Progress on Coffee Seedlings

I wanted to give you a progress report on this year's crop of coffee seedlings and show even more starkly the difference between starting them in potting mix versus starting them in sand.

Here are all four tubs of seedlings.  The seedlings on the left were planted as unsprouted seeds directly in the potting mix.  The seeds on the right were planted first in sand.  Then, once a root started to grow, the sprouted seeds were transplanted into the potting mix.  The five seeds in the lower right only sprouted a root in the last week or two.  They are a month or more behind the sprouts in Tub 1.

The seeds I planted wet, directly from the ripe cherries, were planted on May 25, 2014.  The seeds I planted after soaking for 24 hours were planted on the 26th.

 TUB 1

Notice the tricotyledons in the upper center of this photo.  This is not a 3-leaf plant, but a few multi-cotyledon seedlings develop into 3-leaf plants.

The eight seedlings in Tub 1, above, were planted directly into the potting mix and are the farthest along.  A reason for this could be they came from my 3-leaf (mutant) plants.  Another possible reason is I allowed these seeds to dry from several days to a few weeks before I soaked them and planted them.  It took between 12 and 24 hours for these seeds to soak up enough water to sink to the bottom of the glass.  Once they all sank, I planted them all at once.

TUB 2

Notice the tricotyledon sprouts in the upper right and the lower left.  The sprout in the upper right is not a 3-leaf plant either.  It is too soon to tell for the one on the lower left.

The  eight seedlings above were planted directly into the potting mix as well.  They are from my 2-leaf (normal) plants.  I planted these fresh from the coffee cherries.  Since these seeds were still wet from the coffee cherry, I did not have to soak them very long before they sank and I planted them the same day.  You can see the true leaves on these plants have barely started to grow.  These are perhaps a week or two behind (less developed than) the sprouts in Tub 1.

TUB 3

The plant in the lower left of this tub is a tetracotyledon (quadrocotyledon?), in other words, four proto-leaves.  It has not yet developed enough to know if it will be a 3-leaf plant or not.  My fingers are crossed.

These seeds were planted first in moist sand following the planting instructions I found on the internet and elsewhere.  Unfortunately, during the transplantation from sand to potting mix, I lost track of whether these came from my 3-leaf plants or not.  However, a maximum of six out of the sixteen in Tubs 3 & 4 could possibly from my 3-leaf (mutant) plants.  The remainder are from my 2-leaf (normal) plants.  These were also planted as wet seeds from the coffee cherries with only a few hours of soak time at most.

The two seeds on the far right above still have their parchment (or hull).  The three in the center (no leaves; greenish white) have shed their hulls, but the green leaves inside are still surrounded by a portion of the endosperm (the starchy portion of the bean).

TUB 4

If you look very carefully, you can see the sprouting beans in the two middle pots as well as the upper left and lower right.  Part of the hull has come off of the upper left seedling which is why it looks so white.  I transplanted the five on the right out of the sand earlier this week.

I recommend drying your coffee seeds until the weather warms up in the summer.  Soak them for 24 hours in lukewarm water then plant them directly in potting mix.  I used regular Miracle-Gro potting mix.

I threw out the seeds that didn't sink after 24 hours, but maybe I should have planted those, too, just to see if any would come up.