Red Buckeye seed

We have a young red buckeye in our garden. This is her third year, and for the first time, she made interesting brown fruits - if that is the term - which I assume enclose fairly large "buckeyes" like the seed I have seen from the standard buckeye trees. Should I expect these fruits to break open before collecting them? And any input on how to propogate the seed would be much appreciated. I haven't done much planting of tree seed, and need all sorts of good advice!

Thanks, Peter

Hello Peter, I have a Red Buckeye also and I love it, such lovely flowers.
You should wait untill the husk splits on the seed, then pick it and plant it as soon as possible after removing the husk.
The fresher the seed is, the easier it is to sprout, otherwise it may rot before it sprouts. I have tried many ways of planting them, and this has been the most sucessful.
I normally start them in a small styrofoam cup in a good potting soil mixture.
Fill the cup with soil to about a half inch of the top and water well.
Lay the buckeye on the soil on its side and push it down untill half of it is buried and the other half above the soil. The eye of the deed should be at soil level not buried. This seems strange, but if you plant it with the eye down, the sprout will have to split that big seed, and a lot of times will not make it.
I discovered this method when one of the seeds fell off the tree and was half buried in the mulch laying sideways, the eye split and sent a root into the ground.
I lost a lot of seeds to rot, before nature taught me this lesson.
Ckeck it out on the plant files
http://davesgarden.com/pf/showimage/59645/
The seedlings grow very slowly, I guess that is why you don't see many Red Buckeyes. The seed make take 6 weeks to sprout.
Good luck with you sprouting, please let me know how it goes.
Sincerely, Josephine.

Josephine -

Thank you so much for the thoughtful reply. And for the slide show I found when I went to your former Plant Files post on the germinating of this Esclepius. It appears you have fine-tuned yourmethod. You still plant half buried, but originally suggested that the eye be buried. I am going to take the half buried, eye out approach. I think I have about a dozen seeds on our 5' tree, so maybe I will play a little bit with it. This feels like a nice, do-able, not too ambitious winter project.

Peter

If you look very closely at a buckeye seed, you may see the faint outline of the future root circling partly around the nut just inside the pericarp. Plant it with that root pointing down. Use a well-drained potting mix. I second Josephine's precaution about not letting it rot, but you can store it under stratification conditions in moist sand inside a punctured (breathing) plastic bag in your fridg for a few weeks. This might be enough to make it begin to sprout, which makes "aiming" the root down much easier. Remember to keep squirrels, chipmunks, and mice away through the winter and for the entire first growing season, and don't let the pot become warm (or freeze) over winter. Expect early and rapid germination next spring, long before other nut-type seeds sprout.

Guy S.

Thanks, Guy -

I may put a light to the seed, when I get it later on, and see if I can detect the root! I assume that both you and Josephine are saying that sprouting it at house temperature, perhaps after the stratification, would work okay.

Peter

Peter, I do plant mine and keep them in the house, the squirrels would probaby get them outside. I keep them in the house untill Spring, by the kitchen window.
Also I plant them inmediately after picking, and before the sking gets leathery and hard, because it is very hard to break after that. I have never stratified them.
However, there are many ways of doing things, so you might try two or three ways, and see what works best for you.
Josephine.

Thanks, again, Josephine. Now just waiting for the fruits to split open!

Hopefully PDKRONES won't mind my question ... it might come in handy next year :-)

I got some red buckeye seed last year, got them all germinated and now have four of
them about 6" tall each. They all lost their leaves in the last couple of weeks.

I had sown the seed in my warm greenhouse last fall. They kept their leaves through the winter
then dropped the leaves in early spring. They leaved out again and so I thought I might
have them back to normal schedule. I left the pots outside since early spring.

So - did I just goof up their seasonality or is it normal to have them drop leaves really
early in the fall? My plan was to keep them in my unheated garage this winter.

Tam

My seedlings dropped their leaves this summer also. The little trees are about 3 inches tall, but they are not dead, I can see the leaf buds are alive.
It is very strange, I read in one book that the trees defoliate in summer, but my full size tree has not done that, although the leaves have turned yellow and it looks stressed, but I thought it was because of the 100 degree temperatures we have been having.
This is definately an unusual tree.
Josephine.

Thanks for the reassurance Josephine! I also can tell mine are still alive by the leaf buds.
Its unnerving to see them drop leaves so early. Perhaps I didn't totally screw up these poor
trees' internal clocks by having them warm in their first winter? I'm just hoping I manage to
get at least one or two of these four grown up to size sufficient to plant & thrive in my
landscape!
Tam

Yes Tam, that would be very nice. Now we can appreciate why they are hard to find.
I have tried to root cuttings with no luck, have you tried it?
Josephine.

