Re: Jim's new picture links

Jim,
I mentioned this to a friend of mine who is currently studying at Guelph.
She replied:
"...In fact I tried homemade smoke water for the Romneya, which by the way
hasn't germinated yet, seems that I have to try several cycles of warm and
cold. I would love to read the whole article, from some other things that I
read, it has to be a certain type of wood smoke, certain wood is better to
burn than others."

I still wonder how one would make smoke water without some sort of CSI smoke
chamber - that part would be safe for DF to watch.

Kitty

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "james singer" <jsinger@igc.org>
To: <gardenchat@hort.net>
Sent: Tuesday, July 13, 2004 3:40 PM
Subject: Re: [CHAT] Jim's new picture links


> This reminds me--did anyone else hear the report on NPR about the
> effects of smoke on seed germination? Work was done in Perth and
> published, I think, in "Science." Forever people have thought that some
> seeds [think, bristlecone pine, here] had to be subjected to fire
> before they would germinate. Turns out not to be true. It's a
> constituent of smoke, not heat, that pulls the trigger. Anyway the
> Aussies identified it. They found that all seeds--lettuce, carrots,
> tomatoes--germinate better when treated with "smoke water." You can
> probably get a transcript of the story/interview at www.npr.org.
>
> Oh, yeah. And what the constituent of smoke does is activate dormant
> gibberilic [sp?] acid crystals in the seed, so it even brings to life
> very old seeds.
>
>
> On Tuesday, July 13, 2004, at 09:39 AM, Aplfgcnys@aol.com wrote:
>
> > In a message dated 07/13/2004 12:05:05 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> > kmrsy@comcast.net writes:
> > fungicide, though I suppose the hormones might help.
> > I'd love to have a set up like that.  Having it ready and waiting
> > would make
> > it so much easier to take cuttings whenever it occurs to you to do so.
> >
> >
> > Kitty, this might not be sufficient for your needs, but for a number
> > of years
> > I kept a clear
> > plastic "sweater box" - don't know what else it would be called - about
> > 15"x6" by 5" deep
> > with a cover - filled with about 3 or 4 inches of vermiculite on my
> > kitchen
> > counter - protected
> > spot by a sunny window.  The lid of the box was its tray, though there
> > were
> > no drainage
> > holes.  I can't begin to guess how many plants I rooted in that box
> > but there
> > were many.
> > Whenever I had a leaf or cutting or pruning, a piece of it went into
> > the box.
> >  When the
> > rootings began to get so big they overwhelmed other things, or there
> > was no
> > room for
> > new cuttings, I would pot them on.  Since it was on the kitchen
> > counter, I
> > was reminded
> > to water it frequently, but never let it be soggy.  I theorized -never
> > read
> > this anywhere -
> > that the rooting plants produced their own hormones that helped other
> > things
> > to root.
> > Anyway, I kept the same vermiculite going - just topped it up when it
> > got low
> > (some would
> > cling to the roots of the cuttings when I removed them.)  When we
> > remodeled
> > the kitchen
> > a few years back I promised myself a new box - that one had become
> > pretty
> > crummy
> > looking after more than fifteen years - but somehow have never
> > replaced it,
> > though I think
> > of it often.  I usually have something rooting somewhere at any given
> > time.
> > Auralie
> >
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> >
> Island Jim
> Southwest Florida
> 27.0 N, 82.4
> Zone 10a
> Minimum 30 F [-1 C]
>
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