Hello,
I have joined this forum to gain and share info about the propagation of salvia seeds.
I have successfully managed to propagate and germinate 2 Salvia Divinorum seeds through hand pollination.
I only harvested 2 seeds and both germinated.
My story so far...
I acquired 3 small salvia clones 3 years ago, and they grew at a slow rate despite my efforts at keeping the humidity level up. Two of the cuttings didn't make it after an episode with spider mites and the third one was not looking good. The good news was that I was able to eradicate the mites with a strong solution of capsicum extract and neem oil but the bad news was I lost 2 of 3 plants and the 3rd one was looking sad. I gave it a good soaking with water and put it in a corner beside a bright southern exposed window.
A couple weeks went by and I noticed new growth starting from the bottom of the stem. The plant was about 8" tall and was basically a greenish brown stem by this time. For some reason the plant starting growing with vigor. Within 2 months she was over 2 ft tall, healthy and growing nice big fat leaves. This growth continued throughout the summer months receiving only natural light from the bright sunny window. Care was taken to only expose her to indirect sun for the exception of direct morning sun for a couple hours a day. Water was given when visually needed, she would wilt a bit telling me to water. I learned to know when she required water after a while before wilting began, lots of attention was given to this. Daytime temperatures never exceeded 27c before the air conditioning kicked in, and at night 16c would be the low. Room humidity ranged from 20-95 with the average being 35-50 %. No special feeding was given other than 20/20/20 houseplant fertilizer every 6 weeks or whenever I found the leaves turning a bit yellowish. She was grown in regular houseplant soil in a 8" ceramic pot, standard depth.
At night never was she given any light, never, ever. I was able to remove the lights from the room so no accidental light was given during the dark period. She grew totally on natural light, and care was given to limit the amount of direct sunlight. If given too much light she would physically turn away from the light and wilt.
Late in the summer I noticed a change in growth at the meristem, she was beginning to flower!
The fall season came and she was in full bloom and that's when I started hand pollinating the flowers. Every morning for a few days I pollinated with the fresh flowers that fell on the ground that night or early morning, or the odd one that fell from the plant during pollination. I would basically gently stick the flower, that was picked up from the floor into the flowers on the plant and rub them in and out (it was good for me too lol )
During the process I really didn't expect much as a result. I read so much about salvia not really being able to set seed, and if seeds were set the viability would be real low so that most won't germinate and the ones that did manage to sprout would probably be too weak then die. This made me want to try, but my expectations were set in the reality of that I was probably wasting my time. Some time later, about 2 or 3 weeks I notice a dark spot inside on of the flower pods...seeds!!!
I placed a 2"x2" plastic zip bag over the flower(carefully) to catch any seeds that might fall out of the calyx, they point down and are flute like, so the ripe seeds have a chance of detaching and rolling out on the floor. A couple weeks pass and I decide to harvest my seeds. It turned out I didn't really need the bag over the flower pod because no seeds feel out from the pod.
I removed the pod from the plant, opened it up and found 2 nice looking seeds!!
I carefully took the 2 seeds and placed them in the 2x2 bag zip it and label it. The seeds were kept at room temperature in the dark. Again I didn't have much confidence anything would come from these 2 seeds because of what I read previously, and that's partially why I was in no hurry to plant the seeds, so they sat for 4 months or so before I decided to plant them.
Around 10 days later I was shocked to see 2 little, very fragile looking seedlings
That was about 3 1/2 weeks ago since I planted the seeds together in a pot with soil consisting of a mix of regular commercial houseplant soil, perlite and cactus soil.
Today is day 9 since they sprouted and for the first time, you can see in the picture that one of the little guys are showing its first true pair of leaves! I'm very excited to see this progression and also very excited to share this with everyone interested!!!
Author
Topic: Salvia Divinorum seedlings from propagated seeds (Read 51238 times)