Monday, January 20, 2014

home grown teosinte II

the attempt at germinating northern tepehuan teosinte seeds in peat pellets i initiated nineteen days ago is, i fear, an unvarnished failure...no sign of a sprout yet...so i have taken another tack in a second effort and reverted to an older technique derived from earlier forays into gardening...i picked out six teosinte seeds form the indoor plants and six seeds from last seasons store bought stock to act as a control ( and to see if they were still viable...i have a new batch of seeds bought for this year but if these are still workable it increases my chances of multiple ears in the autumn )...i soaked them , using separate containers, in a three percent solution of hydrogen peroxide again ( the photos of that facet of this, for reasons i will never understand, refused to upload...so ...no photo )...while they were soaking i labeled two baggies with appropriate information and then thoroughly moistened some unbleached, brown paper towels...i put the soaked seeds in the paper towel which i then put in the baggies...they are off to dark place and we wait to see what happens...if the store bought seeds germinate and the indoor ones don't then it is a sign the indoor project failed ( and last year's seeds are still viable )...if both germinate then the peat pellet technique was the culprit...and if none germinate i hope this year's seeds are good...more as it comes up.

No comments:

Post a Comment