and two of the crotalaria to the trays. It went pretty easy, but then these are pretty big seeds. Some mold, mostly the stringy kind, almost like what causes dampening off, but it only affects certain seeds. I have been culling those. A few of the solanaceae are starting show some growth but not enough to move yet I am guessing. No signs of germination from the brugmansias or any of the ZA or AU stuff. I made up a full set of trays for all the seeds in the filter paper containers, one six pack each and numbered them. I realize now I could just make up the six packs and number them when I put seeds in them and that would be a lot easier. That way I would only have to stay slightly ahead of the germination rate. I want to do a bunch more seeds. It seems easier to not put too many filter papers in anyone container so you do not have to go through so many. Also seems like a good idea to bunch the ones that germinate about the same time. But this goes against another idea I had which is to make sure that adjacent layers of seeds do not look alike. They tend to adhere to the bottom of the preceding layer and you have to be careful to knock those off before proceeding. I have been using a second container and reversing the order. But I am not sure that is the best idea because of the potential for mixing up the seeds.

Having a spreadsheet data base has worked out well, that way everything is numbered and you just carry the number all the way through, with both a label and a plastic stick.