Any success broadcast seeding brambles?

I would like to try an experiment by adding blackberry, raspberry and black raspberry seeds into a seed mix to revegetate a waste area that is mostly bare dirt. I will be adding other seeds as well such as annuals, perennials and possibly other shrub and maybe even some tree seeds. But i was curious if anyone has ever had success by just broadcasting or throwing seeds down from the Rubus genus onto bare ground and getting good germination and some berry production within a few years.

Also I'd like to know the process for germinating these seeds. Most sources I've read say they need cold stratification for a few months but some say you should do this by storing them dry while others say to store them damp like in a slightly moist paper towel. I'm curious which method produces the best germination.

Hi Travis,
Stratification may depend on whether the seed is dormant or not.  I had a quick germination with fresh chilean current (Ribes magellanicum) seeds.  I just squished the seed out of slightly sad berries, rinsed them and spread them on the surface of a small pot containing compost, covering with vermiculite.  That was in August and by the end of Sept I had several little plants to pot on.  I left the rest in the pot over winter, but unfortunately it got knocked over by the wind, so I don't know how many more would have germinated in spring.
I often get little black current seedlings springing up around my bushes of their own accord too, but they tend to disappear as well, presumably eaten by something.  I've pricked out a few into pots for planting out.
If the seeds have been dried for storage, I expect they would need a cold stratification to wake them up: normally that is a soak overnight in warm water, drain, mix with damp sand and then leave in the fridge for three weeks before sowing.
Judging from my experience with blackcurrents, sow many more seeds than you hope to get plants.  The majority of baby plants don't make it to maturity.
I haven't tried spreading brambles, they'll probably take over the damp world soon enough!

I have never tried seeding brambles, that's a horror story to me! But a lot of raspberry babies came up in my field, which must have come from the birds, they germinated the same year they were eaten so I don't think they need cold.

Some kinds of seeds may actually germinate significantly better if they pass through a bird gut first. Not sure about blackberries, but I might guess they'd be one of those.

Perhaps the way to seed somewhere then, is to put out really good fruit for the birds and other nibblers and let them distribute the seed for you?

many rubus species need both stratification and scarification (the latter mimicking going through a bird)...the scarification is frequently done with sulfuric acid. one study i was just looking at said that best results were obtained using 95% sulfuric, so pretty strong stuff. i don’t know what you might have available to you that’s like that. germination is almost always pretty low for rubus. that study said total germination ended up being around 40% for seed treated with 95% sulfuric, with single digits for untreated...that’s just for one species, though (r. idaeus) , which likely is fairly different from other species...

Try to determine first WHY the soil is bare there.  Was it degraded by earth movers?  Or does vegetation just not grow there?  There are wild seed everywhere, Nature abhors a vacuum.  So if it has been that way a long time, there may be something killing any germinating seeds, something toxic to them, or it may be almost devoid of nutrients.  You might need to mulch any seed you plant to keep them moist until they germinate and put down roots. Otherwise it may be a lost cause.  The mulch will give microbes something to feed on, and rot down into more nutrient and organic matter in the soil.