Re: HYB: seed stratification

I agree with Walter.  All this fussing around with soaking &
refrigerating seeds is waaaay too much trouble.

The only reason I'm doing it is because I've had such terrible
germination outdoors.  Plus I'm trying to get these seedlings big enough
to bloom by their second spring to speed up turnaround.  Once I get a
few breeding lines going (??), hopefully, I will have enough seedlings
in the pipeline and seeds that germinate easily that I won't feel the
need to do this anymore.

If outdoors works, by all means stick with it!!!!!

I planted the dried, soaked, burrito'd for 3 months seeds over the
weekend, except for a few from crosses that had no germination in
earlier experiments this year.  I left those in the fridge a while
longer.

At the winter potluck, David Mohr told me that he and his father did
some experiments with seed germination in Kentucky (in the 50s maybe?).
They stratified them in the refrigerator for a month, took them out for
a month, removed any seedlings that germinated, put the ungerminated
seeds back in the fridge for a month, etc for several cycles to simulate
several winters.  I think he said they got 100% germination that way.

I got very little germination from only a few crosses after 2 months in
the fridge, so am not sure the crosses they were experimenting with were
comparable to mine, but it has given me ideas for what to do with my
stubborn crosses.

My plan now is to leave the stubborn ones in the fridge another 2 weeks
(14 weeks total), then put them in baggies with damp peatmoss and sand
for a few weeks in the "sun" room  or somewhere I can keep the maximum
temperature below 70o, remove & pot germinated seed, put remaining
ungerminated seeds back in the fridge for a couple of weeks, take them
back out for a couple of weeks, etc.
--
Linda Mann east Tennessee USA zone 7/8
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