Question About Some Mold on Stratifying Seeds

Posts: 138

Location: Galicia, Spain Zone 9

posted 11 years ago

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So I have a lot of tree and shrub seeds stratifying in the fridge and some of them have some mold.

I think someone may have turned down the fridge while I was gone so that the temperature in there got above 5C/40F. Or can mold be active at such a cold temperature anyway?

I have them in peat moss.

Could I wash them with hydrogen peroxide maybe?

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John Elliott

pollinator

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posted 11 years ago

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Or plant them right away.

Fungal activity occurs any time the temperature is above freezing, and the higher the temperature goes, the more active the fungal growth can be. Let's hope that the fungal enzymes have helped to scarify the seed coats, and didn't get all the way to the living part of the seed and kill it. You won't know until you try to sprout them and see what kind of germination rate you get.

Jose Reymondez

Posts: 138

Location: Galicia, Spain Zone 9

posted 11 years ago

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Well the polytunnel does get to 20C/70F+ degrees on many days and will do so more as days get longer in Jan/Feb so i think Ill give it a go with sowing a bunch of them.

They'll just have to get a very early spring.

Thanks again for the advice

Michael Qulek

Posts: 459

posted 11 years ago

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Jose Reymondez wrote:Could I wash them with hydrogen peroxide maybe?

Separate molded seeds immediately! You need to aggressively stop the spread of mold. Instead of peroxide, use bleach instead. Dilute it 1:10 with clean water. Soak the seed for about 30 seconds. Keep anything previously molded away from other seeds. Unless it's really hard to replace seed, I'd just discard it rather than risking the spread.

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