Dormant Seeding: A Pictorial

[RigglePLC]

Good shot of the pimply freeze-thaw ground, Ax.
Now can you drop a tiny light down into one of those aeration holes and tell us if the seed is germinating down there? The deeper soil must remain warmer...right?

No germination around here from similar seed sown on November 17, ( except the sample planted inside). Not much rain; about 32 today. About a half inch of snow fell, which melted in a few hours.
Oddly enough, my neighbor, (whose new lawn failed due to heat and drought) planted some seed on his weedy failed lawn about 30 days ago. Pennington seed. It was about an inch high today.

[Smallaxe]

Thanks,,, I'm glad I got those pictures when I did and I'm glad they turned out as well as they did... I figured that once everyone saw what was happening, they'd identify it at once...

I'm anticipating that by Spring those aeration holes will be leveled off by the constant heaving under the snow and the seed will not be visible at all... right now the seed is covered by at least 4" of snow, which is a big relief... no chance of germination in the base of those aeration holes... too dry...

[dKoester]

This experiment is very useful. Thanks for the pics.

[greenstar lawn]

I planted this grass seed from jdl about 7 weeks ago and the area was bare and flat. I also already mowed it 2 weeks ago and you can see the little bubbles in the soil. Seed came in pretty good to and I never wagered it either.

[Smallaxe]

Throw some seed on those pimpled/pitted bare spots now for the Winter and by Spring it should be all filled in...

[RigglePLC]

Amazing. I checked the seed I planted outdoors in a cup which was plunged into the soil in a garden. Today after 30 days--I can see a tiny sprout or two--about an eighth of an inch tall. Weather has been warmer than normal--daily high temps in the 40's.

[americanlawn]

http://www.iaturf.blogspot.com/2012_09_01_archive.html

[Smallaxe]

Let's not get distracted by the thoughts of seed germinating in the current "Fall" season of the year planted/sowed...

The seed in the pictures with this particular climate is merely being "Planted" by the pimpling soil...
[/b]Soil Contact[/b] is occuring via the Feeze/Thaw cycle of bare soil areas of the lawn...

The significant impact of this process,,, IS,,, No need to break up the surface of the soil b4 placing the seed down...

Hopefully, there will be some cold frame pix to follow...

[Smallaxe]

We had another snow event coming up,,, so yesterday I walked around a large section of woods and tossed seed where I see there was none...

I noticed from the previous freeze/thaw plus rain/snow that the seed was still visible on the surfae of the ground...possibly as much as 85%... but,,, that is the hard surface ground...
Soils that still had a more open structure really "heaved", with the freeze/thaw and those pimply bumps swallowed up the seed to a point of,,, maybe 15% remaining visible... In fact,,, some areas I initially thought I'd missed...

This 'open soil structure' allowed more water to soak into the surface,,, which in turn created more ice crystals in the soil and thereby moving more soil particles,,, creating an even more open structure...

Now it's all under snow again so we wait to see about germination in Mar/Apr...
Can't wait...

[RigglePLC]

Well now I have 4 tiny one-eighth inch sprouts from Scotts perennial ryegrass planted on November 17, 33 days ago. Temp is 43 today, and snow expected. Seed was planted in plastic cups and plunged into the soil in a garden, outside.

So far no sprouts were visible where the same seed was planted November 17, 2012 on a weedy neglected lawn (no soil preparation).

On Sept 24th, my new north side immigrant neighbors a couple of blocks away in their back yard at their new construction house...rototilled and planted Scotts Quick Repair (which is high in Gulf annual rye) which was mixed with Vigro TTTF mixture, (which unfortunately, listed weed seed as 9 annual bluegrass per pound). It was somewhat green by october 19. Today after 88 days--it looks fairly green and fairly good, at least from a distance Not sure--it may have been mowed for the first time. They used sod for the front yard--looks good. Sod came from AAA Turf in Hudsonville.