09 February, 2024

Growing native seeds for forbs associated with Blackland Prairie habitat: germination data (days to germinate, growing conditions, etc.)

Some backstory: how I came to be growing native plants from seed

After falling in love with the flora associated with our Blackland Prairie habitat two summers ago, and as a fairly recent first-time homeowner, I've finally had the chance I've wanted for a long time - the ability to plant and nurture a garden. Last year, while planning my landscape, I made a decision to limit my flower beds to species that have been documented in prairie remnants within a four mile radius of my home. (There was something about the 20 Mile House in Where'd You Go, Bernadette that appealed to me; I thought I'd try something similar with my garden.)

My initial experience was not quite what I'd have liked. I worked with a horticulturalist who specialized in native plants. While I like the placement of the beds and general layout, the purist in me struggled with the species list. Although I'd provided a list of species I wanted to consider, what I received in return was a bit more practical, at least from a consumer standpoint. Hesperaloe parviflora instead of Yucca arkansana, for example; a species that's not native to my eco-region but nonetheless winds up labelled as 'native' and is widely available due to its high drought tolerance. (If you ever want a hearty debate about native plants, I will likely be more than happy to engage!)

Impatient to have my hands in the soil, I went with it - even though it wasn't what I'd really wanted.

This year affords another opportunity.

More confident in my abilities to design a landscape, I've returned to my original four-mile goal. Having gone through the gamut of shopping native plant sales, I have a good idea of what I can find to transplant and what I'll need to grow on my own. Many of the species I want to grow aren't available through our local native plant sales - but I was able to find a number of seeds on my wish list through small sellers. In a few cases, I collected seeds from imperiled remnants, but in general wish not to take from local remnant land. (We can debate genetics and habitat suitability too!)

The rest of this journal post is about my experience growing native seeds. I'm a novice, and I struggled to find information about how to grow some of these species. Admittedly, I don't know what I'm doing - but my success, or lack of it, being documented here might help somebody in the future.

So, here we go.

Seed starting mix

I created a peat-free mix from this blend:

  • 1 part vermicullite
  • 1 part perlite
  • 1 part coco coir
  • .5 to .75 part organic compost
  • .5 to .75 part organic worm castings

Stratification methods

I've used two methods.

Indoor stratification: refrigeration method

I quartered a set of paper towels, sprayed them with rainwater, and dampened the seeds. I folded the paper towels over, placed the seeds in plastic bags with a small opening for air flow, and placed these in the refrigerator on January 17. I'll remove them, probably on February 19, and plant them unless they molded. Fingers crossed.

I did not scarify any seeds, but I did soak larger seeds for a few hours ahead of stratifying them.

Right now I have no data on how these seeds will perform!

Outdoor stratification

I planted a companion set of seeds directly in a standard plant seeding tray. I probably pressed some of the seeds too far in the soil - but the first sprouts are popping up in some trays, so I guess I did okay.

The seeds went outside on January 17 ahead of a hard freeze. Most of the were also shipped during a hard freeze, so had some unintentional dry stratification from sitting in my mailbox before going in the soil.

The outdoor seed starts have been watered by hand with rainwater. They received a brief period of natural outdoor cold moist stratification and are protected from high wind / temperatures below ~45F. Otherwise, the tray sits open in an area of the yard that receives about four hours of sun each day.

This week the first sprouts begin to come up. So far, all are annuals. The perennials have yet to sprout up, and based on the data I found, they may need a longer stratification period. Time will tell on my success.

Data forthcoming.

Germination record

Once I have more data I may take the time to format this as a table, but given the difficulty of coding it and updating it without a GUI, I'll stick to a quick list.

This list reflects only things that have sprouted. I'll update - or make a new post - in the future that is more complete and shows my failures as well as my success.

Here's to data!

Outdoor Seed Starts

  • Lindheimera texana, outdoor seed start; 16 days to germinate. Soaked seeds for four hours before planting. Seed source: Native American Seed Company
  • Gaillardia pulchella, outdoor seed start; 21 days to germinate. Seed source: Native American Seed Company
  • Brickellia eupatoriodes, outdoor seed start, 21 days to germinate. Seed source: personal seed collection from imperiled habitat undergoing demolition.
  • Scuterllaria drummondii, outdoor seed start, 21 days to germinate. Seed source: McDermott Seed.
  • Marshallia caespitosa, outdoor seed start, 22 days to germinate. Seed source: McDermott Seed.
  • Silene antihhrina, outdoor seed start, 22 days to germinate. Cotyledons are as tiny as the seeds. Seed source: McDermott Seed.
  • Echinacea angustifolia, outdoor seed start, 23 days to germinate. Seed source: hand collection from garden, original transplant from Randy Johnson Organics. This is faster than I'd expect won't be confident it's not a weed seed for a few more weeks.
  • Ipomopsis rubra, outdoor seed start, 23 days to germinate. Source: Native American Seed Company
  • Monarda citriodora, outdoor seed start, 23 days to germinate. Cotyledons are purple! Source: Native American Seed Company
  • Verbena halei, outdoor seed start, 30 days to germinate. Cotyledons are small. Source: McDermott Seed, Elkhart, Texas
  • Agalinis heterophylla, outdoor seed start, 30 days to germinate. Cotyledons are tiny. Source: Personal seed collection from imperiled land, zip code 75231 (within a mile of home)
  • Eryngium leavenworthii, outdoor seed start; 31 days to germinate. Seed source: personal seed collection from imperiled habitat undergoing demolition.
  • Palafoxia Callosa, outdoor seed start; 36 days to germinate. Cotyledons are square! Seed source: McDermott Seeds from Elkhart, Texas

