1st Seed sowing of the year.

The first batch of a 100 packets of Mamm seed was sown Yesterday ( Sunday, 1st March).
I normally start sowing seed at the begin of the year in January, but this year the long range weather forecast was looking bad, with low light levels during Jan and Feb.
Has a result I decided to hold off seed sowing until the end of Feb. I also decided to purchase another heated propagator. This will allow me to sow 100 packets a month and has I have 500 packets to sow this will take me up to july, which will work out about right for me.



Seed was sow using my usual method .....compost, 1 part loam based (J.I. number 3) 1 part sharpe sand and 1 part vermiculite. Pots stood in hot water to soak, removed and seed sown on the surface and not covered. I would expect the seed to start germinating frrm the following sunday onwards.

Now I am using two propagtors I deicieded to try an small experiment to see what benfit, if any, that bottom heat might have on germination.
The tray on the left (A) was given bottom heat, in that the propagator was pluged in swtiched on. The tray on the right (B) was given NO bottom heat.
Results...Seed sown 1-3-09
Tray A...18 lots germinated after 6 days. Another 15 lots had germinated after day 8. A further 15 lots germinated after day 10 and the last 2 lots germinated after 13 days.
Tray B ...only 1 lot had germinated after 6 days. Another 14 lots had germinated after 8 days. Another 11 lots after 10 days. Day 13 saw another 13 lots up. Day 15 a further 3 lots and 1 more lot after day 16. So far 7 lots have failed to germinate.
It was also noted that the number of germinated seedlings per pot was greater in Tray A, the tray with bottm heat, on day 14.

Very interesting, Tam.
I have, for the last 6 years or so, used and electric propagator which has a thermostatically controlled heating element (soil warming cable) sunk in several inches of sand. This is placed below some lights (normal energy saving lights, nothing special), put 2 pots well soaked in one clear plastic bag tied tightly.
I sowed 48 lots on the 3rd March, and by today 38 have germinated, some with lots of seedlings, others with only one or two so far. The first ones came through after 6 days, 28 in all by 7 days, and the rest over this last week. I was trying some new seed sellers this year, as well as some from my established providers. Of the established sellers (Mesa Garden, Mamm Soc seed, etc.) I have 100% germination. Of the newer sellers, it is rather less successful as yet, so I don't yet know whether it is my method or the seed. It's easy to blame the seed, of course!
Interestingly, I had some seed left over of M. magnimamma which I collected on my 2005 trip to habitat, and which I'd sown that year. This has germinated again very well, so old seed if kept properly does seem OK. But equally well, some seed of M. grahamii from my trip to New Mexico in 2007, kept exactly as the older seed, has not yet sprouted. As seeds from other genera that I collected on that trip, and sown last year, have done OK I don't know what to conclude from this

I recall an article in old Uk Mammillara Society Journal, where by a member had sown some mamm seed which he had kept for over 8 years and he still got good germination. I have no doubt that in habitat seed can sit in the ground many years before the ideal conditions appear to allow germination. Now weather seed of some species is longer lived some others I don't know.
BTW your plants of M.magnimamma, which I got from you a few years ago at the Mamm Society AGM, are still going well.