I guess it was just over 12 months ago when I got my first JBP. Since then I have spent the year getting acquainted with pines and trying to understand the best way forward to get the best out of them as bonsai. In a quest for more knowledge, I stumbled across a pine growing competition on another forum (based in the US) where you have a six year window to grow the best JBP you possibly can – from seed…! I thought this sounded ludicrous, just the kind of thing I wanted to be a part of and so I began looking for JBP seed so I could get involved. Turns out, in Oz that is easier said than done. Most seed available online is not local, and importing restrictions therefore mean not available to me so I went searching through other avenues (including a shout out on Ausbonsai!) and thankfully for me a few obliging sources gave up some prized seed for me to play with. A massive thanks to those who were generous with their seed – you know who you are!
I scored some JBP seed but also got some JRP, Scots and Austrian Pine seeds while I was on the hunt. I ended up with quite a few pine seeds - BONUS!
I’ve spent at least the last 6 weeks or so formulating a plan of attack and gathering the raw materials to get me (hopefully) the best result possible from all these seeds I collected, and I thought I’d start a thread to document what I get up to.
Ideally I’d like to start this process in a few weeks from now, but a planned trip away in September has me wanting to get my seeds/seedlings up and growing before I head off. I have split the seeds into several batches and will try a few different things with timing and process to see what happens.
Round 1 : Includes 7 batches of seeds :
Batch A (JBP-40 seeds), Batch E (JBP-40 seeds), Batch I (JBP-40 seeds),Batch J (JRP-40 seeds), Batch K (JRP-12 seeds), Batch L (Scots-40 seeds) & Batch N (Austrian-40 seeds).
I soaked these seeds in their batches for 24 hours on July 8th, and since then they have been placed in plastic ziplock bags wrapped in damp paper towel and with a small amount of damp vermiculite to maintain humidity ... and put in the fridge. The JBP will stay in the fridge for 2 weeks or so before I sow them. The others will stay stratifying a little longer before being sown. Round 2 : Includes 2 batches of seeds :
Batch O (Austrian-40 seeds) & Batch P (Austrian-12 seeds). These I plan to stratify (as above) for about 4 weeks before sowing. No photos ... cos photos of seeds in bags with vermiculite sitting in the fridge are pretty boring, see above!
I'll keep adding to this thread as things happen ... we'll see where it all ends up!
. Might try the next shoin comp if there is one; hopefully I can make 18 months 
