This is my third winter stratifying apple seeds to plant in the spring.
I use the method of folding dried seeds into a wet paper towel, pressing most of the water out, placing the wrapped seeds in a plastic zip-loc bag, and then putting the bag in my refrigerator’s crisper drawer.
I have had great luck with this method, however I went to check on them today and some of towels have turned orange:
My first thought is do you have iron or manganese in your well water? I do and it can turn things orange from oxidation and of iron and the bacteria that consume it.
I personally do not like using paper towels for long term storage…they just harbor too much stuff like this and it’s harder to get the moisture right. I much prefer a pinch of moist sawdust or pine shavings. It caries a much better natural resistance to decay in my experience.
Also anything I can fall plant I do, to eliminate any unwanted refrigerator storage problems like these
This is a very likely reason and I am so glad you pointed it out. We do have high iron levels in our water.
We even have some of this exact same color orange build up on our sinks etc and I assumed it was from our copper pipes.
I already rinsed them out, and re-wrapped them, but I think i will try your pine shavings idea in the future. I really like that idea. Thank you for your help on this!
Glad to help, as a side note if you want to get rid of the iron problem we installed one of these 4or 5 years ago and it took care of most of it. it has a specially designed filter just for iron extraction. Only need to change the filters once a year about $250 for all 3 filters. We do shock the well every couple of years to reduce the iron bacteria build up as well.
I don’t do much work with apple seed, but I’ve worked extensively with grape seed which requires similar treatment. The moist paper towel method of stratification works fine, but will tend to develop mold. Mold is not typically a problem on hard woody seeds in stratification, but it can create issues with live tissue once germination begins. Peat moss is a less favorable environment for mold than moist paper towels, so seeds stratified in peat moss rarely develop much, if any mold, and can be left to sprout in the stratification bags once they are removed from stratification. That way you only need to plant the ones that sprout.
If using the paper towel method, IMHO, it’s best to remove the seeds from the paper towels and plant them prior to germination. That way, the soil keeps the mold on the seed coat from getting out of control and negatively impacting some of the germinating seeds. If your percentage of seed germination is lower than desired(say, 50% or less) it can be helpful to do a 24hr soak of 3% hydrogen peroxide, followed by another 24hr soak of gibberellic acid, a naturally occurring plant hormone, prior to stratification. In grape, I use 1000ppm of gibberillic acid, but apple seed coats are a bit thinner than grape, so I would probably do some germination trials at both 500ppm & 1000pm to see if one concentration was better than the other if working with apple seed. This significantly increases seed germination rate in grape & other seeds I’ve tried with hard seed coats, stratification requirements, and medium to low germination rates. Gibberillic acid is readily available online and is inexpensive, and is also very safe for mammals.
One thing I forgot to mention is that your paper towels look like they may be too wet. Seeds need to be able to breathe. If using paper towels, I would recommend using the thick heavy duty ones, fully saturating them, then wad them up & squeezing out as much water as comes out using as much pressure as you would use for a good firm handshake. Then load them up with your seeds, enclose in your plastic bags, and refrigerate till your stratification requirements are complete & you are ready to germinate.
Last winter I sprouted 40 apple seeds. Half in the cold stratify fridge paper towel like you, and half all sank into one 1 gallon pot outside all winter. I found the ones done inside were no bigger by the solstice than the ones I did outside. The ones in the pot all sprouted come spring and were very easy to transplant with one set of leaves. No losses.
The ones inside I lost about 10 to mold. I am going to stick to the natural method because it gave me better results for way less work.
I swapped the paper towels every week after the mold incident. And tossed any seeds that look suspect. It stopped the mold off the rest of the stratification. The tip to ring out the towel to damp and not wet is pure gold. . Do this for sure.
I would much rather do it the natural way. But can I place them directly into soil? I will cover them so no animals can get to them. I read ppl put them in mixes, peat moss etc. but I don’t have any of that handy and wanna just put right into garden soil.
I like to use coconut coir sterilized in a covered dish. Squeeze out excess moisture and stratify in a ziploc bag with excess air squeezed out. I pour the coir on a paper plate to pick out the seeds. I also like to wash the seeds with peroxide before adding to the coir.
You could probably stratify using a petri dish & filter paper if you can sterilize them in a pressure canner or something. It may be possible to use mycorrhizal innoculant to prevent the mold from moving in.
. Do this for sure.