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Science Forum Index » Agriculture Forum » source of hard seeds
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| Malcolm Manners |
Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 7:59 pm |
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Hi folks, I teach an introductory plant science course to college
freshmen, and one of the labs that they do is various forms of
scarification of hard seeds (hot water, acid, physical abrasion, etc.).
We've always used Albizia julibrissin, with excellent success. But
this year, the seed weevils have destroyed nearly all the Albizia seeds
on the local trees -- good, perhaps, from the standpoint of slowing it
as an invasive weed, but also harmful to my lab. So I'm in search of
another source -- a different species would be fine -- of seeds that I
could purchase. Are any of you aware of a USA commercial source of some
fairly large-seeded hard seed species in lots of around a pound or two?
Thanks.
Malcolm Manners
Florida Southern College |
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| Phred |
Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2007 5:14 am |
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Guest
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In article <bgDKi.3200$9r4.424@trnddc04>, Malcolm Manners <mmanners@flsouthern.edu> wrote:
Quote: Hi folks, I teach an introductory plant science course to college
freshmen, and one of the labs that they do is various forms of
scarification of hard seeds (hot water, acid, physical abrasion, etc.).
We've always used Albizia julibrissin, with excellent success. But
this year, the seed weevils have destroyed nearly all the Albizia seeds
on the local trees -- good, perhaps, from the standpoint of slowing it
as an invasive weed, but also harmful to my lab. So I'm in search of
another source -- a different species would be fine -- of seeds that I
could purchase. Are any of you aware of a USA commercial source of some
fairly large-seeded hard seed species in lots of around a pound or two?
Fresh seeds of common leucaena (_Leucaena leucocephala_) usually have
quite a high content of hard seed IME. (But if it has been machine
harvested and threshed it will probably have a proportion already
mechanically scarified.
Some of the other tropical pasture legumes also have quite high levels
of hard seededness when fresh and some also have reasonably large
seeds. For example, Siratro (_Macroptilium atropurpureum_).
Unfortunately for you, I suspect most commercial sources of these
legumes will be selling scarified and/or pelleted seed to make life
easier for farmers [actually it's for higher profits ] but you may
be able to get hold of samples from their "pretreated" stocks.
You could also try contacting your colleagues in the Ag/Pasture labs
at the Univ of Florida or Hawaii to see if you can scrounge some free
samples. (I guess that would depend on how much you need. :-)
Cheers, Phred.
--
ppnerkDELETE@THISyahoo.com.INVALID |
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