Organic Honey Locust Seeds (Gleditsia Triacanthos)

Organic Honey Locust (Gleditsia Triacanthos)

Honeylocust usually obtains a height of 40 to 80 feet and has an open plume like crown of fine-textured foliage that spreads 20 to 30 feet across. Honeylocust leaves are compound and often doubly compound, 7 to 8 inches long and divided into a hundred or more 1 inch oval leaflets turning a golden yellow in the fall.

The fragrant greenish yellow flowers hang in small clusters in early summer. Honeylocust is in the legume family and its seeds are borne in pods. These are dark purplish brown, flat and corkscrew twisted, 10 to 18 inches long and about 1 inch wide. The pods frequently persist on the tree after leaf fall into early winter. The seeds resemble oval bean seeds and are surrounded within the pods by a sweet and juicy pulp.
 

Although Honey Locust seeds have only a very shallow dormancy they have a very hard, water-impermeable seed coat and require pretreatment for successful germination to occur. Without pretreatment it is likely that 10% or less of the seeds will germinate. A combination of a variety of seed pretreatments is usually necessary to make the seed coat permeable so that the seed embryo can take up water and begin to germinate.

The first (and easiest) method is place the seeds in a heat proof container and pour hot (not boiling!) water 70-80 degrees Celsius over them and leave them to soak for between 12-24 hours. Seeds that have been successfully pretreated will have swollen to around 2-3 times their previous size. Remove all swollen seeds as these will be damaged by further pretreatments. These can be sown immediately. This hot water treatment can be repeated up to 3 times, making the water a little hotter each time. Seeds that remain small need to be dried for further treatment.

The remaining method is to physically breakthrough the seed coat by cutting or (k)nicking the edge of the seed with a knife or using a file or even rubbing them between layers of fine sandpaper. All of these methods can be used to break through the seed coat. Once you have done this soak the seeds in cold water for 12-24 hours and successfully treated seeds will have imbibed water and swollen greatly. Any that have not could be scarified again followed by another water soak. Sow all the seeds, even those that remain small as they may germinate much later (perhaps years later), the seeds are very long lived and can remain viable in the field for many years.

Sow in pots or seed trays of good quality compost at a depth of about 1 cm (just less than ½ inch) The seed usually germinates in under 4 weeks at 15-20°c. It is important that temperatures or not greatly higher than this or germination will be reduced.

Growth in the first growing season is usually between 20 and 40cm and accelerates in the second and subsequent years. Plant them out into their permanent positions after 2 or 3 growing seasons. This species usually transplants very easily. Honey Locust tolerates (and often thrive best in) poor and compacted soils and in difficult growing conditions. In cultivation they need little care.