Now this is the kind of seed I like Easy to handle Easy to germinate They don't care very much about extreme temperatures Viable for centuries This is Nelumbo nucifera Well maybe It's some kind of Nelumbo Probably I'll get to that discrepancy in a moment But first, let's dive straight into germination As always, check the description below for a link to the research report If you throw some Nelumbo seeds into water, likely nothing will happen even if you wait for years. That's because Nelumbo live their entire lives in the water, so hydration in an of itself isn't a good environmental cue for germination. They need something else as a trigger. Something like... being hit with a hammer. Maybe that isn't the most natural cue. There weren't many of hammers 135 million years ago when Nelumbo evolved. Also, seeds are not the only method of Nelumbo propagation, but they are the only subject of this video. I will talk about rhizomes if and when I get some. Nucifera rely on a hard, impermeable seed coat that must be broken to allow water to infiltrate. That's the germination cue. The seed coat is actually a fused pericarp and seed coat, kind of like a corn kernal. I'll be referring to it as a seed coat for brevity. Now you can break the coat with a hammer or a bench vise, but I don't recommend it. There are much easier ways to not smash fingers or plant embryos. Some people use a sharp knife to whittle away a thin layer off the top of the seed. My lack of whittling skills are proved by the scars on my hand, so I'm not going to do that. I suppose you could use chromic acid like you are still in the 1920s, but definitely don't do that. I hear hexavalent chromium isn't that good for you. Soaking the seeds in ether to remove the water-repellant waxes seems to work, but I prefer to stay away from flammable solvents when possible. Lotus seeds are edible, so I suppose you could just start chewing on them until the seed coat cracks. Though this is probably best reserved for green seeds directly from the pod, taken before they aquire their hardened shell through drying. Plus there's no telling where your seeds have been so maybe don't suck on them. Probably the most practical method is abrasion. Simply sanding or filing away the seed coat until you expose the off-white cotyledon underneath. 60 or 120 grit sandpaper can make short work of the seed coat. This is similar to what occurs in nature but at a much faster pace: Sediment and water currents slowly abrade the seed coat over many years if not centuries. Microorganisms, specifically those that produce cellulase, might help break the seed coat in nature as well. Though Nelumbo are quite resistant microbial degradation: Some seeds have survived for over 1000 years in lake beds. If you choose the abrasive method, sanding the little indentation at the end might accelerate germination slightly but the total germination rate is the same regardless. Abrading the end with the protuberance runs the greatest risk of permanent damage. Inside the seed, this is the area where the cotyledons directly attach to the seed coat so there is less margin for error. This risk is probably minor, though, since some researchers peel the entire seed coat manually without any germination issues. Just don't go overboard with a belt sander or something. After a day or two of soaking, any small break in the seed coat will expand from the hydrostatic pressure anyway. One final method, and the one that I chose, is acid scarification. Concentrated sulfuric acid is very good at breaking down organic material. This includes seeds coats as well as contaminating microorganisms--a double win. I don't recommend using sulfuric acid unless you have previous chemistry experience. After all, you are also composed of "organic material". Sulfuric acid can be used to treat a large number of seeds at the same time in a controlled manner, which is why I wanted to try it out now in preparation for future work. It's also a favorite among botany researchers for the same reasons. A potentially less dangerous and environmentally troublesome method could be tumble abrasion. Throwing some Nelumbo seeds into a cheap rock tumbler filled with sand is a scarification method worth investigating. Someone try that and let me know how it goes. Anyway, the concentration and timing of sulfuric acid treatment is important. Too concentrated for too long results in damage to the embryo. Too dilute for too short won't be enough to break physical dormancy. I chose to soak my Nelumbo seeds in about 5 ml of concentrated sulfuric acid for 4 hours followed by extensive rinsing. If you would like to read more on the acceptable protocol variations, check out the references below. This method can even be done by seed producers as an advance treatment before drying and storage. Then the buyer can simply sow the seeds without having to whack them with a hammer or whatever. This will limit the storage life of these seeds to a modest 2-3 years, however. In any case, just use the method that you are most comfortable with. Nelumbo have excellent germination regardless of the method used to break the seed coat. Even 1300 year old seeds with extensive radiation damage have a 67% germination rate. So if you get anything substantially below total germination, something is probably wrong with your methods. The only caveat here is that sometimes seeds do not contain a viable embryo. These embryos may not have fully matured or they may have atrophied sometime later. This is more common for rhizome cultivars or if the mother plant is particularly self-incompatible and fertilized from a pure genetic stand. The outside appearance of Nelumbo seeds is largely determined by the cotyledons, which have a different developmental process than the embryo, so it can be difficult to distinguish viable from nonviable seeds by cursory inspection. Typically, immature or otherwise damaged seeds are distinguished from a mature one by a float test. However, Nelumbo *ovules* develop in such a way as to leave a small air cavity inside the mature seed so even viable seeds can float. This little air pocket seems to be integral to the seed's dissemination and growth as its removal inhibits germination. As nelumbo absorb water after scarification, they can sink, then float, then sink again and this varies with the age of the seeds. So a float test isn't a guaranteed method of removing nonviable seeds. All viable seeds will eventually sink, however. If your seeds are still floating after a couple of days, they may not be viable. Alternatively, your scarification method could have been insufficient to break dormancy. You can determine this for certain by weighing the seed before and after soaking. A properly scarified seed will gain water weight whereas an improper one will not. This is how physical dormancy is identified in