May 2013 Emergence

[Brad]

Well gang, its finally here!

A new growing season is upon us.  I am seeing the return of some very nice four prong plats that I brought in from the woods, and also the emergence of the seed this year seems to be absolutely outstanding!  My beds are completely riddled with vole runs under the straw, but the babys are coming up thick and bright.  I started seeing the little leaves peekign the straw a day or so ago...and today they are starting to open up.

I've not made it to the woods yet.

Lets hear how your patches are doing.

[5prong]

I'm seeing pretty good germination from the seed I got from you.  These are all wild sim plantings.  I must admit that I had my doubts about that seed when plng last fall because of the small size and the fact that there were not any "grinning" seed in the mix.  In fact I had just about given up on them sprouting this spring as they were later coming up than all of my other plantings.  I just found them emerging early last week.  It seems that they are still coming up too.  In wild sim plantings I would consider the appearance of at least 35% of the number of seed planted a good germination rate.  I would say that I have at least that amount showing so far, and think that more will still appear....

[Brad]

Thanks for the report 5-prong. 

I heard from another grower this morning who gets his seed from me, and his report is similar only a little better.  He said he looked a couple days ago and saw good germination.  Today he looked and said he was still seeing seedlings emerging and was very happy with the high germination rate (estimated at about 80%).  In fact, he told me that the seed from last year that did not emerge because of the drought has started to show up.

I'll post a couple pictures from the raised beds soon, but they would naturally be emerging a little earlier than the stuff in the ground.  But I have to say the emergence has got to be nearly 90% for me in the raised beds.

In fact, if you recall the batch of seed left in my truck over the winter and planted last spring.....  Well, since I moved I had to scoop up the top couple inches of dirt in that bed and move them also.  But I did.  I"m happy to say they are indeed coming up and look very healthy at this point.