Updates: Loquats, Pears, Apples

We have good news on 2 of the plants and bad news on one of them.


Apples
I'll save the best for last so I'm starting off with the bad news, we have to redo all our apple plants. This only applies to plants, not seeds. Our Granny Smith seeds are still in the picture. One by one they just started dying. We think they might have died from a combination of root rot and fungus. Apparently living in the greenhouse was the perfect place for fungus to grow and we forgot to give them their weekly spray of fungicide.

Pears
Learning our lesson from the apples, we decided not to give the pears the greenhouse, and they are doing quite well. So far, 5 out of the 6 plants have sprouted.





Loquats
2 of the 6 loquat pits have sprouted. You can also see roots at the bottom of the clear container so more to come soon. So far what I have seen from the loquats are that they are slow growers.

Update:Gala, Citrus, Pineapple

Gala Apples
As I said a few days ago we have to redo the Gala apple seeds. Well we were scooping out the bad seed starter and apparently one more seed survived so we have 2 gala apple plants right now. We still plan on continuing with our experiment once we have enough seeds.

Citrus
So far the only citrus that has grown has been the grapefruit and the lemon. We dug up an orange seed a few days ago and there was a root so hopefully the orange will be sprouting soon.
We did notice a something a little "odd" with the lemons and grapefruit. In several compartments it looked like there were 2 or 3 trees growing. I remember when we were trying to germinate grapefruit seeds in the paper towel, the seed broke apart and each piece seemed to behave like a separate seed. So it's experiment time again.
Experiment
One of our lemon plants looked like there were 2 trees growing so we dug it up. It looked like 2 lemon trees growing out of one seed. They were easily separated and planted into seperate pots. For the next few weeks we are going to be keeping an eye on both plants. If both plants make it to their next set of leaves we will do the same thing to the grapefruits. (We currently have a compartment of grapefruits that looks like 3 are growing)

Pineapple
The pineapple growing in the pot is growing quite well. It hasn't increased in size but new leaves have grown. Unforunately, the one in water wasn't so lucky. The bottom part of the head fell off and we had to toss it. We have 2 more pineapples which we cut up today. We cut the heads off this time leaving the fruit and cutting off all the dead leaves and dead parts of the leaves.

We Are Going To Redo the Gala Apples

We were wondering what was taking the Gala apple seeds so long to finally sprout so we decided to dig up some of the compartments. Apparently, the most recent bag of seed starter we bought is very low quality, it doesn't seem to want to absorb water. Due to that the seeds got no water and the roots dried up. We dug all 9 up and only one is still alive. We changed the seed starter for that one so hopefully it will still grow. We are going to get a new bag of seed starter and collect Gala apple seeds again. Since there are still a dozen or so Gala apples in the fridge, we still plan on going ahead with our comparison experiment. After we get 30 seeds we'll do the experiment side by side.

Update: Apples and Grapefruit

Gala Apples
2 of the remaining Gala apple seeds are growing very nicely. They'll be planted soon.



Gala apple seeds germinating

Granny Smith
Well that Granny Smith seed that was starting to germinate within the apple has now started it's leaves.


Granny Smith Apple Plant

Grapefruit
Due to a really bad mold problem we had to throw away the grapefruit seeds in the paper towel. One no skin seed germinated though. The seed had seveal pieces and each seed sprouted a root.
On the otherhand, last week one of the no skin seeds in the pot germinated. A few days ago a skin one did too.


Left: No Skin Right:Skin

Gala Apple Seeds Germinating REALLY Well

So 12 days ago we decided to see if gala apples could germinate in room temperature, apparently they can. So far out of the 16 seeds we placed in the paper towel, 11 have germinated. In the remaining 5, 2 seem to be at the start of germination. This is far more than the 30% I was told to expect.



Gala Apple seeds that have germinated

Just like the Fuji apples, we have another mold problem. The fungicide seemed to delay it but didn't stop it. So we choose 9 of the strongest seeds, starting off with the ones that have green, then the ones with the longest roots, and we planted them in the remaining 9 compartments of the 12 compartment seed tray. As for the remaining 7, we changed paper towels, soaking it with fungicide again, and placed them there. Doing my online research, I was told that it would take 4 to 6 weeks for apple seeds to germinate and there would be a 30% germination rate. At the rate things are going, it's been almost 2 weeks and I have an almost 70% germination rate. Just to satisfy my curiosity, I will keep the remaining seeds in the paper towel for the next 2 to 4 weeks (To complete the 4 to 6 week cycle) to see how many of them grow.

Update: Strawberries, Apples, Lemons

Strawberry
They said it would take 7 to 28 days for the strawberries to germinate. Well it's been 9 days and upon inspection, I found 2 seeds that have germinated. They still have their seeds attached so they don't have their leaves yet, but this looks very promising. We'll see in the next 19 days how many of the remaining strawberry seeds germinate.

Fuji Apples
The Fuji apples are doing exceptionally well. The one in the middle already has 7 leaves while the one next to it has 5. Before long the plants are going to be too big for the minature greenhouse and are going to need to be potted.


Fuji Apple Plants



Gala Apples
So far only one seed has a root but it's still early.

Lemon
The lemon plant now has 2 visible leaves. We also found a bump in one of the other compartments which appears to be a seed so hopefully we will have another lemon plant real soon.



Lemon Plant's First Leaves


Plants To Listen For Soon
Blueberries, Honey Tangerines, Nectarines, Peaches.
In a previous post I mentioned that after we find out with the Gala apples that if apple seeds can grow in room temperature we'll do a comparison with the Granny Smiths. I have now realized that we have about half a dozen Gala apples but only 3 Granny Smith so well be conducting the experiment with the Gala apples. Just like the pineapples I will be comparing days of growth.

Growing Gala Apples From Seed

We bought some Gala apples a few days ago and were able to get some seeds. Today we decided to plant them. We are using a similar procedure as we did with the Fuji apples but with some changes.

The seeds are between a folded moist paper towel in a plastic bag, but this time we have decided to see if the seeds will germinate at room temperature. This is mostly due to the fact that the seeds started sprouting much quicker once they were in the soil and exposed to heat. Due to the mold problem that we had with the Fuji apples, the paper towels are moist with our homemade fungicide. The fungicide is 99% water but hopefully this time it will mean no mold.

The next apple on our list is Granny Smith. If the seeds germinate at room temperature for the Gala, we will probably run a comparison with the Granny Smith. Does the cold have any effect on the germination of apple seeds?