Hats OFF

Get seed casing off. Here is something I did not read anywhere before from people growing their sequoias, which turns out to be very important. Most of the seeds emerge from the soil with the seed casing still attached. Some of them manage to loose it on the way from the soil, but in my case 9 out of 10 come out with it still attached. Here is a repeat of the picture I posted before and it's very typical:

One of my very first seedlings had the casing attached three weeks after it emerged from the ground. It never shed it and the seedling eventually died. I did not pay too much attention to it at the time. It was however very obvious that another seedling that lived a bit longer had nice green palm-tree like appearance and definitely was doing better than the one with the casing attached.

Now that I have a little "grove" of tiny seedlings I started to notice that the very first one planted in tube #1 is losing to one of the later and weaker seedlings that emerged from ground without the casing. Since I feel a bit more confident I decided to see what happens if I help remove the casing from the first one:

In brief, it would not let it go. I almost gave up, fearing that I simply tear the green leaves along with the casing. Then feeling adventurous, I decided to pull on the casing of another seedling that just emerged from the ground. To my surprise the casing slid very easily, revealing nice healthy green laves that unfurled instantly into a palm tree appearance.

OK, now I got curious why the first one would not let me do the same? So grabbed pretty tight and kept pulling until it finally got separated. That's what I found beneath the casing:

Three of the five leaves fused together into a lifeless dry yellow clump. I do not feel good about this seedling's chances.

I peeled casings off all emerged seedlings immediately.