hi I'm Melvin Way and this is the first
video in what will hopefully someday
become an epic series on how to grow
American ginseng from stratified seeds
so I bought these off the internet for
cheap just a few dollars and I got 31
seeds you can see they kind of resemble
cat or dog food but they have these
slits in the sides
basically there are dirt colored but
through a stratification they've already
come a fair bit in terms of their
development so stratification is a
process in horticulture by which certain
plant species seeds need to be treated
for a period of usually two months at
temperatures slightly above freezing and
it has to be moist too and what that
does is it helps break up the seed
shells and generate biochemical changes
inside the embryos for germination my
first order of business will be to
sterilize some soil so I can try
germinating some seeds in that I'm
preheating this oven to 250 Fahrenheit
it's well above the boiling point of
water and I'm gonna heat this glass dish
of potting mix which is mostly wood
chips and some slow-release nutrient
capsules to kill off the eggs of any
pests such as springtails spider mites
and fungus gnats so there's going to be
really serious pests if you don't take
care of them beforehand I'm gonna let
this cool down and then plant some seeds
in it next order of business is I'm
gonna use some hydrogen peroxide I'm
going to dilute this from this 3%
solution down to 0.5% and use that to
soak these seeds in for a few minutes
like 10 or 20 minutes should be fine and
this will help cleanse them it won't
hurt any plant or animal tissues it's
very safe and you know I did the mixing
in this spray bottle that I've used in
other plant growing experiments filled
up to the 10 mark and added to the 12
with hydrogen peroxide 3% and I'm just
gonna spray my seeds and do a little bit
more swirling I should kill off any
fungi or bacteria that could be very
harmful to the development of these
embryos so it's been sitting here for 20
minutes I think and basically I rinsed
them with some
to water and I'm gonna plant nine of
those seeds I put them in a matrix three
being on the dirt directly three being
buried you know a centimeter deep and
three others right here here and here
buried two to three centimeters deep
it's hard to be very exact in this kind
of environment what I've done just now
is I've watered with some hydrogen
peroxide from the spray bottle 0.5%
again and what I'm doing is I'm just
slowly soaking this if I poured it it
would result in total chaos and you know
the dirt might flip because there's a
lot of airspace in this very dry potting
mix that just came out of the oven and
cooled down I've put it on labels with
packaging tape this side has the seeds
on the surface and this will face the
shade you know during the day when I
have the blinds open from my balcony
this has the seats two to three
centimetres deep and you know this side
will face the Sun so that way you have
different conditions going on in two
dimensions so I've separated the rest of
the seats 11 each into these two Pyrex
Tupperware glass containers I'm going to
spray some hydrogen peroxide and that
would provide water and a lot of
dissolved oxygen which the plants are
going to be using at this point they're
not photosynthesizing so no carbon
dioxide will be used and I'm gonna keep
the lids of sku let them air out a
little bit why put them in different
conditions I've labeled one glass dish
as PC and the other is sunlight so the
PC one won't go on top of my personal
computer it's warmer but almost
completely dark there and the other one
will go in the Sun where it'll be a few
degrees Celsius colder but it'll get
natural light coming in through just for
reference it's 10:00 p.m. Sunday
November 3rd and this will be day zero
and on the PC as you can see it's 3.3
Celsius warmer but it's completely dark
and this is the next day day one you can
see an example of the ambient light
coming in during the morning but the
days are very short this time of year so
it's day 2 and we're looking at the
surface of the soil you know on the left
you can see the seeds
it'll kind of dry I'm gonna add some
more water in here but basically not
much has changed at all
and pretty much I didn't really expect
anything to happen within such a short
amount of time so we're gonna be facing
very long periods of downtime and I'll
get more into that later but for the
time being I'm gonna show you some macro
footage a close-up footage I have no
idea why it's not named micro footage
because you're zooming in and taking a
look at things you know when I say
microscope I think of zooming in and
looking at tiny microbes but anyway not
much has happened and I didn't really
expect anything to happen in two days
the seeds are very clean and in the
sterile environment with a mild solution
of hydrogen peroxide so I'll use this
downtime to give you a formal
introduction to this plant species so
when you think about ginseng people
traditionally thought of Chinese ginseng
which grew in this region known as
Manchuria in sort of Rao Mongolia Korea
Siberia northern China that sort of
region well American ginseng is it's in
the same genus meaning it's closely
related but it's actually not the same
species this is called watch Eason or
westernized western ginseng and it's
similar in that it's a herbaceous
perennial plant American ginseng is in
the Ivy family and it lives naturally in
the regions known as the Ozarks in
Appalachia in the eastern United States
