Wildflower sod was established in a greenhouse by sowing primed or non-primed seeds of two seed mixtures at 2× (2.44 g/m2, 0.5 lb/1000 ft2) or 10 × (12.20 g/m2, 2.5 lb/1000 ft2) the supplier's recommended field broadcast rate onto a 2.5 cm (1 in) settled depth of commercial peat-lite (ProMix BX) contained in 28 × 52 × 5 cm (11 × 20.5 × 2 in) flats. One seed mixture (NE, Northeast) contained 54% of the species as annuals, the remainder being biennial and perennial species. The other mixture (NEANN) was a 1:1 (weight) combination of NE with a 100% annual species mixture. Seeds were primed matrically in expanded, fine-grade vermiculite for four days at −0.5 MPa at 15C (59F) in darkness (vermiculite:water:seed, 5:5:1 by wgt). At five weeks after sowing, root rating (an estimate of rooting magnitude), sod stability (an estimate of resistance to sod separation), and shoot dry weights were increased as a result of sowing primed NEANN seeds at 10×. Sod netting with 2.8 cm (1.1 in) openings, whether placed at the bottom or top of the substrate, had no effect on these variables. Sod of a duplicate, concurrent experiment was transplanted in the field at five weeks after sowing. By 12 weeks after sowing, the 10 × seeding rate increased shoot dry weight, but the effect of seed priming on shoot dry weight had been lost.

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Author notes

Published as Paper No. 00-02-1670 in the journal series of the Delaware Agricultural Experiment Station, Contribution No. 346 of the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences.

2Professor and undergraduate students, resp.