A cluster of leaders

With the winter moving slowly but surely to its end, most older trees are doing fine and the newborn trees are doing even better. So better in fact, that I don't recall such a vigorous growth in the previous years. A pattern emerged where the seeds that germinated earlier at the beginning of December are on average weaker than the ones the germinated later by the end of December:

2016/17 crop. Planting started top left at the beginning of Dec 2016. Left half was filled moving right and down. From mid Dec 2016 right half was filled starting with top in the middle and moving down and right to the lower right corner. Orange circles indicate sequoias that reached approximately the diameter of the container as of Jan 29, 2017

Blue arrows on the picture above roughy show the order of the container filling. The orange circles indicate largest samples, those that by today reached about the diameter of the containers in which they are planted. It is clear from this picture that orange circles are about twice as numerous on the right than on the left. So far I do not see a correlation between 2013/2016 seeds and rate of growth. There is about equal number of both on the right side, while practically all on the left are from 2013. 2016 did germinate later than 2013 but once germinated there is no apparent preference for which would grow faster.

The strongest one is #394:

#394 on January 29, 2017

Norway spruce continues to be moved to the larger containers. Doug-fir continues strong growth as well:

Norway spruce front, doug-fir top-middle, sequoias upper left. January 29, 2017

Norway spruce replanting, 4 inch (10 cm) root. January 29, 2017

Gloomy weather, bright mood

Русский

Iowa got stuck in a perpetual "just above freezing, just below freezing" state with little sun.

January 2017 temperatures in degrees Celsius.

Cool fog January 2017

The snow is completely gone. Most sequoias outside are doing well. A couple got damaged by either wind or animals (or both) with only one looking suspiciously yellow. A few started to get bronze color  but barely. Strong rains continued after the snow was gone. A walk in the sequoia park this weekend was somewhat difficult because the ground was saturated with water and gravel was sinking under the feet.

The bright mood inside is caused by the exceptionally strong crop of new sequoias. After the death of four seedlings last week, only one dried out and was removed. So, deep into the winter there are over 150 seedlings, certainly a record.

Here is a short time-lapse of an unnamed sequoia from the backup tray:

10 days of a sequoia seed from Jan 12 through Jan 22, 2017

Here is a few time lapses that were recorded over 3 week period. The first one is with a wide angle lens:

The second one is a zoom on #303:

So far these a very short videos, but with time, obviously they will grow.

I also continued moving Norway spruce to larger containers. 8 more trees got moved today. The roots of the Norway spruce seedlings starting to approach 4-5 inches (10-12 cm):

Norway spruce roots are about 4 inches long when moved to a larger container.  January 22, 2017

A winterly mix walk through the park

Русский

So, we have a warm moist air high up in the sky and a frigid air stuck close to the ground. The rain that turns into ice close to the ground is the result. It got bad enough that the companies closed their doors for the day. I had to go check out how my trees are doing in these conditions.

But before I could even make to the trees I faced an obstacle that I decided to turn back and look for another route:

The bridge was covered with an invisible sheet of ice. Crashing into the stream was not on my agenda.

It was also a good time to understand better how the water is flowing and where to work on improvements next spring and summer. With the snow gone and the ground frozen it was easy to see the streams of water forming, creating ice "rivers" and with water flowing over them. For example, in one place a part of the road covered with gravel the water would be going under the gravel, not easy to see how much water is actually going there. Now the river of ice formed between the stones and it became apparent that a part of the road became river's bed:

The river of ice Jan 2017

If left like this the soil from under the road will keep washing away. This is easy to fix, that is clear what to do, fixing it, maybe another matter. Clearly marked lines on the road with a small backhoe should do the trick.

Now getting closer to the trees. The row of ponderosa pine along the road looked like these:

Ponderosa pine Jan 2017. Covered with a layer of ice.

A close up of this picture shows the needles completely covered with a film of ice. It is very fortunate that there is absolutely no wind with this ice storm. Otherwise this would be a bad news with branches and needles snapping.

Unsurprisingly, the sequoias also had decorations made out of ice.

Sequoia covered with ice in January 2017

Finally, a wide angle shot of the park, with the icy streams and freezing rain. Nature does not have a poor weather. Every kind of weather is a bliss. It almost rhymes :)

Minus four

Русский

Over the course of just one day 4 newborn sequoias perished. It is not bad at all given how many replaced the fallen ones (five) but this case serves the purpose of showing two major threats that the young sequoias face at this age. But before that, here is a picture of the entire "operations" area for this winter:

Sequoia operations room January 2017

Two seedlings desiccated from lack of water and one caught a disease that very quickly damaged the connection between the root and the stem above ground. In the former case the plants became very thin starting with the tips of the needles.  The needles also changed color to grayish yellow. In the latter case the lower part of the stem turned dark brown and the plant "folded" to the ground with the top still completely green:

#344 Desiccated

#346 Damping off

#347 Desiccated 

Finally, the fourth case is somewhat of a mystery:

#383 Damping off ?

