Beech nuts are now falling from the copper beech tree on our farm, so I thought it would be a good time to collect some of the seeds and plant them.

I read all about collecting and planting seeds in Tree Planting And Aftercare . I discovered that the guidelines for collecting and planting seeds is species-dependent. Luckily beech seeds seem quite straight forward : you collect them, test them for their fertility, and then you can plant them straight away (or wait for Spring).

The germination rate for beech seeds is about 60%. That’s a good rate when compared with seeds from other trees. To optimise my chances of tree-growing success, I decided that I would test the fertility of the seeds before planting. In my tree planting book, it told me that if the beech seeds float , then they are infertile* (and, therefore, not worth planting).

* After today’s adventure, I carried out some on-line research. Many people believe the “float-sink” rule to be a fallacy. So it may actually be worth planting floating seeds!

You can see how I got on in today’s video.

I am just going outside and may be some time.

JT