Goji from seed?

I have some dried Goji berries here. Has anybody tried to grow from seed? I was thinking I stick half of the berries in the ground and see. The other half I will try to extract the seeds and plant only the seeds.
Anybody tried that?

Josey Hains wrote:I have some dried Goji berries here. Has anybody tried to grow from seed? I was thinking I stick half of the berries in the ground and see. The other half I will try to extract the seeds and plant only the seeds.
Anybody tried that?

I have! from seed that I bought ...just this last year. I started the seed in some wooden flats indoors and had great germination and they transplanted well. From then on was more iffy....Mine did the best on the north side of the house in pots without much sun at all. All of them that I tried to plant out in their final place died and I never found any that I just planted out as seed.
I read that the plants are kind of scruffy looking for a year or two and I think that is so. I think I have four good ones left out of 2 or 3 dozen. Something at one point ate all of the leaves on a couple but they grew back.
the instructions on my packet of seeds from Richters says...sow thinly in a light-weight sterilized soil mix. cover twice seeds thickness with soil. press firmly and water. keep evenly moist but not soggy. as seedlings appear, gradually expose to direct light . when large enough to handle transplant to pots. gradually harden off. OR direct seed after danger of frost is past....... I don't sterilize my potting soil...it is sifted compost and leaf mold and some sand generally.
It could be that your dried goji berries have been heated and that might interfere with germination, but it would still be worth a try. good luck and let us know if it works!

Thanks! I am going to try for sure.
I heard one needs to bring them inside for the first winter, after that they are hardy. Doesn't really make sense to me as nature wouldn't do that either.
Oh well, nothing to lose, I am going to go for it and see what happens.

I put a handfull of dried berries in a ziplock with a moist paper towel early last spring and chill-stratified them in my fridge for several weeks until the berries were very moldy. Then I buried them all in one large pot. They came up as a forest of seedlings -- great germination -- but as I thinned them out into different pots their survival rate was very poor. I ended up with half a dozen growing well in small pots, but they all succumbed to one or another outrage (bugs, dehydration, dampness, not sure in all case) and at this time I have one left that's about six inches high. I plan to try to baby it through the winter, but I am not hopeful.

At this point I am tempted to just feed the berries to my local birds and hope they eventually germinate and thrive around my property where the birds poop. It's a low percentage play, but it can hardly work any worse than what I did this year.

I had the exact same experience as Judith and Dan. I soaked some sun dried berries in warm water until they were plump, then scraped the seeds out. I put the seeds in a tray of moist coir, covered it with plastic wrap and put outside in a morning sun location. It took about two weeks but I got what my daughter started calling a Goji forest. I think every seed out of 300 germinated. I pricked out the best looking ones into individual pots where they did OK for a while. Between herbivorous chickens, rainstorms and general neglect they all proceeded to die. They definitely do look scruffy and almost twisted in growth. I think I have two left that are alive. Thinking about trying again in the spring.

I still have at least half of my seed packet and plan to try again...the seed seems pretty inexpensive so maybe worth the low percentage of good plants. I usually start a few wooden flats (no dividers) of stuff in by the wood stove in January and February. I think now that we know they need a little more babying for awhile we'll all have success next year!
and now I'll bring in the pots that still have live plants after you mentioned that, Josey....I think they need all of the help they can get.

Judith Browning wrote:...and now I'll bring in the pots that still have live plants after you mentioned that, Josey....I think they need all of the help they can get.

Yeah, I don't know about the baby-ing. I like Mark Shepards STUN approach. I think I will seed as many as I can and let nature take care of it as a first try. I asked somebody I know where in China they come from and she said they come from a cold, high altitude province. The bag said they are wildcrafted. So I think if they are not heat treated or something the seeds should be fine. My climate definitely matches the cold, high altitude description

My climate definitely matches the cold, high altitude description

Ours does not that may be my problem here....too hot over most of the season, I guess that's why they did somewhat better on the north side of the house. I have had that happen with a few other things where our climate zone is good but not our extreme heat and humidity.
I like the idea of STUN planting also.......I just have little success with it unless it is some of our more naturalized plants.

