Growing avocado in water - Mid September 2015

I have started growing avocado pit in water a few months back. They had sprouted and grown quite well for a few months and lately something happened.

The pit started to turn colour and I guessed they are rotting and drying up. It has not affected the growth of the seedlings and I'm not sure whether the pits are needed for further growth. The seedlings that are grown in soil after the initial germination in water had the pits still intact. Only one seedling in the soil has half of the pit turning colour. I tried to search in the internet for information on the pit turning colour and rotting but did not get any meaningful answers.

I will try to document in the blog on the colour change and possible rotting of the pits.

The pits were still in their usual colour even when the seedlings had grown to about one feet. I'm not sure whether it is due to the air-conditioning that the plants have been subjected to since the haze has come to Singapore. The seedlings were kept inside the room with the air-conditioning turned on for a few weeks already. I hope this is not the reason.

Avocado growing in water

Avocado growing in water

Avocado pit rotting

Pit rotting and drying up

I tried to move one of the small seedling to the living room where it was not subjected to air-conditioning at night. Only one half of the pit has turned colour and dried up. The other half is still in it's usual colour.

Avocado growing in water

There are new roots appearing even when one half of the pit has dried up. I think it is going to survive. I'm thinking of transferring the seedling to a pot with soil soon. But I'm still thinking whether I can still keep it in water.

Avocado moved to living room to avoid air-con

The below pit has the tallest seedling but the pit has turned colour and possible rotting. There is no abnormality in the root system and I hope that even without the pit, the seedling can continue to grow. I'm also not thinking of transferring it to a pot with soil soon. I will monitor this for a couple of months. So, now it is mid September 2015. I will update the status in mid October. Stay tuned!

Avocado pit rotting

The root system still looks ok. There are more branching on the roots and I have changed the water regularly every week. Currently, I have moved the seedling to a room without air-conditioning at night to see whether there is any effect on the seedling.

I will need to prune the seedling too. I hope the pruning will not affect its health. The rotting of the pit may have been stressful to the seedling and the pruning may add further stress.

Avocado root system in water

Pruned the avocado seedlings growing in water

I saw in one blog that when the avocado seedling had grown to about 6 to 7 inches, you would need to cut it the stem to 3 inches. This would allow the roots to grow well and develop strong and thicker stem. Well, I'm going to try this. I have pruned the seedlings which I have grown in water. One seedling was pruned with about 3 leaves left. Another seedling had its stem trimmed down with no leave on the stem. I'm going to see whether it will grow better or not.

Avocado seedling #1 (growing in water)

Avocado seedling #1 with 3 leaves left

Avocado seedling #2

Avocado seedling #2 - no leaves left

Avocado leaf tips turning brown

Recently, I noticed that my 2nd and 3rd avocado plants have leaf tips turning brown. It started from the tip of the leaves and slowly moved towards the stalk. Small patches on the leaves also turned brown. It occurred on all the old leaves as new leaves start to emerge from the pruned area.

Leaf tip turning brown

Leaf turning brown

It could be due to salt accumulation and under watering. I water the plants every three days and maybe it needs another watering in between. See SG My Life Is Good blog on the avocado seedlings.

I did a research on the internet and found that it could be due to the two reasons that I have mentioned above. One way to remedy this is to flush the salt away from the soil by pouring water over the soil continuously until water comes out from the bottom of the pot. I poured about 1.5litres of overnight water over the soil and ensured that the water drained completely from the pot. I don't think that it is due to the sunlight because the plants are placed near the window but there is no direct sunlight. There are no strong winds except when I switch on the ceiling fan to the strongest and it can be quite strong. However, I don't think this is the reason but maybe due to the winds generated from the ceiling fan, the water in the pot dries up quickly. The browning of the leaf tip may be due to insufficient watering. I plan to water more frequently, so I'm going to water the plants every two days instead of three days. I may plan to place the plants under direct sunlight to see whether this will give better results but I doubt so. Since 2nd and 3rd avocado plants have leaf tip turning brown problem, I will take the 2nd plant and place it under direct sunlight in the weekend to see whether the browning slows down or stops completely.