Indoor Seed Starts + 30 days cold moist stratification in refrigerator

  • Lindheimera texana, 30% of seeds germinated in the fridge. I planted these outside directly.
  • Palafoxia callosa, < 6 days to germinate, much better viability from the indoor seed start and stratification method. Seed source: McDermott Seed.
  • Gaillardia pulchella, < 6 days to germinate, very good viability both indoor and outdoor seed start, but must faster germination with indoor method. Seed source: Native American Seed Company
  • Brickellia eupatoriodes, < 6 days to germinate, very good viability both indoor and outdoor seed start, but must faster germination with indoor method. Seed source: personal seed collection from imperiled habitat undergoing demolition.
  • Scuterllaria drummondii, < 6 days to germinate, very good viability both indoor and outdoor seed start, but must faster germination from indoor starts. I have about two dozen seedlings. Seed source: McDermott Seed.
  • Marshallia caespitosa, < 6 days to germinate, very good viability both indoor and outdoor seed start, but must faster germination with indoor method. Seed source: Native American Seed Company
  • Ipomopsis rubra, < 6 days to germinate, very good viability both indoor and outdoor seed start, but must faster germination with indoor method. Seed source: Native American Seed Company
  • Indigofera miniata, < 6 days to germinate. Low viability so far. No viability yet for outdoor starts; only one sprouting from indoor starts. Source: McDermott Seeds, Elkhart Texas
  • Eryngium leavenworthii, < 6 days to germinate. Seed source: personal seed collection from imperiled habitat undergoing demolition.
  • Monarda citriodora, 6 days to germinate. Low viability so far. Source: Native American Seed Company
  • Asclepias asperula, 6 days to germinate. Low viability so far. No viability yet for outdoor starts; only one sprouting from indoor starts. Source: McDermott Seeds, Elkhart Texas

Quick note on Buffalo grass

I'm also watching the first sprouts from my buffalo grass shoot up - though these are not forbs, I'll add the details here while it's on my mind.

I soaked the seeds in rainwater for 2 days, changing out water every 24 hours. Then I planted at a depth no more than a quarter inch in my seed trays, same seed starting mix. The trays are indoors and covered. I'm using full-spectrum LED lights. I do not have a heating mat, but the temperature of my house + slight heat from the lights keeps the soil around 70 - 75 F if not warmer.

Germination time: four days!

Species wishlist

I'm in want of Stenaria nigricans and Euphorbia bicolor seeds.

Posted on 09 February, 2024 03:27 by scarletskylight scarletskylight | 2 observations | 5 comments | Leave a comment

12 July, 2023

Adventures in using language-based AI models to learn about botany

First off: Hello, world (this being is my first journal post and all).

All right. Now that’s out of the way, some general background information --

I’m a plant person. This happened slowly – I have always felt a deep respect for the land due to my upbringing – and then so fast I barely had to time to blink or catch my breath after a guided walk through a prairie remnant irrevocably altered the way I saw the land around me.

There was me before, and me after.

The me after is the one who uses iNaturalist – the one who goes on long walks to observe and study and understand my surroundings; the same one who has been easing into community identifications as I gain more knowledge.

Say we go to a nearby piece of wild-looking land together. For the most part, I can name the plants for you. I can read last week’s weather based on today’s blooms; I can tell you what kind of soil exists beneath our feet. I can point out what’s native and what’s not; I can tell you how the land was treated in the past; if it was plowed or seeded or simply left alone.

And yet – ask me how I know which plant is which or bring up the stigma or style or stamen and my mind goes blank as I try to find the right words to respond.

A trained botanist I am not.

Lately I’ve been getting into dichotomous keys. I want to have the correct words to describe things; I also want to understand the more technical descriptions I run across when interacting with others with more classical training.

Textbook learning has never been my forte. And with botanical descriptions, there is no shortage of words and phrases to learn and memorize.

