Journal Januaryy 16, 2013

Early wonder beets, for greens, and fudanso umaina were planted today in systems 2 and 3 three.  Finally, I have all systems planted, and all of the LEDs in the grow chamber are operational. 

The new 150 watt multi-spectrum LED grow light, seen on the left, is doing a nice job with the green ice lettuce.  Although each of the three lights has a slightly different spectrum, and power output, they produce very similar results.

Also today I planted four Megaritiki olive seeds that I received from Greece.  These are in addition to the seeds planted in November 2012, however, these seeds were pretreated more along the lines of how commercial growers treat and start seeds.  In addition to stratifying them in vinegar, the seeds were thoroughly cleaned to remove all trace of oil and dried for several days.  I also used wire snips to clip off the radicle end of each seed to expose the embryo.  The recommendation was  to soak them for 15 days, however, after only soaking for 48 hours the embryo was swelling and protruding from the seed coat, so I thought it best to plant them right away.  The seeds planted in November are just now beginning to have the embryo show from the seed coat, so perhaps I picked up three months by what I have done.

The mission olive has recovered nicely from having the cutting taken, however it is still to tall for my purposes; so I removed another four inch section  to propagate as a cutting.  The first cutting is looking pretty good, and I am hoping that using the Clonex is going to be the secret to success with olive cuttings. According to an article I read today, the success rate for different cultivars is variable, however, the article stated that actively growing leafy stems can be taken for cuttings, which is what I am doing.  Depending on conditions, it can take several months for a cutting to root, so I am not discouraged at this point.