Palm Germination Project 2016

[Matthew92]

This is my first big palm seed germination attempt. Learning a lot here. I have 110 total with 67 in small plastic pots and the other 43 wrapped in wet paper towels. 6 have sprouted so far.

 

 

5 regular queen palm: all in pots (collected from a tree at the University of FL campus in Gainesville)

 

 

6 Filamentous Sabal palmetto: (4 in pots, other 2 in wet paper towel)- 1 already sprouted in the wet paper towel and is now in a pot. It is a regular Sabal palmetto, but I call it "filamentous" because the particular tree I collected it from had unusually stringy, tassle-like leaves. 

 

 

22 Regular Sabal palmetto: (3 in pots, 19 in wet paper towels) the 3 I have in pots had already sprouted in the wet paper towel and some from a bag full of sphagnum moss.

 

 

15 Chamaedorea radicalis: (all in pots)

 

 

14 Silver queen palm: (all in pots)

 

 

20 Sabal miamiensis: (15 in pots, 5 in wet paper towels)

 

 

28 Sabal palmetto "Lisa:" (16 in pots, 12 in wet paper towels)- 2 of these already sprouted with the baggie method and are now in pots.

 

 

 Many of the ones in pots I planted around a couple months ago. It was hard because I was away from home a lot, so during that time I put plastic wrap over the pots. It would get a lot of condensation inside when the sun shined on it. Not sure how good of a situation that was for the (they also got really hot), but now that I've come home from college a week ago I took off the plastic wrap and make sure it's moist enough daily. Also, for growing medium, I originally put in the pots a rich garden soil. Researching more though, I realized this wasn't very well draining and could lead to rot, so a few days ago, I literally emptied every pot and added perlite to the soil to help with drainage. When I emptied the pots, none of the seeds had germinated yet.

 

There were so many palm seeds I realized I went in over my head a little too much. So for the remaining seeds I didn't get to potting, I used the "baggie" method with sphagnum moss. I did this about a month and a half ago. When I got home from college I emptied the bags and was pleased to find that 2 Sabal palmetto "Lisa" and 2 regular Sabal palmetto had sprouted. I never got around to putting them back in the bags and temporarily put the loose seeds in wet paper towels. After a few days, surprisingly, I found that 2 more had sprouted (1 regular Sabal palmetto and 1 filamentous Sabal palmetto). So for now I'm just keeping the remaining in the wet paper towels.

 

 

Also for non-palms I'm trying to sprout:

 

-13 Pride of Barbados or Dwarf Poinciana (Caesalpinia pulcherrima)- ordered these from a British company. Good quality seeds: scarified them. Upon soaking they swelled to twice their size. I checked one seed a day after planting in ground and it was already sprouting! I've never seen one of these in my area and am very excited to try it here.

 

-About a few dozen what I think is opuntia indica ficus cactus collected from a huge plant out in front of a Texas steakhouse restaurant of all places in Lake City, FL. (took a fruit off the ground) Put them all in a medium sized pot and barely covered with soil. I've found that cactus seeds are very easy to sprout. I just planted these today.

 

-Southern red oak. I had several, but at first I wasn't thinking and didn't cover the pots they were in, so thanks to the squirrels there is only 1 left now haha.

 

Here are most of my palm seeds in pots. This spot gets a good amount of sun in the middle of the day.

 

The seeds in the two big circular holders are the dwarf poinciana. The others are the Sabal lisa and regular Sabal palmetto that had already sprouted in the bag. The pot on top of the large pot on the upper right has the opuntia indica ficus seeds. And the cactus pad in the pot is an opuntia engelmannii I'm trying to propagate: taken from a larger plant which I grew from seed about 10 years ago.

 

Here is the "filamentous" Sabal palmetto I managed to get seed from. This picture doesn't show it well: In person the unique leaves are much more striking.

 

The big cactus I got a fruit from which I think is opuntia indica ficus: Lake City, FL

Edited May 19, 2016 by Opal92

[Matthew92]

Update. After taking my Central/South FL trip I just now tallied up all the seeds I collected. Probably didn't need such huge numbers of some of them, but still was a thrill to collect. Since I have used up most of my other pots for the above mentioned palm seeds, I might either use the bag method or put some in a unused area patch of ground in the garden and only pot them if they sprout.

Also, of these species here which do you all know of which are the easiest to germinate? Like I've heard royal palms sprout easily, and the Hyphaene is harder, not as sure about the others.