I don't have any to root cut (except my babies.) One of the members of the local Rock Garden
society brought seeds to a meeting last fall so I just popped in some pots and they all germinated.
But right away and it was late fall...
Tam

I see, I thought you had a tree also. Well one of these days you will.
Josephine.

My tree also looks stressed. has for at least a month. But seems to be ok. i don't recall it's doing this last year. As Jos. suggests, must be the weather.

Josephine, I haven't looked on the map for your part of Tx.: hope you are ok, with the storm coming onshore tonight!

Peter

Thank you for your concern Peter, we are all fine, it looks like we may get a little rain if we are lucky, the storm turned toward the east, so our area was spared.
We do have family and friends in Houston, but it appears that it wasn't very bad there either, Thank the Lord.
Josephine.

Glad to hear that you and yours are well, Josephine.

P.

Peter, looks like you've already received great information on planting your Aesculus pavia seeds. FYI, just make sure you plant the seeds immediately after they have ripened. At this stage they will germinate right away. Otherwise they'll go dormant and germination is quite difficult. Plant 1" below the surface of the soil and usually within one month you'll find them rooting and next spring they'll be approximately 6" tall. This is a great tree, however in the summer heat the foliage does take a beating, usually dropping their leaves as early as September.

The problem with the heat and foliage has been mentined a couple of times. I recall reading one source - others disagreed with them - that said to protect the tree from afternoon sun. Perhaps this was why. Also, the yellowing of the leaves on my current small tree started after we left the period of plentiful summer rain into a current moderate drought. I am going to irrigate seriously next summer.

What a great group of respondents to my little puzzle!

P.

So - I got 7 beautiful, large seeds, and one itty bitty one that appears to be a perfect miniature. I don't have sand, so I am going to stratify in the frig in wet perlite for a few, and plant the others half buried and moist. In terms of freshness, it seems to me that as soon as one starts to split, you know that they are all ready, and it might help to pull all the fruits at oncae. One that I pickaed today wasn't split today, but it was beautiful. They are gorgeous! I recall years ago learning that lovers of buckeyes like to carry one in theeir pocket and rub it as good luck. If I had more, I would!

Peter

Here's an update, if my coaches are still watching! . . .I got my first sprout out of 5 on the window sill a couple of days ago - 6 weeks, as predicted. The 3 or so I kept in the frig look fine, cool and damp, but no sign of roots, and I can't make out anything through the shell.

Question 1: I am wondering, as Josephine's first post suggested, if I would have done better to plant the potted ones with the eye sideways, since the sprout came "around" the seed and from under the soil. I assumed that the sprouted cotelydons would break from the 'top' of the shell opposiite the eye, where the roots would emerge. I guess in time i will see where everything happens. Is it possible that the roots and top both come from the eye?

Question 2: should I leave the refrigerated seeds in there longer, or would it be best now to pot them also? It will be interesting to see eventually, in this very very little experiment, if one group gets ahead of the other, and whether one method germinates more than the other.

I may also completely bury 1 or 2 of the refrigerated ones, a la rcn's post, and see what happens.

Advice, team?

:>) Peter

This message was edited Nov 14, 2005 8:05 PM

Peter, you are right, the root and the sprout do come out of the eye, that is why it is so difficult for them to sprout with the eye down.
The sprout can not break the shell, and unless it comes around the seed to the side it dies and rots.
I had tried to plant eye down and no luck. Nature taught me the best way.
It will be very interesting to see what happens with your experiment.
Josephine.

Well, 3 of the remaining 4 are rooted in the medium. 3 of them were firm in the dirt, so I didn't mess with them. The 4th was the tiny seed, and has also sprouted.

However, the sprout did not come from the eye, but from the other side of the seed. Nothing happening at the eye yet. The sprout I saw appears to be root, so I am replacing it in the pot with the root down but the eye to the side. If Buckeyes are like the avocados I like to sprout, the root shows first, then the top. We'll see about the others.

I am now getting determined to be absolutely sure how this all works! If noone says otherwise, I am going to leave the others in the frig longer, and see if I get sprouting, and from where. I don't doubt that the eye to the side would be best, and if the frig guys don't do anything in a few weeks, I will plant them that way.

I guess.

Peter

P.S. I couldn't stand it, so I went back and dug one up that was rooted. The root was enormous! For a baby, it was at least 3/8" across, and had fastened to the bottom of the pot. I broke off the tip, so it probably won't survive. There was no top growth yet. It came out near, but not from, the eye - unlike the other, baby size one I mentioned above. I ain't touching the others!

P.

This message was edited Nov 14, 2005 11:58 PM

This message was edited Nov 15, 2005 12:00 AM

Peter, congratulations! Now that wasn't so hard was it? I'm getting ready to plant out a whole row of collected seeds and will try to remember to come back and report how they do. My only problem will be keeping the squirrels away from them!

