Third batch of Sierra Juniper seeds

For those of you who don't remember, I've had my share of trouble with Sierra Juniper seeds.

I never give up, though. I'm on my third harvest of seeds, and I finally broke down and followed the over-the-top advice from Young and Palmquist in Forest Science: stratification for 14 weeks in cold water with constantly bubbling compressed air.

I'm at the end of the 14 weeks, so last night I removed the seeds from their bubbling chamber and laid them on coffee filters for germination. Surprisingly, nothing grew in the water during the past 14 weeks and the seeds seemed intact. The seeds seemed cleaner than they usually do. Perhaps the important effect of bubbling air is to completely remove the pulp from the seeds.

We shold know if this worked in a few weeks. I'm prepared to keep trying for the next seven years, if need be. My next step would be to harvest the seeds later in the year, perhaps in October or even November.