Biodiversification is ramping up. Giant Sequoias will have fir-ry neighbors for sure.
It has been almost two months since the trip to Washington State when the new conifer species started to arrive to Iowa. It started with the seeds of some exotic (for Iowa) trees and then slowly expanded to both seeds and seedlings of more common ever greens. In general, West Coast natives did poorly either with germination or with first few week seedling survival.
Pacific Silver Fir had only 2 germinations out of unstratified 100. It took over 6 week to germinate and both died within two weeks.
Western Hemlock had a decent germination rate of about 30% but due to poor water level control only 3 are surviving from 100.
Sitka Spruce germination was very good, close to 90%. 27 out of 100 are currently standing.
Washington Douglas-Fir did reasonably well with 90% germinations and 16 out of 100 currently surviving. Doug fir surviving samples all look much sturdier than any other species started in August and all 16 were transferred to the 6" containers at this time.
Giant sequoia batch of 100 did uncharacteristically poor. Out of about 20% germinated only 3 survived to be transferred to 6" containers. The most dramatic loss of the seedlings happened when the tray was left outside in direct sun for one day. Both high temperature and sunburn wiped dozens of seedlings of both giant sequoia and others.
Several Blue spruces were also germinated. The clear winner is the one from Arizona, Apache with the total 35 surviving seedlings out of 50. Gemination rate was 95+% and it appeared to tolerate direct sun better than any other trees.
Blue spruce from Colorado Rio Grande did well with surviving 21 out of 50 on similar 85-90% germination rate.
New Mexico Blue spruce had much lower germination of about 30% and with only 7 out of 50 currently surviving.
Now moving to the staple Iowa conifer, Norway Spruce (Picea abies). 90% germination with over half currently surviving out of 100. The jury is still out on this one because planting from coffee filter into starter cells started only on Sept 25, 2015 and many seedlings are yet to fully emerge above ground level.
At the same time as Norway spruce, a 100 batch of unstratified White Pine (Pinus strobus) from Wisconsin were placed on familiar coffee filter substrate. Only 2 germinated so far while all Norway spruces has been processed already (planted or discarded).
Now moving onto an even more aggressive plan.
With the new land purchased I decided to start acquiring some older seedlings to be planted next Spring. To that effect four batches were purchased through Internet, all from 2013 planting season: 10x Giant Sequoias, 7x Ponderosa pine, 9x Meyer's spruce, 9x Fraser fir.
Finally, 8x 5 year old Norway spruce trees were purchased from Richard Horak.
The idea behind this expansion is to build a protective environment for the original giant sequoias that started from seeds in 2012 in Iowa. It's unlikely that Sitka spruce or Western hemlock would survive in Iowa while Norway spruce, Fraser fir and other Iowa-regular spices would serve as a windbreak and shading for the first few years of Giant sequoia growth. At least that's the plan.
It has been almost two months since the trip to Washington State when the new conifer species started to arrive to Iowa. It started with the seeds of some exotic (for Iowa) trees and then slowly expanded to both seeds and seedlings of more common ever greens. In general, West Coast natives did poorly either with germination or with first few week seedling survival.
Pacific Silver Fir had only 2 germinations out of unstratified 100. It took over 6 week to germinate and both died within two weeks.
Western Hemlock had a decent germination rate of about 30% but due to poor water level control only 3 are surviving from 100.
Sitka Spruce germination was very good, close to 90%. 27 out of 100 are currently standing.
Washington Douglas-Fir did reasonably well with 90% germinations and 16 out of 100 currently surviving. Doug fir surviving samples all look much sturdier than any other species started in August and all 16 were transferred to the 6" containers at this time.
Giant sequoia batch of 100 did uncharacteristically poor. Out of about 20% germinated only 3 survived to be transferred to 6" containers. The most dramatic loss of the seedlings happened when the tray was left outside in direct sun for one day. Both high temperature and sunburn wiped dozens of seedlings of both giant sequoia and others.
Several Blue spruces were also germinated. The clear winner is the one from Arizona, Apache with the total 35 surviving seedlings out of 50. Gemination rate was 95+% and it appeared to tolerate direct sun better than any other trees.
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| Oct 4, 2015. Doug-fir, Giant sequoias and some of the Blue spruce from Arizona. |
Blue spruce from Colorado Rio Grande did well with surviving 21 out of 50 on similar 85-90% germination rate.
New Mexico Blue spruce had much lower germination of about 30% and with only 7 out of 50 currently surviving.
Now moving to the staple Iowa conifer, Norway Spruce (Picea abies). 90% germination with over half currently surviving out of 100. The jury is still out on this one because planting from coffee filter into starter cells started only on Sept 25, 2015 and many seedlings are yet to fully emerge above ground level.
At the same time as Norway spruce, a 100 batch of unstratified White Pine (Pinus strobus) from Wisconsin were placed on familiar coffee filter substrate. Only 2 germinated so far while all Norway spruces has been processed already (planted or discarded).
 |
| October 4, 2015. Norway spruce, Western hemlock and Blue spruce from New Mexico seedlings. |
Now moving onto an even more aggressive plan.
With the new land purchased I decided to start acquiring some older seedlings to be planted next Spring. To that effect four batches were purchased through Internet, all from 2013 planting season: 10x Giant Sequoias, 7x Ponderosa pine, 9x Meyer's spruce, 9x Fraser fir.
 |
| October 4, 2015. 2 year old Giant sequoia seedlings purchased from Welker's Grove Nursery at giant-sequoia.com. These are 2013 crop. |
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| October 4, 2015. Ponderosa pine purchased from Richard Lubbers at Nurseryman.com. These are 2 year old seedlings that arrived as a part of the "variety pack". |
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| October 4, 2015. 2 year old Meyer's spruce from nurseryman.com |
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| October 4, 2015. 2 year old Fraser fir from nurseryman.com. |
Finally, 8x 5 year old Norway spruce trees were purchased from Richard Horak.
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| October 4, 2015. 5 year old Norway spruce seedlings |
The idea behind this expansion is to build a protective environment for the original giant sequoias that started from seeds in 2012 in Iowa. It's unlikely that Sitka spruce or Western hemlock would survive in Iowa while Norway spruce, Fraser fir and other Iowa-regular spices would serve as a windbreak and shading for the first few years of Giant sequoia growth. At least that's the plan.
very nice summary of growing conifers from seed. I will be following your experiences as I work with the giant sequoias of Welkers. I think I planted those gs seedlings from 2013. Hopefully some are still growing.
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