Hi Greenhorn,

Raspberry seeds don't like to be dried and stored. Also, there are a few embryonic "keys" you have to unlock. Lot's of people have different favorite ways of doing this. I would do it this way. Pick ripe fruit and freeze it for 2 months. Thaw and let it overipen to the point of fermentation. Place the fruit in a wire mesh strainer, and separate the seed from the pulp. Place the seeds immediately into a cup of water that is 100F or so and soak for an hour. Place seeds in sterile soil and keep moist, maintaining a soil temp of 75F to 85F until you see signs of sprouting. Then, you can back off to 65F to 75F Here is a scholarly link on it (good luck with trying to scarify a raspberry seed!). You could also soak them in various acid solutions at point of planting. It's all in the article in the link below.
Susan

Here is a link that might be useful: Drying interferes with germ of Rubus species

Hi Greenhorn,

Raspberry seeds don't like to be dried and stored. Also, there are a few embryonic "keys" you have to unlock. Lot's of people have different favorite ways of doing this. I would do it this way. Pick ripe fruit and freeze it for 2 months. Thaw and let it overipen to the point of fermentation. Place the fruit in a wire mesh strainer, and separate the seed from the pulp. Place the seeds immediately into a cup of water that is 100F or so and soak for an hour. Place seeds in sterile soil and keep moist, maintaining a soil temp of 75F to 85F until you see signs of sprouting. Then, you can back off to 65F to 75F Here is a scholarly link on it (good luck with trying to scarify a raspberry seed!). You could also soak them in various acid solutions at point of planting. It's all in the article in the link below.
Susan

Here is a link that might be useful: Drying interferes with germ of Rubus species

Regarding that apple comment as I am interested in starting an orchard (hopefully) some trees can even be more than one type even if started from a red delicious seed for example. Not even the growers really know but they can set a new branch that might be gala, fuji or red delicious lol. Also UOA says now that chill hours are way off give or take hundreds of hours.

Mixed apple trees are invariably grafted scions onto a specific root stock. My horticulture teacher proudly displayed a 'family tree' with 17 varieties of apple grafted onto a stump of rootstock using various side, saddle and cleft grafts. True, the odd branch could possibly 'sport' but you could not claim any named variety as coming true from seed so it is not really the case that a Gala apple could sport to a 'Red Delicious'.

Yes, apples can, and are, grown from seeds...but the reason for using specific rootstocks, to determine size, allow for soil conditions such as ph, and longevity and vigour, not to mention maintaining clonal purity, vastly over-rides the tricky and unpredictable seed sowing methods, to my mind. I have had very little luck in growing out hardwood cuttings on their own roots (unlike roses, say) either.

The hardening off of seed coatings can definitely affect dormancy - many primula for example, will only go into dormancy when dried...in which case they will need specific stratification to break dormancy. The words 'double dormancy' can strike terror into the heart of any grower but it can usually be broken (the worst are the seeds which have only a few days of viability). Styrax, for example, requires various cycles of cool damp stratification, followed by warmth and so on. Either try Plant Whisper's method or check out the Deno or Clothier germination tables as even DD can be overcome.

Yes it is actually the case. Unexplained but fact sorry.

Jennifer, perhaps you can give us some links to this research? I'm having trouble understanding your statement that 'some trees can even be more than one type even if started from a red delicious seed for example.' Are you perhaps referring to 'sporting'? But as Campanula said, sporting would not produce a named cultivar.

Yes and give me a few days and no not sporting but an actual cane. Now you could argue like they say in radishes that inherent genetic variations exist but I understood it not to be the case. FYI Arizona is still so hot (90s in October is to much for me).

I am curious as to your definition of sports - an 'actual cane' would be either a limb mutation or a spur mutation which arises spontaneously - a sport in other words...and requires vegetative propagation to ensure the variety remains stable. This mutation or sport would be an entirely new variation on the scion tree and not a variety already in named cultivation. There is simply no way a 'Golden Delicious' will produce an entire branch of 'Fuji' say - none at all...but it most certainly could produce a cane which has similarities to another known breed.