This is where language-based AI models have come in handy for me.

Truth: I’ve been a reluctant adopter. As a person who occasionally creates art professionally, I worry about how these tools are infringing on intellectual property. Even more, I worry about the diminishment of new innovations in favor of an echo chamber of regurgitated ideas – an Ouroboros of humans using AI to do tasks trained on recirculated data provided by humans, if you will.

One night, not too long ago, I was running through a dichotomous key about Tragia ssp. One of the determinate factors involves the size of the persistent base of the staminate pedicel in relation to its subtending bract.

Perhaps you can read this and understand what it means – but I could not. And search engines were not much help either. Search engines do well with common terms and broad queries; this was too specific.

After trying to find an online resource that could help, I decided to give AI a spin. I’d been using it at work to sort and manipulate data with good results; I’d even used it to write a few PowerShell scripts for me that would have taken me considerably longer to code by hand. I’d gotten the hang of how to converse with it too. Questions need to be stated clearly; extra context for subject matter helps, for example.

Hello, I typed. I am trying to understand a particular phrase as it pertains to a botanical description. Can you help me understand what this means: persistent base of a staminate pedicel.

Here’s the thing – it did really well. The description was clear and easy to understand.

Thank you, that’s helpful. The description also mentions a “subtending bract.” Can you describe what that means as well?

Once again, the answer was clear enough for me to understand without a strong background in biology.

Great, I typed. Let’s return to the earlier phrase, the persistent base of a staminate pedicel. To help me visualize this, can you provide an example of a plant from the Blackland Prairie eco-region that exhibits this characteristic?

Once again, the response was phenomenally useful. The response named a species I was familiar with and suddenly I could visualize the technical term quite well.

A traditional search engine simply can’t provide this level of interaction.

Humans can – though even the most generous humans have limits with their time and patience; I don’t know anybody who wants to be on call as my phone-a-friend each time I look at a dichotomous key and need help understanding something – which is basically each time I read a new sentence.

I’ve run this same experiment past various AI tools. Overall, they do well breaking down the technical language. They’ve also been able to successfully help me visually the descriptions by providing additional examples of species based on my eco-region.

They’re also a handy way to learn more about scientific names.

Hello, I am studying botany. I am trying to understand whether the Latin epithet “strepens” has any particular meaning. What can you tell me about it?

The answer is fast and easy to understand.

Thank you, that’s helpful, I type. Can you tell me if any words in modern English are derived from the Latin root?

Another set of answer and examples – and suddenly I can connect the meaning of the epithet to modern words (strepens and obstreperous, for example), which will help me retain the meaning of the epithet, which will help me the next time I run across this epithet.

Ramosa, virgatum, urticifolia.

And so forth.

Of course there are limits.

On several occasions I’ve tried to forego the dichotomous key and see whether AI can tell me how to distinguish between two species. This is where it begins to falter, although AI does not know it’s faltering.

I receive responses with definitive answers that aren’t correct, or are partially correct. Language-based models are trained on a wide array of texts; it rehashes information cobbled together from dense resources; things get mixed up.

A flower is mentioned as always white when that’s not the case. A length of a corolla is given that’s considerably different from what it should be. When I ask for a source, the AI model apologies and says it actually isn’t certain of the information. It says it cannot provide a source and that it's sorry it provided me with inaccurate details.

Note that I didn't state it was wrong - it just realized on its own that it was not accurate when I wanted a source.

Another time, I ask for a source when the information is correct – just to see what will happen. It does not apologize for being incorrect and provides me with a reputable source.

Yet another day, when I ask for a source, I’m told it’s not possible to ever give me a source because it simply doesn’t provide sources. This makes me wonder whether it was an anomaly for me to have previously received an actual source.

Most recently, I’ve been curious how AI tools do with general information about species.

What can you tell me about Paspalum pubiflorum?

I receive a good answer; I ask about Paspalum dilatatum. Another good answer. The information is sound and accurate.

Then I ask about Paspalum langei – and receive an answer that is mostly incorrect. They aren’t made up, exactly; they just seem to be about another Paspalum species.

There is value and promise here; there is also danger here.

Despite the issues, I’m going to continue on this journey in places where it makes sense. Can AI help me with botanical descriptions,? Yes. Can I use it to gain insight about scientific names and to connect Latin words to modern English? You bet.

Should I use it to gather general information about species? Or discern how two species are different? No - probably not, based on my experiences. Not at this juncture.

And that leads me to this-- as I have a pressing question...

...Hello, I’m trying to understand a particular phrase as it pertains to botany. Can you describe what “stigmatic surfaces not papillate” means?

Posted on 12 July, 2023 05:08 by scarletskylight scarletskylight | 1 comment | Leave a comment

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