I have a couple of really shiny little sprouts in my key lime tray that I am not entirely sure of. They are not attached to any seeds that I can see, but they are as glossy as the one Key lime that came up so far (although it has the little rounded thicker leaves that came from inside the seed still). So far I've had 3 of them in the same tray and they all looked the same (one died before I could whisk it away under a half soda bottle to keep the little black gnat things away but the other two seem to be ok for now but I'm not taking those soda bottles off if I can help it because I don't want them to die). Does anyone have pictures of what the lime sprouts that didn't come from the tip of the seed look like in the first few weeks? A few of the seeds in that tray had translucent seed coats when I put them in and I could see a few little green knobs stuck into the sides through them. These ones are about 5-6 days after sprouting and the tray had key lime seeds in it for about a week and a half before these came up. I also moved them to a southern window because it has been rainy the past two days and should stay that way for at least another day or two. I am hoping that more light with a bit of time to adjust will help them grow faster so that if they are too small to tell they will get bigger fast enough. Their root systems looked off from what I saw on the sprout I got from a lime seed that had only one plant embryo, being stubbier and more branched. And the two leaves they started with are much narrower and a bit thinner. I'm trying to figure out what to label them as because I want to start some lemon and kumquat seeds that I have sitting in the fridge from when I ate the fruit a few days ago soon and I would like to keep them from getting mixed up while they are still very small. Even if they aren't limes, I will still probably keep them because they are a happy green color, but it is gonna drive me nuts not knowing what they are for sure. Anyways here's pictures of the two that I snagged out of the planter in time to keep the ugly flying black specks out of. Everything is taking the dip in some nice organic based insecticide as soon as my budget can take the strain of fresh potting soil/peat moss for it everything (from somewhere that is NOT Walmart!). I will post more pictures if I can get my camera in focus. They are so small that it is very hard to get good pictures (not even an inch tall yet).
They look like lime seedlings to me.... The glossiness is a dead giveaway, since very few plants other than citrus exhibit it on the cotleydons. I wouldn't be too concerned about them until they've got true leaves on them - then you'll be able to tell for sure. However, if you want a really quick test, pinch the teensiest bit of material off the end of one cotleydon (one of the first "leaves") and smell it. If it's got a strong citrus odour, you've got citrus seedlings 100% of the time.
Thanks! I think I will avoid damaging them for now by not pinching them just yet and just label them as limes with a star on the pop sickle stick so they don't get mixed up with the other citrus I will be starting some time this week (got some lemons and kumquats fresh from the grocery store because lemon juice makes a great tea additive and I had never tried kumquats before) or with the ones that are coming up in the little greenhouse tray peat pellets. Hopefully fungus gnats don't find a way under my half pop bottles and into these. I really like these and I'm not sure what would happen if I started treating them for the gnats at this stage.
Try dusting your soil with powdered cinnamon. It will kill the fungus that the gnats breed on, without harming your seedlings.
Thank you! I had heard that that would work but I don't know anyone who has tried it. My cats eat the other plants when I'm not watching them (my poor basil...) so I didn't want to spray anything with poisons or even stuff that might make them sick. They are really old and getting senile.
At least with cinnamon the worst it will do to them is make them a bit sneezy - which is a good deterrent for them, really. Even if they've gone a bit loopy, they'll remember that those plants made them sneeze and stay away.
:D My fiancee came home, looked at the plant pots dusted with cinnamon and thought they needed watering because it makes the dirt look dry!
So an update on my grocery store key limes so far. The mold is still continuing to come back every time I try to cover them in order to keep the gnats out and the warmth from the sun in. Another of my oddball limes that actually started with a branched root system and did not have the typical starting leaves that my other seedlings have has died to the gnats and molds, however, out of the about 14-ish seeds that I planted, I now have about 19 little limes (most of which started sprouting after my first post on this thread) including the last remaining oddball. It is developing slowly in comparison to the other that came up around the same time, its first true leaves being still only a tiny suggestion of green still. My first sprout from a seed has its first pair of true leaves at the moment and has turned a nice, darker green. I had to pot it because it had a really long root sticking out of the peat round that I had it in, so it is now residing in one of those really tiny 2.5 inch peat pots and doing really well in the windowsill that my cats cannot jump up on. I think at this point, I should just leave them uncovered because the cinnamon seems to help only if I do not have the top over them for more than an hour and also because most of the online how-to information on growing key limes seems to suggest that starting them in seed starter trays is probably a bad idea. But it did work wonderfully for getting them started in the first place. So I am now going to hope that the really tiny ones survive to become established and wait rather impatiently for my oddball to grow its first true leaves. Even if only a few of these survive, the limes made wonderful flavoring for cold beverages and I have about 2 more pounds of them in the refrigerator. I must admit though that I am somewhat attached to these ones, having spent days waiting impatiently for them to pop up, looking online to answers and finally posting here because I had ones that I was unsure were actually limes and I wanted to see if it was possible to tell what they would be if they weren't the limes that I think were the only seeds in that tray (with the root structures and the differences I have noticed, I am still a bit unsure that the remaining oddball is a key lime). When it gets in some true leaves, I will post some pictures!
