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Home → Publications → Tree Planters' Notes → Tree Planters' Notes Issue 77 (1966) → Four Stratification Media Equally Effective in Conditioning Sugar Maple Seed for Germination

Four Stratification Media Equally Effective in Conditioning Sugar Maple Seed for Germination

Successful and efficient laboratory techniques have been worked out for germinating the seed of many of our important tree species. However, the seed of sugar maple (Acer saccharum) has received little attention. Sugar maple fruit normally is shed in the fall, and the seed characteristically germinates the following spring. According to Jones,' germination is conditioned by a prolonged period of after-ripening, which requires a low temperature (optimum near 50 C.) and plentiful moisture. Recommendations for laboratory germination of sugar maple seed as given in the Woody-Plant Seed Manual2 specify that after-ripening be accomplished by stratifying the seeds in either moist sand or peat for 60 to 90 days at temperatures between 360 and 410 F. The germination tests are then made by subjecting the seed to alternating day-night temperatures of 860 and 680 F. for an additional 20 to 30 days. In a study of sugar maple seed at the Northeastern Forest Experiment Station's Burlington, Vt., project in 1962, we compared, under experimental conditions, the effectiveness of sand, perlite, sphagnum moss, and germination paper as stratification and germination media.


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Author(s): Clayton M. Carl, Jr., Harry W. Yawney

Publication: Tree Planters' Notes - Issue 77 (1966)