Lord Snooty

The other day I was preparing some Ensete seeds for soaking prior to germination. As an experiment I cut two seeds in half to see what was going on inside. I was expecting to find juicy plump kernel's inside the hard shell, but instead found that the interior was dry and powdery in both seeds.
One seed is an Ensete Glaucum and the other is an Ensete Ventricosum.
I bought a hundred seeds of each variety from two different sources and prepared them within two days of receipt.
I haven't cut open any other seeds in either batch so don't know if all of them are the same.



Any thoughts?

stevelau1911

Sometimes it it can be difficult to tell if seeds are viable or not. For example Amaryllis seeds look like little sheets of paper weighing almost nothing however they happen to have excellent germination rate.

Here are my amaryllis seedlings sprouting. Out of 50, about half of them have already come up.


I think banana seeds should be viable as long as they are fresh. To give them the best chance possible, you may want to try germinating them in a hydroponics system, or aerogarden, and use growth regulators such as ga3 to stimulate growth.

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I'm in zone 6 upstate NY, specialize in growing temperate cold hardy bamboos(mainly phyllostachys) and starting to get into bananas.

my picture website is http://www.flickr.com/photos/31489820@N02/

http://stevespeonygarden.blogspot.com/

jmoore

Ensetes remain viable for a long time. As they dehydrate (which they need to in order to store properly or they will rot) their endosperm dries out and becomes powdery. When you want to germinate them you need to soak them for about a week and they will rehydrate. Some people scarify using sand paper, I don't think it's necessary. Neither do I hold with the gibberillic acid theory. Don't worry it's normal. Get them soaking and then growing.

Lord Snooty

Thanks for the replies.
I haven't ever bothered to cut open any Musa or Ensete seeds before so I didn't know what to expect.
I've divided each batch into thirds. Some are scarified, some I've knicked with a knife and the other have been left as is. All have been soaked in tepid boiled water for seven days, the water having been changed daily, then potted in damp vermiculite with added peat and kept in a propagator set to 80f to 85f.
I guess I'll know if my efforts have been successful in anything from a week to a year.