Hey there, Lemmy. I've been wondering if anyone here has any tips on specifically sprouting alpine strawberries for hydroponics.
My usual two methods for hydroponic seeds are "Chuck it in some wet growth media and see" or "sprout the seeds in a damp paper towel and then put them into the growth media once sprouted," but my alpine strawberry seeds don't seem to be loving the first method, and the extremely fine size of strawberry seeds makes me hesitate about the second method.
I have a volunteer woodland strawberry in my porch garden that I love, and I'm fairly sure alpine strawberries are just woodland strawberries in a fancy hat, but I really want some hydroponic strawberries for winter harvests. A lot of the tips I've found online have either been for hydroponic standard strawberries or for sprouting alpine strawberries in dirt, but worst of all, hydroponics sprouting article results are absolutely teeming with AI slop that I do not trust at all. Does anyone here have some advice? Do I need to cold stratify them or something?
Thanks!
3 Comments
pp99@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 21d
while I was reading your post I was thinking in cold stratification. Just try putting some seeds in the fridge for a few weeks before sprouting
pomegranatefern@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 21d
This is a slightly embarrassing question, but I've never actually done cold stratification. Do I just put them in in a bag, or do they need some kind of moisture and/or growth medium, or?
Brainsploosh@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 20d
Alpine strawberries grow like regular plants, no funny cold stratification or weird co-dependencies needed.
I've mostly grown them in soil where they can be quite moody (poor germination until suddenly thriving half grown plants), and the one try I've done hydroponically I just germinated them on paper towel as per regular.
Some reading online seems to confirm that they have worse germination rate than many commercial seeds, and that they can take longer (up to a couple weeks) to germinate.
When I tried them in my hydro setup they behaved entirely normally. Same germination setup, growth rate etc. as the herbs and flowers I typically plant. Mine came out a little weak to support the hanging fruit, but with some wind agitation and/or supports you'll probably be fine.