Sowing Euc seeds

 Sowing Eucalyptus Seed.

Eucalyptus seeds are small. The picture is of seeds and chaff from the bag shown in the previous post. It should be possible to get thousands of plants from them. They are Eucalyptus glaucescens, this comes with the usual caveat "the maternal parent was predominately" a E. glaucescens. A species that is favoured by the Forestry Commission (F.C.). One of which I am not a huge fan. It has not done particularly well at Cairn Wood or the triangular compartment at Pit Wood. These came from a tree felled in the rectangular area at Pit Wood. They were collected as I had not realised it was a Glaucescens until it was felled and I saw the fruits. It had grown much better than the others growing around it. The problem is probably that the species comes from dry areas and doesn't like my wetter land. Explains why it is better suited to The F.C.  at Thetford, it is also not favoured browse by Deer. 

I sowed some E. viminalis usual caveat on 14th February 2022. Two small tea spoons of seed and chaff were sprinkled onto two small seed trays (8"x6") filled with a multi purpose compost and sand mix. They were worked into the surface with a table fork, watered and left in a propagator, in a plastic bag. As the seed absorbes water it swells and they changes from black to a reddish colour. The close up picture is from the 18th Feb a main root and fine root hairs can be seen. The root tries to get down into soil and the seed is then lifted up, releasing the cotyledons. Once there are signs of sufficient shoots they are taken out of the  plastic bag. 

By Feb 28th ( a fortnight after sowing) the cotyledons were well established. Eucalyptus like most trees are dicots they have two cotyledons the storage structures within the seed. They are not technically leaves. Monocots, with one cotyledon are the grasses and most bulbs.  

By the 10th of March almost all seedlings were showing  their first true leaves. I try to prick out when the true leaves have developed sufficiently to hold while the seedlings are teased out. The largest seedlings get transplanted first, giving more space for the remaining ones. 

The seedlings have been pricked out into plastic 220ml cells.  I  bought this remaining stock from the sole importer of this style at the time and also got some 500ml. cells.  
The Eucs I originally bought came in 110ml cells and I have the cells. Cell grown trees do not normally come with their trays. I was quite fortunate. I think they are too small for Eucs and prefer to plant out larger trees than is done commercially.

  
A hole is made in the middle of the sand compost mix with the end handle a teaspoon and the seedling lowered into it. The spoon is used to press the mix against the root. The gap made is filled with  spoonfulls of more mix. When the tray is complete it is watered.  Afterwards watering is from the bottom, to reduce the chance of damping off, until the seedlings are strong enough to resist the blight. Hopefully when they have 3 or4 pairs of true leaves.

The original seed trays on the 5th April, 7 weeks after sowing. 250 seedlings have been removed. The remaining seedlings are still viable but have grown so large their roots will be so entangled that they will be difficult to tease apart, and will take time to recover.