After 3 weeks
An easy and effective way to germinate lemon seeds
All my plant related posts are now in plants.mostlymaths.net. You can read this post about lemon seed germination there, as any updates will only appear in the new blog. Thanks for your understanding!If you want to grow your own lemon tree, come join the Lemon tree give-away!
So you want to grow your own lemon tree from seed? In this post I'll teach you the procedure I followed to easily germinate apple seeds at home. You can also try strawberry seed germination, pineapple seed germination, tomato seed germination, cotton seed germination, apple seed germination and now ginger germination. More to come next spring!
Here you can see how the lemons grew in around 3 weeks after planting. Digg if you like germinating seeds at home!
Lemon seeds turned out to be harder to germinate than apple, or any other seed I have tried (except cherry and peach, I had no success with them)... Before I found the trick. Last year, without it I just got a lemon seedling, from 8 seeds coming from the same lemon: it was the seed which was scratched by the knife after slicing it. This year I got 4/5 seedlings from 7 seeds, and it could have been 7, but I barely missed. What did I do? I got 7 seeds from a lemon, and treated them diferently:
- Peeled the first coating of 2
- Peeled completely 2
- Left 2 as they were
- Discarded 1 too small
To peel it, use a cutter and do it carefully. The first layer will come of quite easily (if you don't cut yourself), the second too, but beware of damaging (a scratch or two is OK) the inner seed. In the following picture you can see 2 seeds peeled, 2 first-coating removed seeds and 3 as they were, after this a half peeled one, and a completely peeled seed.
3 different treatments
Here you can see (a piece) of the first coating removed in the left
and all the coating removed on the right.
I put them over a wet paper towel in a sealed plastic container, in almost full sun (around 3 hours of full sun, full light in the day). The peeled ones started to turn green in just 2 days.
2-3 days: turns green and opens
After around 10 days, the completely peeled ones had "opened" (see picture above), started to grow a very small root and the untreated ones were mouldy. I discarded them, waited 3 days more and removed the last layer of the remaining two. After a day, they started to turn slightly green... but the roots of my first two were not developing. My conclusion: they got enough water as they were, and enough energy from the sun to work. I covered them by folding over the wet paper to avoid this process. After around 7 days they developed a nice root, which grew slowly. Now, after 3 more days I'm planting them, as they start to grow a little offshot.
Steps:
In 2-3 weeks
- Remove coating of the seeds
- Put in wet paper towel (completely covered), inside a plastic bag in a warm place
- Wait!
- Plant them
In 2-3 weeks
If you enjoyed this post, or was lucky and got a nice and cute lemon tree, leave a comment, picture, or share this post with Digg, StumbleUpon or whatever you enjoy. Thanks!
Related posts:
Apple seed germination Ginger germination Strawberry seed germination Get your own fiery cactus: Dragon fruit seed germination Earth day give-away project: lemon trees from seed to save the planet
17 Awesome Comments. Add Yours!:
sweet dude you made my day... i got the lemon and pineapple thing down. Pictures on the way. muchas gracias
Pradeep
I stay in finland , am tryin to grow one out of the lemons that i got from the supermarket...I donno whether they will germinate because the temperatures here are quite low ...am keepin the seeds pot near the heater...suggest me some inputs to make them grow...
Anyways thanks for the detailed post..
Great work...
Keep them near the heater, and if possible, in direct sunlight (I know, this may be hard in Finland). If you are not lucky, try again starting in spring-summer, when there is more sunlight. Hope they grow now, though! Tell me if you are lucky with them ;)
Thanks for this post! And also the pictures.
I basically tried with first planting the seeds, and they went moldy after 1 month.
So I tried the paper towel method with 4 seeds, and in 3 weeks I had one seed grow a very long root. I tried your method of removing the coating, on all 4, and now they turned almost green and have opened. I can see a small shoot on 2 of them.
However, like yours, the roots are not developing on 2 of them. What do you mean by "... I covered them"? How exactly did you cover them? Inside the wet towel or in a separate one?
Strangely the one with the long root hasn't made a shoot yet and it looks like it has 2 roots (1 very long 1 short).
It's very interesting to see and hopefully they will grow nicely! Just wonder on what to do to get the roots developing so I can transplant them to potting without them being "shocked".
