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This question deals specifically with maple seeds, but I thought I would get input in this forum. I spent most of the day harvesting some Japanese maple seeds, only to get home and find out that more than half are sterile. I was able to visually separate out the obviously sterile ones - too small or flat to contain enough seed starting matter. I then did some cut tests on the ones that looked big and fat, and found that a good number of those were also sterile. In some cases, 1 in 10 of great looking seeds turned out to have green solid embryos. Can anyone explain to me why the tree doesn't just abort the sterile seeds? Why go through all the trouble of creating the wings and everything? Is there an easier way to tell which seeds will be good?
Just to give you an idea of what I mean, I took a photo. The bottom seed was one I visually discarded as sterile - cut test later backed me up on these. The top two seeds both look great to me, but only one is viable. Am I missing something?
Click the image for an enlarged view.
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