Eucalyptus propagation

11 days ago I soaked eucalyptus seeds before sowing them. 3 days later they looked like this, resembling black tea:

I put them on rockwool plugs because from my ficus propagation experience, they proved to be the most performant. At the same time it became apparent that not all particles in the seed bag were actually seeds:

Just couple days later many seeds started to germinate! It's fun to see how they immediately start to suck water from plug, looking like small alien leeches:

Next morning, cotyledons appeared:

I decided this is time to move them to soil, so that night I took freshly arrived akadama soil (I hope there's no insults written in Japanese):

And filled bottom halves of nursery cells with it. I believe at this stage akadama may be too coarse for these little seedlings, so I'm using it for its drainage and to raise soil level.

Akadama makes pleasant hiss and changes color when it adsorbs water

I put premixed compost/pumice/maybe-lava as top layer to make sure it doesn't dry accidentally and is fine enough for little roots to dig in.

By that time, some seedlings were already few millimeters tall and were holding to plugs very tightly. I actually severed some of them white I tried to pull them out. Probably, I should've either acted faster when roots are not rooted too deep or later, when stems are less fragile and more convenient to grab.

Approximately 80 seeds have germinated, so I used 2 nurseries and put 3-4 seedlings to each cell. Next day, almost all of them looked well and even very small ones were growing up.

Then, couple days later, almost all seedlings in one nursery, the smaller ones, suddenly died. The reason was definitely not drying nor freezing. I suspect they might have been exposed to too much heat during partially sunny day, but I'm not really sure. Other version is that they didn't receive enough sun, because I kept them in shady shelve of my greenhouse. Also, in this nursery I initially put the smallest seedlings, so they may have been genetically inferior. Either way, only one of this group have survived.

At the same time, in second nursery, which I kept on top shelve of greenhouse and there the largest seedlings grew,  almost everybody survived and are growing, making total over 30 plants so far:

So 9 days after sowing and 6 days after transplantation, some plants are starting to develop second pairs of leaves:

December summary

This month more germination occurred: 1 on rockwool plug, 4 on filter paper and 1 on sphagnum moss, making totals:

Rockwool 6
Filter paper 6
Spagnum 1
Soil 0

Rockwool and paper seem to perform evenly, but seedlings on plug came earlier and are more vigorous.

In the beginning of the month first seedlings just began to develop second pairs of leaves and in the end some grew big enough to touch nursery lid. 

I upgraded 24H lighting.
In the end one plant suffered from underwatering but is apparently recovering.
Here is the latest full nursery photo:

See also November summary

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!

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.