The seeds have a very thick shell; it might be worth gently cracking one or two to see if this will speed up germination. I've done that with other pinyons.

Resin

Well, I took my maxipinyon seeds out of cold stratification today. Out of eleven seeds, two were already cracked open - though no obvious sign of germination yet. Per Resin's tip above, I gently cracked the others slightly open, and then planted all of them in rooting cells (I got one of those starter kits, with tray and plastic dome included - very handy !)
I have a sneaking suspicion that germination might take less than the ~2 months expected for some difficult seeds, like Sciadopitys....

Looking promissing so far....

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I may actually get a pretty high rate of germination, it appears.....

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Congrats!

They'll need a lot of supplementary light through the winter, though.

Resin

Oh, they'll also need much bigger pots ASAP (preferably yesterday ;-) the roots will already be coiling round the bottom of those little pots

Resin

Thanks for the tip, Resin.
Did it today.
I was surprized that the roots really were already coiling round the bottom, for the more developped ones.
One had the leaves coming out of the seed, but no root below yet, so I just stuck it back in.
After that, I put them all under grow lights in the basement.
Hopefully they won't need to be re-potted too often (??) ....I wasn't expecting a giant sequoia :O)

They use their huge seed food reserves to punch a deep taproot down - the area they come from, that is necessary to ensure access to reliable water. By the time they're a couple of weeks old, it could be 20-30cm long

Resin

While the first ones took off like a rocket, there are over half that still haven't germinated.
I guess I can give them another couple of months, to see if anything happens - although it doesn't look too encouraging right now....
Also, the seedlings have a lot of trouble shedding their seed case once they have germinated.
So far, only one of them dropped it easily.
One I removed by hand, but it was really stuck on -- I ended up ripping off the tips of the leaves (no harm done though, it appears, in the second photo...)
Anyway, I will need to repot again soon, as the roots are probably curling around the bottom of the pots again....
Unfortunately, it doesn't look like I'll be able to get those nice deep Stuewe tree pots used by kingn8 -- apparently they only sell them by the case, which is way more then I'll ever need.
Oh well, just have to use more potting soil, in regular-shaped pots....

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BTW, the thread on "Cold-hardiness of Araucaria cunninghamia & bidwillii" reminds me that I haven't been able to find any hardiness zone info on maxipinyon yet... only that "It occurs at moderate altitudes, from 1800-2400 m, in warm, dry climate conditions."
That's pretty high altitude!
What zone might that translate to, roughly ??
Any chance it might make it through Z5b winters on a regular basis ? (has anyone tried ?)

Sorry, no, it is marginal even in zone 9, and a total failure in zone 8 (yes, it has been tried). At its latitude in Mexico (21° 20' N), one needs to go above 2700-3000m to get plants hardy even in zone 8 Britain, let alone zone 7 or lower.

The reason is that in the tropics, there is very little difference in daylength between summer and winter, so also very little annual temperature range. It also means that even the coldest winter nights are followed by warm days, so it only ever gets night frosts, not week-long below-freezing spells.

Resin

A couple of comments --
First, cold stratification of pine seeds functions mainly to increase the consistency of germination -- it shortens the period in which a given percent of seeds germinate.
Second, if there's evidence that daylength affects survival of pines, I'd like to see it.

Hi Pinetree30,

I wasn't talking about daylength per se, but its effects on daily temperature fluctuations  a winter night here at 55°N is 18 hours long, followed by 6 hours low-angle sun, means that a low night temperature of say, -10°C, will only rise to about -5°; but at 20°N latitude and 2700m altitude, a winter night of 13 hours followed by 11 hours high-angle sun will push a night minimum of -10° up to +5° or more. This enables soil (and plants) to thaw daily between freezes there, which they don't do here, thereby allowing water translocation to continue and foliage won't be killed by freeze-drying

Resin

Jaro,

Nice work! Watch out this growing from seed will only suck you in. : )

I'm pretty sure that you can order as many or few pots from Stuewe as you'd like. My first order was 40 pots, then I bought a case. Watch out though, although they are nice, their trays will jack up your bill very quickly. As you noticed I 'cheaped' out on the trays and made my own. It made my order astronomically more affordable.

Nate

back to the treepots - Charley's Greenhouse in Mt. Vernon, WA sells three different sizes at an affordable price - see the link before - and they ship to Canada for an additional shipping charge.

I have found square plastic milk carton crates - which can be found laying around the rear of most grocery stores - work well for holding the tall pots. And I think similar crates are available rather inexpensively at places like Wal-Mart, etc.

Here is a link that might be useful: Charley's Greenhouse

Resin my friend, you ought to patent that.

An update -- photos I took today.
The pinyons still look very vulnerable at this stage -- how long 'till the trunk gets a bit more solid ?

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A couple of them are not doing that great though......

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The nodding apex of the shoot is normal, don't worry about that, it isn't erect the way it is on most other pine seedlings.

I don't like the way the bark looks on the lower part of the last pic - I'd isolate that one from the rest of the seedlings in case it has a fungal infection.

Maybe treat them all with a bit of prophylactic fungicide. Also let them dry out more between watering, they look decidedly soggy with all that algal growth on the soil surface. They sould get almost completely dry between waterings, particularly now temperatures and sunshine are getting less toward the winter.

Resin

Jaro (and Resin):

This is a fascinating thread, especially with all of the photos. Thanks for making these available.

I just ordered a packet of these seeds but have no idea how many to expect because they're simply coming as a 10 gram packet. They look pretty huge, so I fear I may not have nearly as many coming as I'd hoped. Do you have any idea how many of the Maxipinon seeds there are to the ounce/gram?

Resin, you suggested using a prophylactic fungicide. I bought something a few years back marketed as Chinosol (See http://shop.piwine.com/shopsite/prwc/product226.html ) Will this do the job? If not, what particular product do you use?

I'm curious as well whether the Maxipinon is indeed only hardy to Zone 9. It would make sense given its origins, but I'm curious just how rigorously this was tested. Jaro, will you be growing your trees under glass indefinitely?

Good luck with these new trees. I'd love to see more pics of them as they continue to grow out.

John

Hi John,
The packet that I ordered contained eleven seeds.
Five of them germinated quite quickly, following the cold stratification period. It doesn't look like the rest will germinate.
Of the five germinated seeds, I lost one fairly soon after.
Two appear to be doing very well, while two others are surviving, but don't look that great.
I haven't had any problem with fungal infection.
I would suggest however, if you can, to get yourself the very deep, narrow seedling pots, while you are waiting for the cold strat. period to pass.
To answer your question -- no, I do not plan on growing my (two?) trees under glass indefinitely: I plan to put the pots outdoors during the summer. With enough Perlite, they will remain light enough to move, up to almost any size...

Good luck with your Maxipinyons !

Hi John,

Sorry, that's not a fungicide I'm familiar with - check with the manufacturers what it is suitable for use on.

Yes, definitely zone 9, realistically zone 9b too, I know of people in zone 9a and have lost it to winter cold. Where it grows, frost is very rare, and snow unknown; I'd doubt it can take below about -5° or -7°C, and that only briefly.

Resin

Well, its snowing a bit outside, so I thought I'd take a few photos of the seedlings....

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The close-up shows how the branching is developing....

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For some reason, this one seems a bit yellower....

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No idea what this one is up to, but it (still) doesn't look good....

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That last one looks like a Siamese twin. It should go on growing OK, just with a forked trunk (which is fairly common in pinyons anyway). At least the stem isn't diseased like I thought back after the October pic (if it was, it would have been dead by now).

How many cotyledons on each seedling? (the species is recorded as having up to 24, the highest number for any plant species).

Resin

I obtained some maxipinyon seeds about 20 years ago and grew them outside from April to October here in zone 4a Minnesota( they grew about 6" per year). When they started to get too large for indoors, I airlayered some of the upper branches. It took about a year for roots to form, then I potted them still attached and let the root system develop further before severing off. My question is when does primary growth change to true needles and buds?{{gwi:669714}}

Hi pinyonhead,
Thanks very much for posting your message & photo on this thread.
Sorry, I can't answer your question, as I am now about 19 years behind your experience.
But I'm curious -- is the plant in your photo the original one from seed, or your airlayered propagation ?
Of course I would greatly appreciate any tips you could provide, so that I may get the most out of my four seedlings, which are not quite one year old yet.

"My question is when does primary growth change to true needles and buds?"

Probably never, if it hasn't yet. In the wild, from about 5 years old. One under glass at Kew c.12-15 years old had a mix of adult and juvenile but more adult than juv., so it can at least sometimes develop adult foliage under glass.

Resin

Hi, Jaro
The photo posted is of the airlayered clone, now about three years old. The original did have a few true needle bundles as well as a few pollen cones. I guess time will tell whether it will ever grow up ( develop buds and true needles)
pinyonhead