You have sliced open your ripe avocado to make a smoothie or a salad. Your fingers start to pull out the seed. Then you turn to chuck it into the bin, but, wait! Don’t throw it. Instead keep that seed and plant it in your garden or in an open space where you can nurture it into a tree.
Dr. Yellappa Reddy, former secretary Department of Ecology and Environment, says,“Don’t damage the seed’s thin covering layer while taking it out of the fruit. That keeps the life in the seed intact. Also the tree that grows from such good stock retains at least 50 per cent of the genetic character of the mother tree without cross pollination.”
Therefore it is important that you choose your avocado or jamun, even your custard apple or sour sop fruit well. Once you take the seeds out, put them in a cool and dry place to prevent them from rotting.
Moisten your compost and soil mixture till it is completely damp so that when the seeds are first planted, they get that extra bit of water in order to start the germination process.
Prem Koshy, CM and MD of Koshy’s Pvt. Ltd. is known to give out free seeds and saplings to his clients who patronise his restaurant. “My grandfather taught me as a child that as soon as I ate a fruit, I had to go out, dig a hole and plant the seed. That is a great way of giving back to nature.”
However, it is not enough to just plant the seed, but, one has to remember to water it regularly too. Seeds rely on a constant supply of water to go through the germination process, thereby producing a sprout. According to an online gardening site, after a few days or a week, you should notice tiny sprouts peeping through the soil. It should take several weeks before your plants are ready to be transplanted into the ground, if you have first planted them in a pot.
Most plants go through a growth phase. The first set of leaves that appear are known as the ‘seed leaves’. The second set of leaves are called the ‘true leaves’ and are a sign that your plants are mature and ready to be replanted. You can put the seeds on a bed of rich compost before they sprout and give them some liquid fertiliser to help expedite them growing strong and tall swiftly.
However fruit trees from seeds take around eight to 10 years to bear fruit, unlike graft fruit tree saplings. In the case of a mango, it is better to buy a graft from a reputed nursery, rather than grow one from a seed.