Thanks!
Once the seeds have grown a root, plant them in some special citrus compost. A 10l big should cost no more than a few $$$. The seeds need a pH of about 5.5 to grow well. You can use ericaceous compost, but be careful it is not too acid. If you live in a hard water area DO NOT water with tap water because the lime in it neutralises the pH and the plants will die. When planting, especially if they have a long root, do not break the root off accidentally as it will kill the plant. If you do not have good sunlight, invest in an ordinary beauty lamp you can get from a fish specialist. Also invest in a low-power heated propagator. Placing next to a heater can cause unequal heating at different times of the day. I bought all my stuff (including compost) from Claire's Classics sales@clairesclassics.com and they gave me a lot of help for free so I only bought what I needed for successful germination. The same process here works for clemantines mandarins, satsumas, jaffa oranges and grapefruit.
Mickey.
Thanks for the tips Mickey. Especially the one about hard water. Our water is quite hard here so now I use distilled water. In fact, I'm now using distilled water in all my house plants after some research many of them prefer it.
I've planted my seeds after they had a root and small shoot, and they are now growing very well and they are already quite tall after 1 week! I can already smell the lemon when I rub one of the leaves :) It's quite something!
I would be interested to know how your seedlings got on RBerenguel ;)
Thanks again!
Craig.
Thanks for the tips! We have quite a medium water in here, so that would mean no problems... but would explain why my old one died: really hard water.
I'll post a new picture of the seedling (in fact, little tree soon) when it is one year old, in May (more or less). Keep in tune!
Citrus seeds will produce trees similar, but not identical, to the parent tree. But most farmers use semi- dwarfing rootstock, and many homeowners choose fully dwarfing rootstock. Trees become productive when they are fairly mature, and trees on dwarf rootstock mature years earlier. Farmers choose semi dwarf trees so they don't have to send pickers forty feet into the air- it is a big advantage.
In addition to size control, the right rootstock can give resistance to drought , flooding, or wind, as well as some diseases. And when you are already grafting onto selected rootstock, you might as well take the scionwood from a known desirable tree, rather than a seed that has been pollinated by an unknown male. You don't know that the seed in your grocery store wasn't pollinated by another citrus like a grapefruit, to produce a possibly undesirable hybrid.
hello
i need explanation please:
by this method explained above for germinate lemon seeds we will get the fruit or not?
or we will have to grafted the lemon tree?
regards
Maybe it can fruit, maybe not. The best way to be sure is to graft it if you want to have lemons from it... But if you really want a lemon tree with good lemons, I recommend you to buy a lemon tree in a tree nursery.
Ruben
I actually just tried sprouting lemon, lime, and tangerine seeds for the first time. I'm looking for info on transplanting them, because...
I simply dropped the seeds from freshly opened citrus fruits, straight into potting soil in some plastic cups. I damped each one, covered them with seran wrap and a rubber band, then placed them in a sunny window.
All the seeds sprouted in every cup. About 10 in each.
I hate to pinch any off. LOL
But anyhow, I found my experience extremely simple and easy. Don't know if you tried just dropping them straightway into soil, but it worked for me.
~Faith
Oh, it took about 2 to 3 weeks for all the seeds to sprout, and the house was about 70 degrees, except for the fact that the sunlight was mostly shining right onto them for a good part of the day.
They were about 1/2 inch deep.
~Faith
Hi Faith,
I tried to plant them directly with no success, this is why I came with this method. Why are you scared of moving them? If they are 1 or 2 inches tall they are strong enough to be moved. Go on, you won't damage them! (or at least, not all of them...).
My lemon tree is already 60cm tall (around 25 inches) and is starting to grow a real trunk.
Cheers,
Ruben
I have germinated 2 seeds in moist paper towels in a cupboard. The shoots are about 1" but no leaves yet, should I keep them in the towels till I see leaves before planting?
umm does it normally take that long to grow or is it because you used paper instead of soil?
My understanding is that it is best to germinate in darkness and you should plant asap. The reason to germinate is to be sure the seed is viable.
I have to shoot 'to plants' per
seed and naw they are stuck 2gether, what can I do?
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