HYB: germination data - oops

Discovered a pot of ~24 seedlings from the HoM X ABBONDANZA? pods that
I'd overlooked - total surviving seedlings that germinated after 4
months in the fridge (in pots or lined out) is ~112 out of 225, not 88
of 225 as I reported previously.

Ungerminated, apparently sound seeds is still 62.

That makes seeds unaccounted for ~53, not 75.

I did not count rotted or undeveloped seeds when I threw them away while
inspecting burritos.

The numbers don't quite match up - looks like I forgot to subtract the
last 9 seedlings that germinated from the total number of seeds recorded
on the germination tag.  And probably didn't count accurately...

In any case,  ~50 rotted <after> I abandoned the burritos, which were in
the fridge for ~ a year.  I can't find the harvest dates for the pods,
but assume it was sometime in July 2008.  Most recent date on pots
containing seedlings is the first week of March, 2009.  Germinating
seeds went directly from burritos into pots where they have remained.

So some of the seeds were still germinating after ~5 months of chilling,
possibly as much as 7 months.  Seeds remained <in> the fridge that
entire time, except for frequent inspection after the first three months
& occasionally forgetting to put them back right away; the first couple
of months unshelled in pods in baggies, the rest in damp, paper towel
burritos in baggies.

Numbers say the seeds increased by a few rather than rotted during the
first 4 months in the fridge, but I dont' think that's right.....

I don't worry about accurate seed count or seedlings when handling so
many seeds, so numbers are still approx.  Except, hopefully, for the
ones I counted today.

Bottom line is that losses of burrito'd seeds from this particular cross
to rot appear to have been "less than" zero (i.e., negligible) during
the first 4 months, but nearly half of the remainder rotted when left
without further attention during the following months.

However, some of them could have already died but hadn't gotten squishy
by March 09 when I removed the last batch of germinants.

This is almost as bad as trying to fill out income tax forms!

I hope somebody finds all this angst & data digging useful.

I do remember noticing rotting seeds before I turned up the temperature
in the fridge to make sure seeds did not freeze.  Some crosses were
damaged, others not.

Linda Mann
TN

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