Germinating Blueberry Seeds

Note: Best to fill pots 2 days before, water and let sit on mist bench to make sure the bark gets saturated!

1. Rinse 6” pots in water to remove dry dirt

2. Soak for 10 minutes in 10% bleach

3. Rinse pots with water

4. Fill pots with 2-2.5” of coarse bark (more bark is better because it is lighter than sand)

5. Fill to rim with sand and level with a flat bottom pot/tap down

6. Fill with fine bark (screened to ⅛”) about ½-3/4” . Not too much as this holds a lot of water which can invite fungus in. level with flat bottom pot/tap down

7. Want 1” of lip space to keep seeds from jumping out with mist

8. put under mist to wet the pot

9. Mist setting: 4 seconds every 4 minutes from 7am-7pm. which is used to propagate cuttings…would be better for seedlings to do 4 seconds every 4 minutes from 8/9am to 5/6pm. Changed to 1-2 seconds every 5 minutes from 8am-5pm.

10. write cross on wood stake on one side of stake with number of seed circled. on back side write cross year and date sown

11. Sprinkle seed evenly all around pot. a 6” pot will hold max of 500 (600) seeds. HB pop up in about 3 weeks, RE come up in 4-5 weeks. Once up wait about a month, enough time to get a couple of true leaves and then transplant to individual plugs (liners)

12. After first day with mist-when it turns off at 5pm sprinkle with Captan to keep mold/fungus down.

Note: Seed germinate better if stored longer (1 yr) in fridge.