New bud growing from base of avocado leaf

New buds are growing out from the bases of the avocado leaves. It has been one month since I pruned the avocado seedlings. The cut area has healed nicely and the seedlings are doing well. I rotate the pots occasionally to let the leaves expose to the indirect sunlight. See my other post on the leaves bent towards the sunlight.

The third seedling is growing faster than the second seedling. I can see the leaflets forming distinctly in the third seedling. The leaves are not drooping and straighten up. I will need to do more research on how to prune the new buds. Maybe I will prune it when there are 3 leaves and snip away the tip when the time is right. Stay tuned to see the progress of growing avocado plant indoor.

New bud from 3rd seedling

New bud from 2nd seedling

 

Can my first avocado seedling survive?

The top leaves have turned brown and dropped off from the seedling. I think this first avocado seedling may not survive. I have missed the time to plant it into the soil and this have caused damages to the roots of the avocado plant. The seedling has not grown much since the last time I planted it. My wife told me to keep this plant for a while to see whether it can survive. I don't know what I can do now to help it grow except to keep it indoors together with my other two seedlings.

First avocado seedling - leaves dried up

I have removed the dried brown leaves. Now the seedling is quite bare except the tiny leaves along the stem.

 

First avocado seedling - will it survive?

Check back again in a few weeks to see whether first avocado seedling survive or not? I certainly hope it does...

Third Avocado Seedling planted

The leaves were greenish brown and relatively small. The roots were quite developed and the stem was  at least 10 inches tall. I realized that it was time to plant this seedling. I planted this third seedling and the second seedling on 1 January 2015. The leaves curled a little bit after I placed the third seedling under direct sunlight for less than an hour. I think that the seedling is not strong enough to place under direct sunlight. It has to be under some shades or indirect sunlight. The second seedling is placed beside the window and it was doing fine. I put the third seedling beside the window and the leaves started to become flat and turn towards green colour. I watered the seedlings every weekend to prevent the roots from rotting.

Third avocado seedling

The stem is a bit crooked and I will probably need to rotate the pot to let the stem straighten up. I will let the seedlings set in their new environment before I prune them. It is crucial to know when you want to transfer them to pots because the first seedling had missed the time and currently it is not doing well. I will do an update on the first seedling soon. Stay tuned!

The three seedlings have different colours to the pits. The first seedling has green pit now, the second seedling has brown pit and the third seedling has beige pit.

Green pit - First seedling

Brown pit - Second seedling

Beige pit - Third seedling

I wonder whether they are from different species or the pit's colour changed over time. Maybe it will be interesting to take note of the colour of the pit a month later to see whether there is any change. The first seedling is a bit malnutrition and probably I have left it out on the balcony and the chilly winds in the night had injured the seedling. I have moved it indoors and will monitor its progress.

How to grow avocado from seed

I started to grow avocado from seed 3 months back. I saw someone tried to grow avocado from seed on YouTube and wanted to try it myself. Some blogs said that it will not bear fruits if you grow it from seed. Some said that it can only bear fruits after 5 years or 7 years. I wanted to try growing it from seed. I went to the supermarket and bought 3 avocados for $3.45. They were from New Zealand, Avanza brand. I removed the skin on the seed and put 3 toothpicks around the seed. It is better to remove the seed because I had tried not to remove the skin and the seed did not grow well. The skin will cause the water to change colour and turn mouldy. But you need to be careful and gentle when removing the skin because the seed will have damages if you are not careful.

Growing avocado from seed

I put the avocado on a recycled bottle and poured in some water just to cover the bottom half of the see. It is better to leave this container in a well lit area. After a few weeks, you will notice that the seed will split open and a root will emerge from the split area in the bottom. You can change water after a few days. The root will continue to develop and you can see tiny little "crystal" or nodes on the root. 