In the case of #383 it is unclear if this was the fungus or the lack of water. Maybe a bit of both, which sounds kind of counter-intuitive. Here is what it looks like when removed from the ground.:

#383 dead and removed from the ground 

The ground was dry, which indicates lack of water but the plant folded to the ground indicating soft tissue at the base. Although after careful examination it did not break in one place like the case with damping but instead bent over the length of the stem. Given that the entire plant looked somewhat shriveled, I would say it's probably due to the drying.

To address more potential desiccations and to avoid wet conditions tat the air-soil boundary causing deceases to take hold, I once again returned to the watering from below method. Since I watered half of the sequoias yesterday (from the top), I did this bottom watering only for the other half:

Bottoms up watering

If #303 was one of the first to germinate and develop first secondary needles

#303 January 15, 2017. A month and a half old.

then #394 is the fastest developing seedling being 3 full weeks younger than #303 but having twice as large needles:

#394 three weeks old on January 15, 2017

#394 has far fewer needles than the older samples but it stands out with the vigor of growth compared to the older ones. There are several more more recent arrivals that resemble #394, with one being visible (#387) just behind it in the picture above.

This weekend I started moving Norway spruce to the larger containers. The seeds were doing very well in the extremely porous  medium. I did not compact the peat moss at all. There was also a very generous amount of perlite. Removing roots from this mixture was extremely easy:

Norway spruce being moved to larger pots. Jan 15, 2017

I still keep 4 of them per container given the large number of seeds that germinated all at once. The growing medium mix is still just the peat moss with a little less perlite than in the original pot. It is also compacted a bit more but not very tight. It should be possible to remove and separate surviving ones in the Spring:

Norway spruce in larger containers. Jan 2017

Plus one

Русский

+1 is the theme as of late. After 100 containers were filled more sequoias continue to germinate. I keep adding "just one more" to the collection. Very few seedlings have died so far. Newly germinated ones keep well ahead of the dead ones. At this time there are a little over 150 new sequoias in small containers.

2016-17 winter germination batch

In addition to the sequoias about 25 Doug-fir and 70 Norway spruce seedlings keep slowly growing.

This winter I am not placing the fluorescent lights as close as possible to the plants like in previous years. Instead, the lights remain at a constant distance of about 2 feet above. My justification for this is that I do not believe that some extra growth before spring improves chances of survival. Last year the numerous germinations in December faired worse than the ones germinated in March-April. Slow steady growth with more careful water control is the idea that I am trying to experiment with this time around.

Regarding water control, the start up mix is prepared more carefully at the time of moving germinated seeds from the coffee filter into small tall containers. More careful means better overall consistency of the peat-moss and perlite mix without dry clumps. I also pack the mix into containers somewhat denser than the previous years.

Watering is done from above so far (not from below like I described previously). I choose the time of watering when the top of the mix is clearly dry. I use tweezers  to dig to the depth of about half an inch in one of the containers to ensure the mix is dry. Once it's clear that the top is dry I fill the containers to the top with water, which is about half an inch. Total amount is actually a bit more because the mix drains water fairly quickly and by the time I actually fill to the top about half an inch of water is already absorbed by the mix.

Unlike previous years I am not trying to keep humidity up. Past years I had either a humidifier or an open tank of water with a heater-fan blowing over it. The soil dries up noticeably quicker, which is good and bad - good that it does not let sensitive root-stem connection get wet for too long and develop classical dampening off. Bad is that if not watched carefully the growth medium dries very fast to substantial depth. At the current humidity levels and temperatures watering is happening about twice per week.

In order to avoid germinated seeds from desiccating in such conditions I keep germinated seeds a bit longer on the filter than before. This year I let them grow to the total length between 1 and 1.5 inches before moving to the containers. The idea is that a bit longer root will have a better chance to establish while the soil is getting dry faster than before.

Most of the germinated seeds are still folded in half at this stage although some (about 10%) straighten out. Folded germinated seeds are placed ends down and loops up. I make an inch deep depression in the wet mix with the tweezers, then poor some more water in the small hole. After pouring the water one inch hole shrinks to about half an inch deep. The seeds are placed in the hole and the mix around the hole is pushed from sides toward center to make a tight contact between the root and the growth medium. The seed shells are covered with the mix but a little less than the other side of the seed with the root. This leaves the middle part of the folded plant, the loop, sticking out above the ground:

A classical sequoia seed loop.

All seedlings were watered for the first month with a chlorotolanil instead of water. After one month they are now watered with regular tap water. Occasionally, they are sprayed with a small amount of chlorotholanil.

Six-week old plants were watered once with an extremely diluted (one teaspoon of concentrate to 1 gallon of water) feed mix (Nitrogen, Phosphor) and also once with a 0.5% solution of Magnesium Sulphate (Epsom Salt). The idea is that the seeds will need some nutrients but I am still keeping them in the mostly inert medium of peat moss. I decided to experiment with a little bit of magnesium since the green needles need to get "the green" from somewhere but neither the growing medium nor the feed contains it. Even if extra magnesium is not terribly needed I am certain that it will not hurt in such low concentrations.

Finally, I am taking daily pictures of #303. Here is the picture from today:

#303 Jan 12, 2017. 1.5 month old