Growing Ginkgo biloba from seed

I was curious about how easy it is to grow ginkgo from seed. Being in Nevada I wondered if it would survive in a hot and dry desert environment. I was looking for plants that I could decorate my apartment balcony with.

I bought some seeds online.

The instructions were easy. I just had to scar the seeds so that I could expose the flesh under the shell. Then I soaked it in water overnight, making sure the nuts sank to the bottom. This meant that the water entered the shell and soaks into the seed. The moist environment signals the plant it's the season to grow. To maintain that, the next day I drained the water and placed the seeds on a bed of moist sphagnum moss and waited for it to sprout.

You can already see the radicle growing out of the ginkgo nut in the second picture. This was 5 days after being placed in the container.

I was getting impatient so two days later after I saw most of the seeds show signs of growth, I put them in their own container of moss and wrapped it in seran wrap for humidity.

30 days later, some green sprouted from the seed. I thought that the nut would break away, and it looked like some leaves were still stuck in it.

I waited a long time for the leaves to leave the seed but it never did. So I looked up what a ginkgo's growth pattern should be. From a paper by Feng J, Shen Y, Shi F, Li C. "Embryo Development, Seed Germination, and the Kind of Dormancy of Ginkgo biloba L. Forests. 2018." It shows that the seed actually stays with the tree for a long time in its youth. It supplies the energy it needs to grow. I was glad I didn't force it out of the ginkgo nut. From the picture below, it looks like the stage of the tree at this point was between E and F.

Almost a week later, all seeds sprouted green leaves.

It's very hot here in Vegas, and thought only keeping it in sphagnum moss wouldn't be sufficient for its water needs. It turns out its an extremely sturdy tree. Even in the direct desert sun it never complained about the heat or lack of water. No wonder its species survived for so long. I watered the trees every morning and added some slow release bonsai fertilizer.

One month after planting, its beautiful leaves started to show off.

Exactly two months after planting, I decided that one of the trees was ready to be potted up into an experimental bonsai pot. The roots looked very healthy.

I used some cushion moss around the tree.

I still couldn't remove the seed, so I decided to let it hang for decoration.