Hi everyone,
My Ensete glaucum and Musa velutina seeds have sprouted.
After 3-5 weeks quite a good percentage of them have come up. I planted 8 Ensete glaucum and have 4 up now and two rotted. 13 Musa velutina with 6 up and nothing from other 7. Ensete ventricosum all seem to have rotted or nothing going on.
The setup I used was very simple. I soaked seeds for 24 hours in warm tap
water and planted in pre-soaked Jiffy Peat Discs. Planting depth was about
6-8mm. I placed the discs in one of those portable seed starting mini-greenhouses. I placed the greenhouse in a warm sunny room with no supplemental heat. Sunny days elevated the greenhouse into the high 30's (C) with nights around 20 C. First one to come up was E. glaucum after about 3 weeks. It's now about 3 inches tall with the first leaf just emerging. I repotted peat disc with sprout in a 3" pot and placed under a cut-off plastic juice bottle to maintain humidity. I also treated the soil with a very weak solution of transplanting fertilizer to get the roots going.
I'll keep everyone posted throughout the season with pictures. The plan is to plant all of these in gound in late May. Should become giants.
Cheers,
Craig