Last week surgery update

As predicted one patient died and another one is improving. After last week's surgery #74 collapsed within a few hours, while #24 is now showing signs of green recovery.

#24 January 27, 2013. 2 months and 3 weeks old.

As predicated two weeks ago after #15 surgery, it would become a rival to the leaders, here is a confirmation:

#15 January 27, 2013. 2 months and 3 weeks old.

#15 now shot two brand new branches, which can be seen on the picture above, one on the left and one on the right. Both new branches are stronger that the main one in the middle.

I was wrong though, predicting that #15 will take over the top leaders. #15 is clearly among the leaders now, but to say that it's approaching the top two is still not correct. A surprising newcomer is the #15's closest competitor. It's #59. Last time we remember #59 it looked like this a month ago:

#59 December 27, 2013. 1 month old.

Today, it's #15's much younger rival:

#59 January 27, 2013. 2 months old.

 The second place today belongs to #38, which keeps increasing its length and overall volume fast:

#38 January 27, 2013. 2 months and 1 week old.

The new branch of #38 is clearly more dominant than the original trunk in length, which can be seen on the the bottom. However, it appears that #38 is now shooting a new young branch from its trunk close to the top. The seedling is very bent, leaning almost to the container edge. The massive young branch is not helping its balance either. I decided not to interfere since it's adding volume nicely. The only real concern at this time is the color of the new needles, which are turning very light green, almost yellow.

Finally, number one today is undisputed leader #39. It's an amazing specimen, which dwarfs the "plantation":

#39 January 27, 2013. 2 months and 1 week old.

#39 has three branches roughly symmetrical around the main trunk. All three are currently developing equally well, along with the main trunk. It leans slightly on one side, but overall it's one of the most vertical seedlings that do not require any corrections.

There were two deaths this past week: already mentioned #74 and #66. This brings total of vacant spots on the patch of 32 to eleven. With that, I started germinating more seeds. Two months stratified batch had an extremely low germination rate over one month, only 12 out of 100. I will keep it for a few more weeks, but currently there are no seeds showing any signs of future germination. It's odd. I also decided to do another batch of 100, without any stratification.

Newly germinated seeds are subjected to a new technique on their "brown patch". Rather than watering the entire volume of the container, only the immediate seed area is watered. I use a chemical pipet to place the water around the seed/seedlings, then wait until the area is visibly dry on the surface and then applying more water. I do it for all new seedlings before I go to work (around 7:30AM) and then when I come back (around 7:30PM). Some samples retain moisture slightly better than others, probably based on how the starting mix was compacted in the past (since I am reusing brown containers from prior seedlings).

So far, after two weeks, all newly germinated seedlings are doing very well. In fact, the early ones are now repeating some of the behavior of the known successful samples. Specifically, they tend to grow tall fast and keep their needles almost vertical.

#106 January 27, 2013. 2 weeks old.

The intent is to keep germinating seeds and grow seedlings till all 32 vacancies of the white patch are filled: