Re: HYB: Seeds Germinating

Mary Lou, your experience matches mine, except I didn't try mulching before switching to burrito'ing. I have found that a layer of mulch helps now, mostly, I think, to keep moisture more uniform once the seeds are out of the burritos/pods and into the pots.
Do you have any thoughts on how cold is cold enough to kill seeds that are about to germinate? I've seen seedlings come up outdoors immediately after a cold spell into the low to mid 20s, but worry about temperatures much below that, especially if it stays cold.
I'm not sure, but I <think> many (most?) of my rebloomer crosses (using mostly IMMORTALITY, HARVEST OF MEMORIES, VIOLET MIRACLE & offspring) fall into your second category - a few seedlings up now and then over a two or three year period. Crosses with superstrong seedlings germinate and grow like weeds for me too. If we keep working at it, hopefully we will get some <nice> superstrong seedling lines going that won't have this problem.
Alternating chilling for a month with warmer temperatures for a month does seem to boost germination rate.
Although I haven't kept notes, it does seem like the first seedlings to germinate are often weaker (i.e., more of them die) than later ones, but not always. I'm letting baby seedlings get a <lot> bigger this year before digging them out of the germination pots - at least 3 leaves - leaving them in the germination pot for most of the month of warm temperature.
Sounds like both you and Christian are leaving seeds in burritos until they start germinating?
I've been potting seeds after either 2 or 3 months of chilling, have seen very few sprouted seeds. My refrigerator is cold enough to freeze things now and then, so it may be too cold for them to sprout. 2 months is not enough for some crosses to germinate at all, but it's fun to have a few seedlings coming up as we head into the gloom of winter. 


The primary reason I began using the burrito method to start
seeds was I had abysmally few sprouts when starting them
outdoors.



Followed recommendations precisely, tried several different
mulches.  Anguishing failures.  Since I found very few seeds
in the spring, I concluded that most/many had sprouted and
been killed by the roller-coaster temps over the winter.

As a gross generalization, most of my sprouts fall into one of two
categories:  a) begin sprouting somewhere between 60-90 days
and have a significant percentage sprout within 30 days of the first
one or b) random sprouting - maybe one every 2-4 weeks through
7 months of chilling.  I think a few of the random sprouts were
about all I wound up with when I left them outside.  With crosses
that sprout in the 'a' mode, I've found that, after about 10 days with
no additional sprouts, it seems to help to let the bag sit at room
temperature for a couple of weeks, check them again, then start
another chilling cycle, to get another, reduced, surge of sprouts.

Even when potting up sprouts indoors, an unacceptable precentage
of them never break ground, even with ideal conditions.  Certain
crosses, especially from locally vigorous pod parents, will all break
ground and grow like weeds.  Murphy's Law rules here, so these
are never the ones I'm most excited about.

At one time I had thought that maybe leaving the sprouts in the
burrito a little longer before planting them would increase the
survival rate.  But my experiment (you know how I love experiments!)
disproved that theory.  Also tried watering them on planting with a
very diluted Miracle Gro, with no improvement.  Sometimes all the
first sprouts of a cross fail, but later sprouts will come up.  Since
I'm keeping track of the sprout order, will hope to be able to draw
some inferences from those crosses this spring.

I'm still trying with some apparently healthy seeds from the 05 crop,
but have never had any germination from anything after 12 months
from harvest.  Just kept a few crosses from the random sprouting
group that I really want badly.

BTW - Amazed again this year at how many things with iris on them
people can come up with to give me for Christmas.  I never find this
stuff, but then, I hardly ever go shopping.

Mary Lou, near Indianapolis, Z5 - Z8 right now.



--
Linda Mann east Tennessee USA zone 7/8
East Tennessee Iris Society <http://www.korrnet.org/etis>
American Iris Society web site <http://www.irises.org>
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