Re: HYB: germination & weather

Linda

I leave my seeds (3-4 dayssoaked) in burritos in the fridge for 3 months, by
which time they are starting to germinate. I then plant out in Autumn and
have germination over winter, with a final flush of germination in spring.
Our warmer climate makes germination unaided very uncetain. However with our
hot summers I find that I get less losses on transplatation if I wait till
autumn to transplant the 6-9 month old seedlings. My germination rate is
prob about 20-60%, however there is the odd cross that doesn't germinate at
all, but those are prob the ones that were harvested tpp green etc, because
of stem fallover etc.

Colleen Modra
Adelaide Hills AUST
zone 8/9

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Linda Mann" <lmann@volfirst.net>
To: "iris- talk" <iris@hort.net>
Sent: Sunday, January 16, 2005 7:06 AM
Subject: [iris] HYB: germination & weather


> After 3 weeks in the fridge, when brought to 50 to 60oF, about 1 to 3%
> of seeds germinated in crosses that germinated at all.
>
> After that, we had 2 or 3 weeks or however long that cold spell in
> December lasted, seed flats were in temperatures on the 'sun' porch that
> were below 50oF most of the time, occasionally below 40oF.
>
> In the last few weeks, temperatures on the sun porch have been reaching
> nearly 70oF on the warmest sunniest days, triggering another flush of
> seed germination.  Germination in crosses that have germinated at all is
> now up to between 10 and 20% for most.
>
> The good news on the seeds planted outdoors last fall in the 'normal'
> way - only one seed out of more than thirty crosses (around 1000 seeds?)
> germinated during this warm spell outdoors.  Looks like they didn't get
> enough chilling yet to germinate.  It's now getting below freezing again
> at night, so I'm pretending they are all going to be fine.
>
> Maybe with this cycling between cold and warm, they will think it's the
> second year and there will be more germination than usual when spring
> comes!
> --
> 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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