I have about 10 liters of open pollenated tatarian maple seed (cultivar "Hot Wings" With conifer seeds, it's pretty standard to soak them, the wings fall off (Not for Lodgepole and Jack though) and you acatually get higher germination. But I don't know the recipe for maple seeds. How do I turn a raft of wingy paired seeds, into something I can use with an vacuum plate seeder?
Hello, those seed should be pretty fertile, so you're looking at a big crop of seedlings (as I imagine you know). HOT WINGS ® is the trademark name for A. tartaricum 'GarAnn', PP 15023. Nothing to prevent you from growing/selling seedlings, so long as you don't use any of those names. As I also imagine you know, heh. Anyway the answer is one you might like: you don't need to dewing them, actually some recommend against it because of possibility of disease entry. In any case it makes no difference in things like germination rates. Just stratify for 3 months (or leave outside in protected trays/beds), the seed about 5 mm from the surface. If you really need to use a vacuum plate seeder for the precision, you can cut off the wings with a scissors or cutter. I get a hand cramp just thinking about 10l, though. Otherwise the wings will stay until they dry enough to crumble off (over a year of dry) and the seed will be much less viable. You could use a tumbler at that point. Good luck, -E
Any clue how they do it comercially. I'm looking at plating several thousand. If I have to hand plant them, I will just stuff a winged pair into the dirt. with the wings showing.
