Growing Jurema Preta

The seed coat of Mimosa hostilis (Jurema Preta) seeds can be very hard. If planted without pretreatment, the seeds may take a long time to swell and germinate (or may not germinate at all). To promote germination you can scarify the seeds (e.g. by carefully filing/grinding the seed coat with sandpaper without damaging the embryo) and pre-swell them in water or douse them with very hot water so that the seeds swell, some even seem to do both. The Hot Water Technique is not suitable for every type of seed, but it seems to work quite well for Mimosa hostilis.

The Hot Water Technique

In this experiment, the Hot Water Technique was used to pre-treat the seeds, but without filing/grinding the seed coat. Some water was brought to a boil, removed from the power source, and allowed to stand for about 10 minutes to cool a bit. The seeds were placed in a jar and infused with the hot water so that they were sufficiently covered with it and the seeds were left in the water jar for about 24h to swell. After 24 hours the seeds should be noticeably swollen, you can try to repeat the procedure for seeds where this is not the case.

The swollen Mimosa hostilis seeds were placed in a water glass between two layers of damp kitchen roll after 24h pre-swelling. After a few days it was recognizable that the first seed had germinated.

Der gekeimte Samen wurde in ein Substrat gepflanzt, dass aus einem Drittel Kokohum, einem Drittel Blumenerde und einem Drittel Fibotherm gemischt wurde. 4 Tage nach der Keimung durchbricht der Sämling bereits die Erde.