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Germination Trials Before reintroducing a plant back into its habitat, you need to know how to germinate its seeds and grow them into plants. While some garden plants are relatively simple to grow from seed, native plants often have specific requirements. Relatively little is known about how to germinate and grow most native plants, and this is especially true for rare plants. Our germination trials show that what it takes to grow a plant from seed varies for different plants. Our experiments to see which treatments work best are important!
Experiments to determine what it takes to grow a rare plant from seed: If we know nothing about a certain plant's needs, we place a small number of seeds in different conditions to see which works best.
1. Waking the Seeds - Thawing Frozen seeds are removed from the seed bank and placed on moistened paper in small plastic Petri dishes. Once moistened, some seeds will readily germinate if kept at a constant 20°C (68°F).
2. Special Treatments - Scarification, Cold Stratification Sometimes, special treatments are required to coax a seed into growing. These may include soaking seeds in acid or using sandpaper or a razor blade to damage the seed coat and let moisture inside (this is called "scarification"). Other seeds are placed in a refrigerator for 8-16 weeks, referred to as cold stratification.
3. Special Growing Conditions - Controlling Day Length and Temperature We have two different germination chambers. Both have 8 hours of daylight, and 16 hours of darkness, though one germination chamber is set at a constant 20°C temperature, and the second germination chamber mimics day-night changes in temperatures: during the light cycle it is 20°C (68°oF) and during the dark cycle it is 10°C (50°F).
We examine the seeds weekly and record how many have germinated. This tells us both the number and rate (timing) of germination.
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