Roots developed

Let the roots develop for a few weeks and then a new shoot will emerge from the top and leaves will turn to develop. The new shoot will turn towards the direction of the sunlight. You will see that the shoot/stem will bend towards the sunlight. I will always need to rotate the container so that the shoot/stem will bend and become straight again. I want to make sure the the stem grows in a straight upwards direction. 

New shoot will emerge.

After a couple of weeks, the shoot will develop into a tall stem with many leaves. At this time, I will transfer the seedling into a pot with potting soil. I will update the status again. Bookmark my blog.

Growing strawberry plants from seeds in Singapore

On 15 August 2014, I bought some strawberries from the supermarket in Singapore. I couldn't remember the origins of the strawberries. I'm thinking they were from Australia. I removed the seeds from the exterior of the strawberries. I took the seeds that are brown in colour and scrapped them away from the skin using a sharp knife. I tried to remove as much fleshes from the seeds as possible so that it would rot in my sowing bed. I took a used plastic sushi container and filled it with potting soil. Buried the seeds in the soil and kept the soil moist. I closed the container with a rubber band and this helped to keep the moisture inside the container. I estimated that there were about 100 seeds.

It was almost 2 months later that I saw the seeds germinated. Tiny seedlings started emerging out of the soil bed. It started with 5 seedlings, then a few days later, another 5 seedlings. After that, none appeared. I "ploughed" the sowing bed and exposed the seeds again. Watered the bed and kept it moist. A couple of weeks later, new seedlings germinated. I got another 15 seedlings. So in total I have 25 seedlings. Recently, on 12 December 2014, I noticed 3 new seedlings started to germinate. It is almost 4 months since I last sowed the seeds. My advice to you will be to be very patient when you want to grow strawberry plant from seed. It can take from two months to four months to get the seedling. So, try to sow more seeds, at least 100 seeds. My success rate is not 28%.

The seedlings need a lot of water and sunlight. The seeds germinate faster if they are exposed to sunlight. The seedlings also grow well in direct sunlight.

From November onwards, my window sill is not getting any direct sunlight. I need to bring the plants to the corridor area which is very troublesome. So, in the end, I decided to do an experiment to see whether the seedlings need sunlight. I brought 5 seedlings to my office where they can get at least 4 hours of direct sunlight. I'm trying to monitor their progress.



5 strawberry seedlings on 5 Dec 2014

Last weekend, I had forgotten to bring the container into the shelter. It was raining heavily on Saturday and the seedlings were flooded. Below is the photo of the seedlings after the flood.



Seedlings on 16 Dec 2014

Recently, I chanced upon a post from www.igardenplanting.com and gotten the permission from Dianne to share her post on my blog. It is "How To Grow Strawberries and 10 Best Strawberry Recipes".

Second Avocado seedling

I have another avocado seedling that has grown to about 15 inches. It is taller than the first avocado plant which I had planted a couple of weeks ago. This second avocado seedling is quite different from the first one. It is taller, the stem is thicker and the colour of the stem is darker. It looks much healthier than the first one. The leaves are greener. The roots are much developed.

Second avocado seedling @ 14 Dec 2014

I notice that it has a second shoot developing at the crown area. I have seen in the internet that some avocado developed two or more shoots (stems). I will wait a couple of weeks to see the second shoot.

Second shoot developing at the crown area

You can notice in the above photo that the stem is darker and thicker. The plant is definitely much healthier than the first avocado plant. Now, I'm thinking of when I should transfer it to a pot with soil. There are forums that said to wait till the plant is 7 to 8 inches tall and having leaves. This plant is already 15 inches tall and having 3 medium leaves and one small leaf. I suppose that it may be the right moment to plant it. The first avocado plant was only transferred to a potted medium when I noticed the leaves turning brown. I hope that this second plant will not suffer the same fate.

Second avocado seedling @ 15 inches tall

Any expert out there to advise on whether this is the right time to plant it? Thanks.