starting osage orange

[charliesbugs]

Anyone know the best way to start osage orange from seed??. Thanks.

[davel745]

I have some seeds too and they say that the seedlings need a plastic tube around them to keep the deer and rabbits from eating them. They also say you need to soak the seeds for 24 hours before they are planted.

[littlebitfarm]

Feed the whole hedge apple to your horses (they love em!). Use the resulting poop to mulch your garden. Next spring there will be hundreds of seedling trees!

Kathie

[Batt]

Put the hedge apples in a 5 gal bucket along with just enough water to cover them. when they start falling apart, stir and make a paste of the seeds and water. Expose a little furrow along where you want the hedge, and pour the paste in. When they come up (and a lot of them will) you will have a hedge fence row.

[Old Vet]

Originally Posted by littlebitfarm

Feed the whole hedge apple to your horses (they love em!). Use the resulting poop to mulch your garden. Next spring there will be hundreds of seedling trees!

Kathie

This is the best way. They need a acid bath before planting so they will all come up.

Batt Put the hedge apples in a 5 gal bucket along with just enough water to cover them. when they start falling apart, stir and make a paste of the seeds and water. Expose a little furrow along where you want the hedge, and pour the paste in. When they come up (and a lot of them will) you will have a hedge fence row.
This will get a few to come up of the thousands of seeds you plant. Each ball contained a lot of seed.

[3ravens]

Originally Posted by Old Vet

This is the best way. They need a acid bath before planting so they will all come up.

Oh, wow! I just learned why my Gramps put a cup or two of vinegar in the bucket when he fermented the hedge apples! Then when they fell apart he just poured the goop where he wanted his hedgerow. I just thought it made the apples disintegrate faster.......

[Old Vet]

Originally Posted by 3ravens

Oh, wow! I just learned why my Gramps put a cup or two of vinegar in the bucket when he fermented the hedge apples! Then when they fell apart he just poured the goop where he wanted his hedgerow. I just thought it made the apples disintegrate faster.......

Vinegar is enough to affect the seeds. Like the stomach acid.

[Gianni]

What is the range of Osage Orange? Will it grow in the Rockys?

[luvrulz]

Mother Earth News also had an article about planting your own hedge row fencing.... You can find it on their website!

[NELSELGNE]

FROM:
http://www.na.fs.fed.us/pubs/silvics...a/pomifera.htm

Osage-orange has been planted as a hedge in all the 48 conterminous States and in southeastern Canada.

Climate
Within the natural range of Osage-orange, average annual temperature ranges from about 18° to 21° C (65° to 70° F), July temperature averages 27° C (80° F) and January temperature ranges from 6° to 7° C (43° to 45° F) with an extreme of -23° C (-10° F). The frost-free period averages 240 days. Average annual precipitation ranges from 1020 to 1140 min (40 to 45 in), and April to September rainfall from 430 to 630 min (17 to 25 in).

Osage-orange is hardy as far north as Massachusetts but succumbs to winter-kill in northeastern Colorado and the northern parts of Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois