Yes, because you'll not know if it's a zygote or a clone, Dave. It could be either one, but since you won't have multiple seedlings, no way to tell by looking at it :-) And yes, with multiple seedlings the best way to guess at the clone, is it will usually be the first to sprout and the strongest. Often, the zygotes will just tamp off, but not always. I would just pinch off later sprouts, and keep the first one, if you want to make sure you've got the best chance of capturing the clone sprout. And yes to your last question. It's a "best guess", but usually a pretty good guess :-)

Patty S.

Thanks Patty!

That's what I suspected and it does seem to make sense. I guess I'll do my 'best guess' on this.

So, I'll pinch off late comers and keep only the most vigorous sprout where there are multiples arising from one seed.

I wonder why nucellar sprouts tend to be more vigorous than zygotes?

In the case where there might be three sprouts per seed, can I keep the most vigorous two? And separate them later? Or is that pushing my luck?

Well, I know the answer to this, but can't find it in my literature. In a bad nutshell, it's due to where the seedling sprouts from (the nucellar tissue), which doesn't require the zygotic process to occur, thus taking a couple of days. So, it gets a head start, so to speak. And thus, has more time to get stronger, and overgrow the zygotic seedling. You can, but tag the first one if you can, just in case the second one is a hybrid. You can get more than one nuclear sprout I believe.

Patty S.

This post was edited by hoosierquilt on Wed, Dec 4, 13 at 18:45

Found a nice, simple article that explains why the clone seedling is stronger than the zygotic seedling. I have the same info in a scholarly article, but not at that computer at the moment. But, this is a nice article that supports my above comment. Here you go, Dave.

Patty S.

Here is a link that might be useful: Uber Gardener Blog: Grow True To Type Citrus From Seed

Oh yes, sometimes there can be as many as four sprouts per seed.

And it seems a shame to sacrifice all but one sprout, since in that case at least three will be nucellar, but one just doesn't know and the more you keep, the more you have the odds against you it seems.

I also been told that the location within the seed from which the zygotic embryo arises is usually more toward the tip of the seed. Don't know about that, but one would probably have to do microsurgery to identify it and then one might accidently break the cotyledons apart.

Thanks for your explanation and for that link.