Seed Gathering Season
At this time of year, our trees are laden with nuts and orchard fruits, our hedgerows are bursting with crimson berries and it’s not unusual to see helicopter seeds spinning through the crisp autumn air. It’s the ideal time to gather seeds to grow a new generation of trees, says Jon Stokes, The Tree Council’s Director of Trees, Science & Research, and co-author of books including The Good Seed Guide and The Heritage Trees of Britain and Northern Ireland.
If you’d like to grow your own trees from seed, here are some top tips from his Seed Gathering Masterclass:
- Plan ahead and consider what space you have for the trees you grow
- To be biosecure, choose trees local to you and gather seed from healthy trees
- Never take all the seed from one spot
- Get permission from the landowner
- Consider safety – don’t put yourself in danger, by climbing trees, for example
- Look underneath the tree: there will usually be seed on the ground
> Tree & Seed Identification: Download The Tree Council’s excellent guide to tree seed collecting and processing
The float test
If you take a handful of acorns and drop them in a bowl of water, some will sink and some will float. “If they sink, plant them, if they float, chuck them away”, advises Stokes, who recommends this method for testing the viability of nuts prior to planting. Science hasn’t discovered a way to preserve acorns over the winter artificially, he explains, so you do have to collect them and plant them now. If you’re testing the viability of nuts such as beech, be sure to separate the case from the nut in the middle, as the case will always float.
Processing berries
You need to get the seed out of the middle of the fruit, which can be laborious, says Stokes. He suggests putting the berries in a bowl of water and using a potato masher to squash them, which will separate the seed from the berries. The seed will then float to the top and can be collected easily. This is important “because the seed has an inbuilt chemical process that means while there’s flesh on the seed, it will not germinate” he explains. Always check that you know what you’re gathering. Some of the most attractive berries are poisonous, cautions The Tree Council.
Collecting cones
Don’t collect green cones as they’re not ripe. Start to gather them when they are brown and starting to open. Pop them in a paper bag somewhere warm, says Stokes and they will naturally open and then the seeds will fall out into the bag.
> If you’re interested in finding out more, don’t miss The Tree Growers Guide, which is free to download. It contains everything you need to know to successfully grow trees from seed.
> The Tree Council’s Seed Gathering Season runs for a month from the autumn equinox and is a great opportunity to support our trees and connect with nature.