Josey Hains wrote:I have some dried Goji berries here. Has anybody tried to grow from seed? I was thinking I stick half of the berries in the ground and see. The other half I will try to extract the seeds and plant only the seeds.
Anybody tried that?

I bought some goji fruit from a health food store. I thought the whole fruit was one seed and planted it in a pot. The whole seed grew plants about 20 or more. I had to thin them with forceps. Eventually I grew four plants and now after about six years have two in the garden. A rabbit ate two of the four I planted in the outdoor garden. I get a handful of berries periodically but find they are grossly overrated. There is one commercial grower in my area. I bought some and made juice.


Goja Berry (Lycium barbarum)
http://www.durgan.org/URL/?QBRBX 14 October 2009 Goja Berries. Various views of the berries and plants.
Inspecting the garden after the first severe frost, six goja berries were discovered on one Chinese Wolfberry plant. This is after 18 months from seed growth. There are three plants in the garden. Two are thriving and the other is healthy but stunted, since a rabbit ate the top in the Spring of 2009.

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?AYOCS 26 February 2008 Chinese Wolfberry (Lycium barbarum)
The Chinese Wolfberry pods were planted on 10 February 2008. Due to ignorance the whole pod was planted, but it is only necessary to plant one seed per plant. They were thinned and the stronger plant will be kept as they get larger. Germination was about 14 days and it appears maybe planting the pod is a good idea, since the germination was probably 100%. The plant is a perennial. Fruit production is in the third and fourth year, according to the literature.

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?BXFRZ 17 July 2012 Goja Berry and Blueberry Juice.
Five pounds of Goja berries and ten pounds of Blueberries were made into juice. Both berries were freshly picked. Goja berries cost $30.00 per pound and the five pounds came to $150.00.The blueberries cost 3.40 per pound for a total of $34.00 for ten pounds. Twelve litres of juice was obtained for a cost of $13.80 per litre.The berries were purchasd near Langton, ON http://www.gojiontario.com/index.php
Processing was normal,berries added to pot, and water added to cover the berries, boiling until soft (15 minutes), blending into a slurry (three minutes), straining using a food mill. There was almost no residue, but what was present was put through the Champion Juicer to extract any nutrients.The extracted juice was then pressure canned at 15 PSI. Annotated photographs depict the process.

Thanks for the info James. I will take a look at the links.
Glad to hear it can work. I opened one berry and saw that it has tons of seeds in there. I will likely go the extra mile and extract them before seeding. I hate thinning
I am not a huge fan either but I am trying to diversify for low cost. If I can grow them from dried berries which I get free from a friend, I will add them to my food forest. Also, I can repay her with some plants.

I've started quite a few goji's from seed.....though I've only tended to one of them, so I only have one plant from seed at the moment. The others I just severely neglected for one reason or another....small plants being choked out by grass and such. The only reason I have the one from seed still is because I put a thick ring of mulch around it. So all I was trying to say is.....in my experience they're very easy to grow from seed. If you check out my food forest page here on permies I think there's a picture of it. I purchased a few named varieties this past fall as well.....which I did mulch around. LOL Oh yeah, the method I used to start them from seed....I ate half the berry....planted the other half.

What soil condition do they like?

For some info on Goji culture, see http://www.goji411.com/gojigrowing.html

For those of you living in hot/dry climates, there is a variety native to the Sonoran Desert.
JLHudsons stocks them:
—Lycium exsertum. (100) LYCI-22. Packet: $2.50
'WOLFBERRY'. Profuse small lavender flowers followed by abundant bright red edible berries.
Spiny shrub to 3 - 6 feet. Low deserts, Arizona and México. Very drought resistant.
The berries were eaten in great quantities by the Indians, fresh, cooked, or dried
like raisins. Good wildlife shrub. Germinates in 2 - 6 weeks, light and GA-3 help.

For an overview of the Sonoran variety, see
http://www.desertmuseumdigitallibrary.org/public/detail.php?id=ASDM01419