Soaking bare root seedlings for 2 days

[JT in Japan]

I have to transport about 600 seedlings, and to save room in my truck, I'm bare-rooting a bunch of Archy Cunninghamiana. My question is: can I soak them in rainwater for 2.5 days without drowning or killing them? I'm not leaving till Thursday night, but this afternoon is the only free time to prep them. Any better ideas?

cheers, JT

[Kostas]

You can do that without problems. You can also bareroot and leave them in the water till you are done and then put the wet seedlings in a bag for the transport and close it. Archontophoenix won't mind.

[JT in Japan]

28 minutes ago, Kostas said:

You can do that without problems. You can also bareroot and leave them in the water till you are done and then put the wet seedlings in a bag for the transport and close it. Archontophoenix won't mind.

Thanks Kostas, for the quick feedback. I've decided to do the same with trachy fortunei and Phoenix  rupicola; will these two fare any differently from the Archies?

JT

[Kostas]

Should be ok as well

[TexasColdHardyPalms]

+1 on keeping them in water for up to a week without issue.

[HASNZ38S]

I did just this but put them in a plastic bag with a small amount of water and shut the bag not tight but so that humidity built up and left them like that for well over a week in the shade and they all survived easily.

[palmsOrl]

I've never had a problem soaking palm seedling roots in water for 2-7 days while I waited to be able to get them potted up.  I wouldn't do this in cool conditions though.

When I retrieve palm seedlings from the soil, I always immediately soak the roots in water (bottle of water, wet paper towel in bag, etc.).  This has increased my collection success rate dramatically versus waiting minutes to hours to get the roots into water or soil.

Edited August 1, 2016 by palmsOrl