With a little practice and fresh seeds you should be able to get a 99% success rate!
Gently make a nick or a scratch in the end of the seed. This is to help the seedling escape from its hard shelled seed-prison! We have a nice clean, sharp pair of nail scissors we use!
Boil a cup of water and allow it to cool for 10 minutes. Just enough to be able to dip your finger in.
It should still be very hot tho. Put the seeds in the water, they should sink. If they float, try making the nick on your seeds a little deeper. (not too deep though as this could harm the seed germ.) Leave them in to soak in the hot water for about 45 minutes. You will notice that they have swelled up slightly.
Place the swollen seeds in a pot of damp vermiculite (we use plant pods because they are so easy and germination friendly). Just place the seeds on top of the vermiculite, they need light to germinate. Lightly mist and cover with cling film or put the plant pod lid on.
Within two weeks the seeds will have started to germinate, but they are too small just yet, to replant. Instead, leave them in their vermiculite until they have pushed out their first set of leaves.
After another week, or when the first set of leaves have opened, the seedlings can be re-potted into a mix of compost, perlite and vermiculite (1:1:1) and placed in a propagator in a warm place (about 70 degrees F) and exposed to light, but not direct sun. (This can damage the seedlings at this size)
Psychotria viridis, or chacruna is from the same family of plants as coffee. It is often used as an admixture in ayahuasca. The leaves contain DMT. Seeds from both these bushes are difficult to procure and have a short viability, therefore making cuttings from the leaves is the best way of propagation. Here is a quick TEK to show you how.
Like i said, its just a quick TEK, because rooting psychotria isnt too difficult. Snap the leaf upto 6 times across its spine (horizontally) but leave the leaf intact. Each snap point will push out new roots, so you can make plenty of cuttings per leaf.
Wrap your snapped leaf in kitchen towel, leaving about 1" of leaf sticking out of the top. Dampen the paper with a water mister.
Put the damp, wrapped, snapped leaf in a clear food bag and tie up with a wire tie or similar. Make sure the bag is full of air. Mist and fan once or twice a week.
Leave in a warm sunny place, like a windowsill, for 2-3 weeks, remembering to mist and fan.
By now, small roots will have appeared from the bottom of the leaf and also from the snap points.
The leaf can now be seperated into its sections and planted in moist but quite well draining compost/perlite/vermiculite mix.
Keep the cuttings in a propagator or humidity dome as psychotria loves humidity. Water and mist as necessary and soon shoots will appear from the base of the planted leaf section.
Sea beans have a hard shell to allow them to survive being washed up on beaches where they can germinate. Germinating them can be difficult, but hopefully, using this TEK you might enjoy the same success as we have.
Drill into the bean at the point where it was attached to the pod (its belly button), using a flat tipped 5-6mm drill and a hand brace & bit. If you use a mechanical drill you may cause damage to the germ in the shell. We held the seeds in a vice, but took care not to tighten it too much as they can crack. Only drill as far in, until you can see the white pulp in the seed. (maybe 3-4mm deep, depending on the size of the seed).
Take an OLD flask and fill it with boiling water. (it will have to be smashed to get the swollen beans out again, so dont bother using a new one!)
Make sure that the beans fit through the neck of the flask! If they dont, you will need a bigger flask. (We use a flask because it keeps the water hotter overnight.)
Our beans nearly got stuck on the way in! Once they have soaked for upto 12 hours in the flask, you will have to smash the flask to remove them, as they will have swelled up considerably. Do this carefully as a vacuum flask will often explode sneding shards of glass everywhere (as we found to our dismay!)
The next step is to try to recreate the beach they will germinate upon. We used perlite, but washed sand will work fine. Make sure it is nice and wet and warm and mist regularly. Cover with Cling-film (Saran-wrap) to keep the humidity high. Make sure they are in a bright place, as they need the light to help them pop!
After about 20-30 days they will have cracked open, like a clam shell, from the hole you drilled. The root will start to find its way down and the shoot will head toward the light. Put them back in their 'faux beach' pot for another few weeks and then pot in a mix of compost/perlite/vermiculite (1:1:0.5). They need reasonable humidity, lots of light and plenty of fresh air as they can be susceptable to rot.
