Sowing tips

Just imagine that every mast of an oak plantation - a few tons - all germinate... That would create a huge problem. Fortunately, Mother nature regulates this phenomenom - we call that the sleeping seed effect.
It is easy then to understand that before sowing, one has to wake up the seeds. That is why, gardeners makes stratifications. It is easy to do if you follow the following steps :

 Example : acer rubrum

COLD STRATIFICATION
For every 10g of acer rubrum seeds, just take 1 litre of sand or of a mix of sand and peat. Humidify now with 0.12 litre of water and mix. Put the seeds in the mix and mix again. Now put the whole in a plastic bag. Close the bag hermetically in a way to avoid as much as you can to have air inside the bag. Now put this bag in a fridge or in place at 3 to 5 Celsius degrees (37 to 41 Farenheit degrees) during 4 months but remember to check regularly the humidity rate of your mix and add some water if necessary to get a constant humidity rate.

Mother nature may decide to surprise you. A germination may occur before the end of the 4 months stratification. In such a case, just pick up carefully the germinated seeds and plant them out. In some cases, you may notice the coming out of mushrooms or fungus. It is rather rare. If it occurs to you, you will have to treat your mix with a fungicide.

SOWINGS
Prepare a substactum with 1/3 of sand and 2/3 of mould. Now fill in your pot and plant your seeds on the surface of the pot at a reasonnable distance of each other. Add now some more substratum or even best, some fine sand on an seed-thick layer. Place your pots at 18 to 20 Celsius degrees (64 to 68 Farenheit degrees) in a place where there is enough light. Remember to put a window-glass on the top of the pot to keep the hygrometry constant.

Remember, the thickness of the layer of the substratum in top of the seed must never exceed the size of the seed.

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