Expansion

Six new conifer species were added to the mix: Pacific Silver Fir, Subalpine Fir, Western Hemlock, Doug-fir, Sitka Spruce and Blue Spruce. Another batch of Giant sequoias was also started. Here is a summary table for new seeds:

As it can be seen from the table that's quite an expansion. Several batches will be cold stratified while some go directly to germination.

First germination batches started last weekend without any stratification. In one week, there were 3x Western Hemlocks (further WH), 10x Doug-fir (DF), and 2x giant Sequoias (GS). All these were from a batch of 100x each. Pacific Silver fir (PSF) was split into two: one went into germination container on coffee filter paper while the other went to the peat moss starter cells. PSF are much larger than other seeds and a 100x of them would not fit in the container size that was chosen. Neither paper nor peat PSF germinated in the first week. Another 100x went into cold stratification.

WH clearly do not need stratification to germinate despite recommendation that was printed on the package it came with. However, 100x were placed in the fridge for 90 day stratification and Winter 2016 germination.

Doug-fir germinated exceedingly well without stratification as well, with 10% sprouting after only first 7 days.

Subalpine fir is in extremely limited supply based on ONE cone that was collected at Olympic National Park which produced around 150 seeds. 50x were placed in cold stratification and the rest are kept for future use.

Three 50x batches of Blue Spruce (BS) were placed on coffee filter for germination. The difference between them is the source of the collected seeds: New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado.

The selection of the species was not scientific. The species that are expected to do well are Blue Spruce and Doug-fir. Everything else is obviously extremely experimental.

My observed germination rates judging by Giant Sequoias were either on par  or better than expected, which will resulted in almost 700 germinations. Obviously only a small percentage of these will result in viable trees.

To support such a great expansion, the new land acquisition is in progress.