Re: HYB: germination experiments

I haven't tried doing this without soaking, but (barring tornadoes,
hail, livestock  invasions...) should have enough seed to experiment
this year.   I am having the opposite problem John Reeds describes -
waay too many pods.  That jet stream definitely gives the west coast bad
times when it is a good year here.

I think most seeds need moisture while they are being cold stratified,
but I'm not sure about the need for pre-soaking.

One thing I did differently that made things a bit less trouble last
year.  I did the soak the same way (each pod's worth of seed knotted in
it's own separate length of nylon stocking, labeled plastic venetian
blind piece paperclipped to the end hanging out of the toilet tank), but
when I pulled them out, instead of undoing the stockings and wrapping
each cross individually in burritos, I just wrapped the whole soggy mess
in several paper towels, then bagged them all together.  One giant
burrito.  Much more convenient and easier to monitor moisture.

When I moved pots of remaining ungerminated seeds outdoors this spring,
we were still having a few light frosts.  There was some additional
germination, spreading out over a month or more, but not very much
(sorry, no data recorded).

Last fall, when temperatures cooled, I saw quite a bit of germination
among those seeds, and brought the pots indoors after they'd had a month
or so of light chilling outdoors, where even more germinated.  These
continued to germinate over a long period of time, and while I did try
to take notes, I wasn't consistent about it.

Hmm... I just read over what I wrote, and noticed that I said 'each pod'
was soaked - which gives me an idea for yet another experiment.  Maybe I
won't even shell some of the seeds this time...

<I want to know if the soaking before the "burrito" is necessary.  It
adds a lot of work and offers an opportunity to mix up seed ID.
Comments are welcome Chuck Bunnel>

--
Linda Mann east Tennessee USA zone 7/8
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