Lee- We used to germinate thousands of apple seeds each year to use in our replant disease soil bioassays. Our protocol was to collect the seeds from apples that had been in cold storage for a month or so; rinse them in a 10% clorox solution; then dust them with captan or a similar fungicide; then line them out in trays of moist peat moss or vermiculite. We could germinate several hundred seeds per 12 by 24 inch tray, planting them about 1 inch deep in parallel seed lines about 2 inches apart. After several months in a 40 degree F refrigerator the healthy seeds would germinate and sprout. We would transplant them into 4 inch pots with soft tweezers, when they had 2 to 4 true leaves (not counting the cotyledons). You could also group the resultant seedlings by their probable chill unit requirements, assuming that those germinating first had lower chill requirements. Hope this is helpful!
By the way Lee, those cider apple trees that I got from you on Bud.9 rootstocks about 20 years ago are all still growing and producing well in my home orchard! Several of them (Kingston Black, Stoke’s Red, Magog Redstreak, White Jersey, etc.) have provided a lot of useful budwood for local nurseries to propagate those varieties, which has been a great help to craft cider-makers. Thanks! Cheers Ian ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ian & Jackie Merwin Black Diamond Farm, LLC 4675 East Seneca Road Trumansburg, NY, USA, 14886 E-mail: i...@cornell.edu<mailto:i...@cornell.edu> Website: www.incredapple.com<http://www.incredapple.com> On Jan 05, 2015, at 11:27 AM, lee elliott <pippm...@yahoo.com<mailto:pippm...@yahoo.com>> wrote: Anyone know an easy way to excise malus seeds, in my efforts to breed next generations of my Honey Crisp crosses I always have about half of my collected seeds are excised (split) and embryo are easy to remove. (germination rate of embryos removed from seed coat are much higher, close to 90% while unexcised seeds is about 15%) The best way so far is to soak the seed(after statification) and drag the seed gently accross a piece of sandpaper, rubbing the side of the seed where the hilum is located, then prying it apart with fingernails. this a very slow tedious procedure and may even contaminate the embryo. With hundreds of seed to excise and poor eyesight this is a most daunting task. I have googled this but nothing comes up, any ideas? Lee Elliott, Cider Hill Nursery, Winchester, Illinois _______________________________________________ apple-crop mailing list apple-crop@virtualorchard.net<mailto:apple-crop@virtualorchard.net> http://virtualorchard.net/mailman/listinfo/apple-crop
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