the lab. At this point you could deposit the scarified seeds into a suitable outdoor habitat if that is your final goal. Any body of water less than 50 cm deep with good sunlight exposure is ideal Nelumbo take over ponds and small lakes to the point where they become somewhat of a nuisance plant, so choose wisely. If not outdoors, a wide bowl or small fish tank serve as suitable seedling habitats. Germination rate is largely independent of temperature between 20 and 30 degrees Celsius. Growth below 15 degrees Celsius is severely limited and no germination occurs at 10C. I'm not going to get into the ideal long-term growing conditions in this first video. However, I do recommend using a grow light or germinating them in full sun. Nelumbo have a rare ability: Their embryos contain fully formed chloroplasts. When germinated, these seeds can immediately being photosynthesizing and generating oxygen, greatly extending their ability to thrive in hypoxic water. They can use basically as much light as you can give them, up to and surpassing noon day sunlight at the equator. Dark green leaf stalks and abundant roots are a sign of sufficient lighting. If the petioles are light green or white, a supplemental grow light is probably a good addition. As the seedlings develops you should see two to four leaves and some roots emerge Then all growth will seemingly stop. Don't panic. This is normal. The plant has now consumed most of the stored nutrients in the cotyledons and is quietly adapting to its new environment. Keep the water level steady and wait for growth to resume in a couple of weeks. Once you start to see new shoots developing, you can transplant the Nelumbo to their forever home.*shoot growth* Also, your seedlings do not require fertilizer and using it will likely harm the Nelumbo or lead to algae growth. And with that, your Nelumbo nucifera should be off to a great start. That is, however, if your seeds are actually Nelumbo nucifera. I told you we would get to it... There are only two extant species of Nelumbo: lutea and nucifera. Nucifera is native to Southeast Asia. The flowers are red, pink, or white. Lutea is native to the Americas and typically has yellow flowers. From those two species hundreds of cultivars have been bred. Some are selected for edible rhizome or seed production. Some are selected for various floral traits like color or petal number. There are even some dwarf varieties well suited for home water features and fish tanks. However: This... this is a problem. Blue Nelumbo does not exist! There are white, red, yellow, and combinations thereof, but never blue. Color mixtures are easy to breed. An entirely new pigment is not. Especially not blue, which is one of the least common colors in nature. So how was I sold this impossible blue Nelumbo? I think the confusion arose from the association of Nelumbo nucifera with the actually blue Nymphaea caerulea. Both are colloquially known as "lotus" as they share some superficial morphology. They are both aquatic *macrophytes* with showy flowers. Both genera produce psychoactive alkaloids, namely aporphines, and are therefore much sought after for their purported medical benefits. But that's about where the similarity ends. Genetically speaking, Nelumbo are actually more closely related to sycamore and macadamia trees than they are to Nymphaea. To be sure, the nomenclature and taxonomy is muddled even in the scientific literature. That happens all the time. But nowhere in the extensive literature is Nelumbo ever noted to produce blue pigments. It seems that some unscrupulous plant sellers have taken advantage of the blue color as an indication that their seeds are special and potent (and thus demand a higher price). The blue Nymphaea caerulea is depicted in some ancient Egyptian art in a psychoactive or spiritual context. As I said, there are some potentially psychoactive substances produced by Nymphaea and Nelumbo. Though I do find it somewhat funny that the leaves of Nelumbo have up to six times the concentration of alkaloids compared to the flowers. So anyone attempting to sell "maximum potency" blue Nelumbo flowers is doubly wrong. To sum, I believe that the association of the blue color with psychoactivity, mixed with the general confounding terminology of Nelumbo lotus and Nymphaea lily gave rise to these fictitious blue Nelumbo nucifera that I suposedly have now. If you get confused, it is actually easier to distinguish a Nymphaea from a Nelumbo by leaf structure. Nelumbo leaves are entirely circular. Nymphaea leaves have a notch cut into them. Sort of like pacman. Anyway, I brought this flower color discrepancy to the attention of my seed supplier after my purchase. They remain firm in their belief that they have a blue nucifera, despite never having grown the third-party seeds themselves. I did some investigating and found that the image they feature in the listing not only shows indication of digital alteration, but is also used in dozens of other listings on disparate web sites. Changing a pink flower to a blue one and vice versa is fairly easy with free image manipulation software. Though it seems that someone neglected to color in all of the flowers here... Now, I am not a digital forensic scientist nor a botanist. Maybe there is a single pond on a small farm in Nepal that has the only blue Nelumbo in existence. One that is entirely unknown to science. I guess we will have to wait and see. It might be two or three years before my seeds produce flowers if at all. Maybe that's why no one ever complained to the distributor. I hope it is a blue lotus. Blue pigments would be worth millions of dollars to the color-starved lotus flower industry. Science isn't cheap and that would really put a dent in the overhead. I am reasonably sure that the seeds I bought are in the genus Nelumbo. Their morphology matches the descriptions from the literature though mine are rather small. That likely just indicates that the mother plant was somewhat undernourished leading to undersized cotyledons. Alternatively, these seeds could have been stored somewhere exceptionally dry for a long period of time. Regardless of the flower color that I actually have, all Nelumbo have similar seedling growth conditions and development. So the instructions from this video will still be applicable. As I mentioned before, if you are growing for alkaloids, it is the leaves that are important, not the flowers though the latter can be used as a means to identify a specific, potent cultivar. I'll get to that in a different video. Side note: This has nothing to do with the genus Lotus in the Fabaceae family. Those are completely separate land plants with an unfortunate name. Nor am I talking about the species Nymphaea lotus. See what I mean about confused nomenclature. Anyway, enough of ranting. Go forth and multiply your lotus.