towards the north and also in the
surrounding forested regions of New York
Pennsylvania and Ontario in Canada
so this likes cold brutal winters well
it doesn't really like cold brutal
winters but it's evolved to only
germinate in places like that it needs
seat ratification it's a process that
it's evolved in the history of the
species to deal with the winters and
make sure the seeds germinate after
winter has passed for sure otherwise if
they germinate during winter they'll die
so yeah that's why you don't see this
growing say in the mountains where it's
cool and moist and ripe
zones in California it needs cold
winters and in places like here in San
Diego you just don't get those cold
winters for seat ratification to occur
so it's day four and the one on the PC
where it's 28 Celsius you know it dried
out I left a little jar on purpose and
it kind of has a bad smell you know how
humans smell if they haven't showered
for a few days or you know if they ran a
lot outside sweat a lot and haven't
showered well this is a sort of like the
plant seat equivalent I'm going to spray
some more freshly made 0.5% hydrogen
peroxide solution and I'll keep he sees
hydrated and sterile I don't know what
caused the smell when they dried out but
you know that can't possibly be good
having the seats desiccated like that so
these are the seeds sitting in a dish
with hydrogen peroxide in the Sun and
it's not on top of my PC so it's 3.3
Celsius cooler and it looks like there's
been some expansion I wouldn't go as far
as to say that this is growth of any
kind but it looks like because they're
well hydrated they look bigger I can't
believe it's already day 14 so as you
can see with potting mix dish here
there's a row in front three seeds you
know that one that one and I can't even
find the other one everything blends in
so well maybe something shifted around
when I was watering ever so gently you
won't be able to see anything in those
other two rows because everything's
buried so no real change is there and
it's 24.5 Celsius humidity is typically
low in San Diego in you know 30 or 40
percent forty percent is pretty common
so on this PC dish you know these things
are practically swimming in hydrogen
peroxide it's a very sterile environment
and it looks like the seed embryo
sticking out there or you know is that
just due to water log expansion or is it
because you know the embryos are
actually getting bigger or the seed
husks disintegrating and appearing
smaller by relation I don't know
so they do appear just you know sort of
bleach so to speak everything's kind of
white and puffy and very sterile but in
the absence of fungal spores and
bacteria no rotting can occur and since
plants have cell walls they won't lyse
either no matter what the osmotic
pressure is so here's the group that's
been sitting in so-called sunlight all
those sunlight is so weak and it has a
lid that's opaque you know but some
light gets in these are dark for
whatever reason I know the seeds started
off kind of dark like that but you know
is this some kind of algal growth I'm
not too sure maybe it is not sure at all
but I don't think microorganisms can
really survive in this hydrogen peroxide
environment so these things look a
little bigger than the PC group I don't
know why that is okay it's day 35 it's
been more than a month so let's see
what's happened to these two
experimental groups this is the sunlight
one and at first glance it doesn't look
like much has changed at all and I
haven't really noticed anything nothing
is rotting just by these seeds just
swimming around and water all the time
and you know it looks like the embryos
some of them are a little bit of an
orangish color and that's markedly
different from what I'm gonna show you
later for the other group so I think
there was some promise here you know
maybe there's some developmental changes
a you know color change I definitely
take that as a good sign for this PC
experimental group everything just looks
a lot more white puffy and bleached I
say puffy but actually I think the seeds
look bigger for the sunlight group so if
you haven't already please subscribe to
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YouTube and I have specific folder or so
to speak or playlists for each one of my
plant growing series have other things
going on as well you know weight
training body transformation
and we'll plant videos insect videos
things like that but for these plant
growing videos I'll have a playlist that
you should bookmark and come back to you
from time to time to check out my
progress for American ginseng growth
I've been having a huge fungus net
infestation lately for anything growing
indoors in potting mix so potting mix is
just you know a bunch of wood chips
really it doesn't really resemble real
soil in my opinion but it's what's
commonly sold in stores so you can see
these two seeds here on top third seed I
don't know where it went and the other
six are buried so you won't even be able
to see them but I'm not really seeing
any changes here so I'm gonna do a bunch
of work to prepare new growth medium and
see if that improves things because when
you look here when you zoom in you can
see you know a patch of mold growing on
top of that seed husk and that's a
really bad thing it's not a sanitary
environment mold can kill off seed
embryos this concludes the first 35 days
of my American ginseng seed germination
experiment so stay tuned please
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