Great thread. I have a bunch of trees growing from seed. I experimented a bit with JBP And found it by far the easiest to germinate. It works fine by standard scarifying (1 day is water, discard the floaters) and stratifying (30-60 days in damp perlite in a ziplock in the fridge) and then planting in soil.
But the paper towel method works even better. Take your stratified seeds, place them on a damp (not sopping) paper towel, fold so you have a single layer over top of the seeds and place in a ziplock under light. In a week or two you will have germinating seeds you can transplant.
. I got around 90% germination w this technique.
Now I have so many I don’t know what I’m going to do with them all.
I have also started a thread on growing nothofagus species from seed so won’t repost that but here is the link …