We have to protect every seed we plant -- from squirrels, mice, chipmunks, you name it. And the protection is needed throughout the first growing season because the varmints will uproot a seedling even in late summer to eat whatever's left of the seed.

I lay half-inch wire mesh over the top and let the seedlings emerge through the holes, then lift off the mesh when everything goes dormant that fall. This works well for hypogeous trees like oaks, hickories, and walnuts. But if you grow epigeous species like beech, you need to elevate the mesh or the seedling might be trapped under it. And if you have rabbits or other critters that browse the seedlings, you need to protect the entire plumule, not just the seed. Some people do this by building wire cages for their planting trays or over the top of their outdoor seedbeds.

Peter, if you go back now and look at those sprouted buckeyes, you should be able to see the pattern of the root inside the nut. It circles around inside the shell before "leaving orbit" and that pattern, once you know what to look for, often can be seen on the surface of the seed. They occasionally will emerge through the hilum (the "eye"), and that's probably the experience Josephine had with them, but not always. It happens wherever the hypocotyl breaks through.

One more thing -- if you clip the tip off the emerging root, it will cause it to branch at that point and give you a more manageable root system for later transplanting. This trick works with most nut-type trees that form large taproots as seedlings.

Guy S.

You are so right rnc48, I can not leave them outside the squirrels get them right away.
Josephine.

Here is a picture of the seeds I planted recently. Planted sideways.

Epigious can't be under-estimated. I planted some Pawpaw seeds this Fall in some potting mix. I made sure this year to give them more freedom up near the top of the soil.
I believe epigious is meaning they "unfold" and the seed goes up with the new growth for a ways. They have more room under the squirrel protection. That hadn't occurred to me until Guy told me. I'll be hoping for some Pawpaw seedlings, only time will tell! I have my seeds in those "under-bed storage plastic totes" that are long but not very deep. I have about 10 of those filled up with all kinds of seeds, acorns, yucca, hollyhock and more.
I usually have a pretty good result in the Spring.

Will

frostweed...push that Buckeye seed down into the soil so it's about 1" deep. It will germinate in no time.

I am sorry rcn48, but half out of the soil I have found to be the easiest.
Every time I buried the seeds they rotted, so I am leaving it that way.
I know it seems wierd and contrary to the norm, but it works.
Josephine.

Well, my seed halfway in certainly are rooting. Probably the trickle of water I have been using on top has provided the right conditions. Anyhow, the rooting is awsome, just waiting for the leaves!

It's good to know that they accept root tip pruning. These suckers went down into the 3" pot like gangbusters: serious tap roots in a baby pot. Anyhow, the one I broke getting it out will do better, how cool -- but would I do well to leave the others alone until the hypocotyl emerges, or take them out and cut them now.?

I am thinking that the difference between Josephine's and Guy's experience may be in the potting soil, which should be fairly light. Mine isn't, but being top-planted, they are handling it well. The lighter mix would permit easy movement of the new growth, and allow air to prevent rotting. The conclusion would be to keep the seed moist, not wet, however deep.

Guy, I will look again at the seed surface and see if the roots are obvious on the stratified ones. All I saw was some apparent changes in the surface color, from areas of washed out tan-brown to the original brown, but no delineated roots. I looked at it every which way, light from all directions. Can it hurt to continue the stratification?

Peter

You're right about the aeration of the potting mix, and the same thing applies to the stratification medium as well. I also poke little holes in my stratification bags with a pencil point to increase air exchange.

If you can't see the root pattern on the seed surface, don't worry about it. Seeds that sprout in the wild don't have gyroscopes or GPS units, and they do just fine no matter which way they land! But if they're already sprouted during stratification, then aim the root downward, clipped or not.

Guy S.

Now THAT would be a very sophisticated seed! (One with GPS).

I listened to a talk by a bulb enthusiast last year - he showed how a frittliaria
will pull itself down (or up) to the depth in the soil it requires. Plants
are just amazing aren't they!

Tam

Tammy - That is so cool, and sounds so right! I can imagine the bulb growing and migrating up or down. I wish shrubs and trees, once planted were that adaptable.

I'll get the stratified seed out ASAP and get them in pots. What about the ones that have rooted? do you think it matters if I root-prune before or after they put out top growth?

Peter, do the root pinching as early as possible, and before the plumule emerges.

Tammy, I agree -- I guess that's why so many of us are fascinated by them, and why we're all talking on this forum! Trees also have wonderful adaptive strategies built in, with technical-sounding names like geotropism, phototropism, phyllotaxy, apomixis, compression/tension wood, adventitious growth, apical dominance, cladoptosis, etc. -- it's fascinating to read a botanical glossary or physiology text (on a rainy day when you can't be outside) and try to understand what makes trees tick!

Guy S.

Thanks for the advice on early pruning, Guy. I'll get on it.

Peter