This is a reply to The Arid Arborist - Dew Harvest, but I thought it would be useful as a post as well.
Ah! The nemesis of young sequoias is the early days. The "recipe" I found so far is to place newly germinated seeds in containers indoors. I use grow lights and a gentle breeze of a large fan moving the air in the room but not directed at the seedlings directly.
Based on many unsuccessful attempts, it looks like freshly cleaned containers (with soap), a few sprays of chlorothalonil (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorothalonil, sold in Earl May) on a mix of peat moss with about 10% of medium size perlite. Consistency of a wet sponge. I also put a few small rocks at the bottom of the containers. Without the rocks peat moss/perlite continue to wash out of the container. I had some containers with more than half of the material washed out.
I do not water them from above! The drier the seed and the place where it connects with the white root, the better. Instead, I have a rectangular pan that is just deep enough that when I submerge the container the water goes to about 1 inch from the top. The idea here is to have the lower part of the root wet while leaving top part dry. I got this pan in a hardware store in the masonry department. Its original use is for making cement mixture. I used to use a small bucket for the same purpose but it was very tedious to do it with each individual container. Now I fill the pan with water and then submerge an entire tray with 98 containers for 5 minutes. Then I lift it up and let the excess water run off.
With this method I had minimal number of young sequoias dampening off. Still happens, but not as bad.
By far the worst damage was done by a mouse that killed about 20 by digging in the containers. I built a cage that harbored one 98 sample tray over winter and early Spring. It is made out of 1x1" pieces of wood with a 1/4" steel mesh and a plexiglass top sheet that seals the box.
I also tried just droping a bunch of seeds in a large 15L container filled with the same mixture outdoors this summer. There were many germinations but 100% perished within a few days of germination. I went through over a 100 seeds like that.
When I had about 120 seedlings standing at 2-3 inches I took them outside in a moderate shade. I also did this gradually over a week (bringing in and out in early May).
They were doing very well for the first few weeks. A lot of them got to about 4-5" but then a few different diseases started hitting them. It looked like the brown rust, purple tint and black dots were jumping from one to another very quickly. I kept removing the ones that died but probably not fast enough.
As of today I have about 30-40 that are still viable. Just a couple look very healthy. One in particular was separated early on from the rest and placed into a large container. I moved it to the woods where I am planting permanently. There it grew to 7" tall and it also has a very good volume of side branches.
I would love to do this again, but realistically, I ran out of space on the 1 acre of clearing. It is extremely difficult to clear out the forrest here. If I knew what I would be facing I would not have started it this Spring.
I will add these notes to the recent post.
Ah! The nemesis of young sequoias is the early days. The "recipe" I found so far is to place newly germinated seeds in containers indoors. I use grow lights and a gentle breeze of a large fan moving the air in the room but not directed at the seedlings directly.
Based on many unsuccessful attempts, it looks like freshly cleaned containers (with soap), a few sprays of chlorothalonil (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorothalonil, sold in Earl May) on a mix of peat moss with about 10% of medium size perlite. Consistency of a wet sponge. I also put a few small rocks at the bottom of the containers. Without the rocks peat moss/perlite continue to wash out of the container. I had some containers with more than half of the material washed out.
I do not water them from above! The drier the seed and the place where it connects with the white root, the better. Instead, I have a rectangular pan that is just deep enough that when I submerge the container the water goes to about 1 inch from the top. The idea here is to have the lower part of the root wet while leaving top part dry. I got this pan in a hardware store in the masonry department. Its original use is for making cement mixture. I used to use a small bucket for the same purpose but it was very tedious to do it with each individual container. Now I fill the pan with water and then submerge an entire tray with 98 containers for 5 minutes. Then I lift it up and let the excess water run off.
With this method I had minimal number of young sequoias dampening off. Still happens, but not as bad.
By far the worst damage was done by a mouse that killed about 20 by digging in the containers. I built a cage that harbored one 98 sample tray over winter and early Spring. It is made out of 1x1" pieces of wood with a 1/4" steel mesh and a plexiglass top sheet that seals the box.
I also tried just droping a bunch of seeds in a large 15L container filled with the same mixture outdoors this summer. There were many germinations but 100% perished within a few days of germination. I went through over a 100 seeds like that.
When I had about 120 seedlings standing at 2-3 inches I took them outside in a moderate shade. I also did this gradually over a week (bringing in and out in early May).
They were doing very well for the first few weeks. A lot of them got to about 4-5" but then a few different diseases started hitting them. It looked like the brown rust, purple tint and black dots were jumping from one to another very quickly. I kept removing the ones that died but probably not fast enough.
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| 2016 crop has been thinning down. Black containers to the right of the trays are "dead soldiers". Aug 2, 2016 |
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| 2016 new seedling that was moved from the rest an into a larger container. It's about 7" tall Sept 5, 2016 |
I would love to do this again, but realistically, I ran out of space on the 1 acre of clearing. It is extremely difficult to clear out the forrest here. If I knew what I would be facing I would not have started it this Spring.
I will add these notes to the recent post.
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