What is the best medium to grow moso seeds?

[stevelau1911]

I ordered 60moso seeds off of ebay, and I've heard of growing them in paper towels, perlite, cat litter, play sand, potting soil but I'm not sure whats the ideal medium for maximum germination.

I'm also setting the bottom heat to 86F to help the speed.

[Flashburn]

Man I must be tired and grumpy, Importing seeds is against the law.

you might get a visit from USDA Or the AMA or DAMM I forget.

[EBinNC]

He did not say he imported them. He only said that he bought them on e-bay.

[bambookid524]

I ordered 60moso seeds off of ebay, and I've heard of growing them in paper towels, perlite, cat litter, play sand, potting soil but I'm not sure whats the ideal medium for maximum germination.

I'm also setting the bottom heat to 86F to help the speed.

So far, my favorite is the paper towel, because it works really good, and you are able to check on the seeds without really disturbing them. I usually start my seeds in paper towel, and once they have roots about 1 cm long, i transplant to either a potting soil/perlite mix, or just perlite.

I have also heard of great success from starting them in play-sand, like what goes in children's sandboxes (I have not tried this one), as well as success from starting in perlite, or potting soil or mix (if I don't go with the paper towel method I start them in a 50/50 potting soil/perlite mixture)

I just started a batch of about 40 Moso seeds yesterday, in paper towel, and plan on trying out the sand germ. method with the rest of my F. murielae seeds.

[Arkansas]

I'm going to try that paper towel method next.

On March 8th i planted 18 pots with moso seed - 9 pots perlite and 9 pots clay cat litter, after soaking the seeds about 48 hrs in water.

I got my first seedlings after about 2 weeks and it's now been 3 weeks and 2 days and it looks like i have a new shoot today, so they may continue to come up for some time.

I didn't have a great germination rate (thus far) as i put a minimum of 5 seeds per pot and some got a few more. No pots have double seedlings yet. No wait, one does, one of the perlite pots has a new shoot too.

So far 3 of the perlite pots have sprouts and 5 of the cat liter pots have sprouts. All pots were under a dome except of 2 of the cat liter pots which have not sprouted. And i removed the domes as soon as sprouts started coming up.

I built a shelf in the window of my office about 5 feet off the floor and the temperature in her stays at about 80 with 2 computers running. I have a heat mat and a thermostat to plug it into, but some folks report too much heat without a thermostat and i just left the mat off as many people have success without them.

At this point i prefer cat liter over perlite. I got both at walmart and pot for pot the cat liter must be 10 times cheaper. I think the seedlings might come out of the perlite a tad easier at transplant time.

In the future i may try sand and more cat liter but next time around that paper towel methods sounds good to me. I would like to take the paper towel seedlings straight to potting soil.

Tell us what works for you

[stevelau1911]

I haven't recieved my moso seeds, yet, but once my project is started, I'll keep updates and pictures available on this forum.

I'm planning on starting some in cat litter, and some in a paper and towel with a heat mat below them both to speed up germination.

[webgator]

I always used a 50/50 mix of peat and perlite, works great. Here's some of my bamboo seed germination pics.

[Flashburn]

Opps I pulled a bonehead. There are indeed moso seeds right now on sale on ebay from L.A. My bad for not knowing what I was posting about.

[stevelau1911]

Thanks for the advice. I'll try 12 cells with perlite, 12 with perlite/moss to give it a test run with 2 seeds in each cell.

I need to go buy my seed starter with a dome tomorrow.

[stevelau1911]

I have cells with perlite, perlite/moss, and moss. I have at least 50% germination on them so every medium works. I keep the soil temperature at 82F.

Should I raise the temperature to promote faster growth, or do I already have it at the ideal temp?

[bambookid524]

I just transplanted a bunch of Moso seeds from paper towel into soil yesterday.
I'm using a 50-50 perlite/miracle gro potting soil mixture.

The last few batches of seedlings seemed to LOVE this.

I think 82°F. is good for them. You dont wanna go to high or it will become to warm and humid, and they don't like too much humidity.[/b]