-10 regular queen

-16 Roystonea regia from natural Everglades habitat

-14 dictyosperma album (palm I got them from was smaller stature almost like a dwarf with a nice bluish crownshaft) 

-21 MacArthur palm (Ptychosperma macarthurii)

-20 Royal Poinciana

-9 silver thatch palm (Coccothrinax argentata)

-28 Roystonea regia

-2 Florida coontie

-4 Foxtail

-12 Saribus rotundifolius

-14 Gingerbread palm (Hyphaene thebaica)

-13 Peach palm (Bactris gasipaes)

Most of these except the queen, foxtail, and saribus, were fairly fresh seed. I cleaned the flesh off some of them. The peach palm was the only one that was somewhat unripe.

Hyphaene on top and peach palm below

Edited June 11, 2016 by Opal92

[Pal Meir]

Your project reminds me of old days … … when the floor of my working room looked like this:

[redbeard917]

Coonties are very easy. They sprout reliably if you just push them into the mulch in a flowerbed. Some of those other rare ones are pretty neat and should take priority IMO.

That Sabal definitely looks unusual to me, too.

[Matthew92]

Update: have some really exciting palms sprouting, however, the amount that have sprouted are very much lower than I hoped. I think I made a terrible decision with those pots all along the side of the house in the above picture: they would get too much sun and would dry out too quickly before I could water them again. Had MUCH better success with the baggie method or ones in pots in a more shady/ wet area. For what I do have, I've got Sabal lisa, Sabal miamiensis, regular Sabal palmetto, and regular queen with leaf out of the ground. From the batch taken on my Central/South FL trip (mainly more tropical palms), I've got several Roystonea regia, macarthur, and 1 dictyosperma album with leaf out of the ground. I just now noticed the dictyosperma album sprouting out of the ground tonight. Such an amazing, different looking sprout with the twin leaves and reddish tint. With that last batch of tropical palms, I had planted them in a large elevated planter in our vegetable garden. I'm planning to dig them up at some point (before cold weather comes) to put in pots. Hopefully I'll be able to do this without damaging roots. And then also, more lately, I had gotten some Washingtonia filifera seeds from which I have about 15 good plants with leaves out of the ground in pots.

As for the Caesalpinia pulcherrima, I have two plants that survived which I put in the ground recently and are doing okay. And then the opuntia indica ficus cactus, the seeds sprouted wonderfully and I have already parted some out individually and planted in pots. 

Will maybe add some pictures soon.

[Matthew92]

Sabal lisa. The one on the bottom left got much of its leaf nibbled off by something.

Regular Sabal palmetto: some are beginning to put out a second leaf. Slow little things!

Sabal miamiensis is doing very well, even beating the other Sabals (which sprouted earlier) in putting out a second leaf.

Two Syagrus romanzoffiana: parent tree was at the Mcarty Hall palm garden at UF in Gainesville 

Green malayan coconut

Dictyosperma album

[Matthew92]

Roystonea regia (collected from ones growing in the Everglades)

MacArthur palm (Ptychosperma macarthurii)

[Matthew92]

Here's where I'm keeping the rest of my palm seeds in pots. Not as blasted by the sun here and they stay more moist longer.

[Fusca]

Quite a project you have going!  Looks like you've doing good!  There's a great thread on seed germination with lots of photos by user "Kris" from India who has had some amazing success with palm seed germination and I've picked up some valuable tips.  One tip is that the seeds don't need light to germinate so it's wise to keep the pots out of the sun to minimize the need for watering.  Bottom heat also helps.  I personally have had 100% success with MacArthur palm (Ptychosperma macarthurii), Florida Coontie, Foxtail palm and nearly equal success with Washingtonias (all germinate very fast).  I've had good success with Sabals and fair success with Butia (pindo palm) and Syagrus (queen palm) but really variable with germination time.  More than a few times I have attempted to germinate these with no success in 6 months time or more, gave up and re-used the soil (along with the ungerminated seed) to plant something else only to have them finally germinate to my surprise - often after more than 1 year.  So don't give up too quickly - especially with the rarer types you have.

[Las Palmas Norte]

Deer and rabbits would finish those off quick in my area. I have to cage most smaller plants until they reach a decent size. Nice work on those germinating.

Cheers, Barrie.

[Matthew92]

After some research I think the Ptychosperma I've sprouted is lauterbachii rather than macarthurii. Pictures I was just looking at match what the parent plant looks like almost exactly.

[Matthew92]

Here's some updated pictures. Happy to see that a few more things are sprouting.

The two queens

Got a Coccothrinax argentata to sprout! Very tiny: the seed was like a pebble

Roystonea regia from Everglades

Another Sabal miamiensis sprouting!

Dictyosperma album

Edited October 5, 2016 by Opal92