November summary

In the middle of November I've started to grow Bodhi Trees from seeds.
I've put half of a bag of seeds into a glass water for 3 days. (more)
After soaking, I've sprinkled seeds on to 4 media: bonsai soil, sphagnum moss, filter paper and rockwool hydroponics plug. (details)
In 7 days, there was first sprout on rockwool. I transferred seedlings to a small greenhouse nursery on a heated mat (one, two)
Over the course of 8 days, there were 7 seedlings, 5 of them sprouted on rockwool and 2 on filter paper.
In the end of the month I've installed a grow light and I keep it on 24 hours a day.
All seedlings look healthy and grow vigorously!

Grow light

Another germination on rockwool plug, making total of 7 seedlings.

Days are getting shorter so I installed a 5 W red and blue LED grow lamp. Description says "Red (660nm 1pcs) red (620-630nm 2pcs), blue(460nm 2pcs)". Are different wavelengths of red that important?
That's current installation overlook (pretty lilac):

I wonder, will they better off if I keep the light in 24h/day?

Filter paper friuts

Today finally filter paper proved itself: two seeds have germinated on it:

 


This makes rockwool: 4, filter paper: 2, sphagnum and soil: 0
At least, I can't see any sprouts from seeds I initially put on soil.
Yesterday's guys are looking healthy and I even cal see microscopic roots branching from main stem (given that's not mold):

Photos are blurred, but keep in mind visible stem in seedling above is hardly more than 1mm tall.
It's cloudy today so I decided to temporarily install a 3W white led lamp to improve lighting. More advanced lamps are on their way.
This is how the installation is looking like now:

Two more sprouts

Another two seeds sprouted on rockwool plug. This thing outperforms other media by far! What's the secret? Is it optimal water transfer or some fertilizer in the plug? It makes water yellow.
Previous seedlings have grown as well. First one is 9mm tall now, look as this mighty tree:

Pretty good progress for 3 days, isn't it? If it keeps the pace, in a month it's going to overgrow the nursery.
Second one is also looking good:

This is overall view of nursery in it's current state:

First transfer and second germination

In the morning I've transferred yesterday's seedling to soil. It have already developed a long and branched root (well, relative to seed size, root was a little more than 1mm). So it took some effort to pull it from the rockwool plug using paper strips.

I put propagator with soil by the south facing window on a stack of boxes and turned on a 7W heating mat. Lid is now covered with condensate from inside and thermometer on top of the lid shows 23°C.

In the evening another seed have sprouted! Moved it immediately to soil.

Meanwhile, first sprout have grown during the day. Relative progress is impressive!

First sprout

One seedling on rockwool have sprouted! Will not touch it today, got to prepare soil and a bright place to grow.

It took 10 days from soaking seeds to first germination. All the rest seeds didn't change yet.
Temperature on the shelf these days was between 23° and 26°C.

Putting seeds for propagation

Seeds are wet enough, it's time to put them for propagation.
I should've used really small cup for soaking instead of glass, tiny seeds are very challenging to work with. Some of them have not sinked, but I'm going to try them anyway to check if it is really a bad sign.
I'm about to start an experiment to check which medium is the best. Groups are:

• Bonsai soil
  
• Sphagnum moss on bonsai soil 
  
• Rockwool plug
• Filter paper 
  
• Additional group is floater seeds on bonsai soil.

I'm using plastic propagators with transparent lids:

I soaked sphagnum well in a small cup:

Put soil in propagator and also watered it:

It's really difficult to move wet seeds from glass to medium. I used small strips of paper to operate, and word "scatter" doesn't really reflect all fine details of the process.

Finally, seeds are on rockwool plug and filter paper in propagator box

And on soil (barely visible)

Lids are in place and propagators are put on top shelve in kitchen

Soaking seeds

I'm taking hints from this post. There are several ways of growing listed, and I'm going to conduct experiments to figure out which are better. But first step is unambiguous: soak seeds in water for couple days. That's what I did today: got a glass of cold tap water, heated it up a little bit in microwave and poured half of my Ficus Religiosa seeds there.
Fukubonsai says discard all floating seeds, but all my seeds floated, none have sinked by themselves. So I forced them down with my finger, but half left floating anyway.

Ficus Religiosa

I'm going to grow Ficus Religiosa (Bodhi Tree) bonsai from seeds. Adult tree might look like this:

or this:

But seeds are really tiny, like a very fine sand:

It might take a while to grow, but should be fun.
I purchased seeds on Amazon, and ordered propagator and a few things like soil on Aliexpress. They are cheaper in China and choice is much wider. Actually, absolutely similarly looking things are sold on Amazon sometimes for double price compared to Chinese.