Re: Re: HYB: Germination!!!

Linda, 

I made an experiment with one pod this summer.  I dried the seeds for only about a week after harvesting, soaked  them for ten days, and refrigerated them in late July.  The first of October I took them out and found most of them germinating.  That's the first time that has happened for me, and I have refrigerated them as long as four month over winter.  They were only a few immature looking things anyway, so I didn't expect much of them; I was really surprised to find them growing.

I planted them in a pot, and when I got back from a trip I took, (After all the work I've done on irises this summer, I decided I deserved a vacation.) they were two inches high.  On the 30th of October I lined all eleven of them out into the garden and covered them with a seed blanket about a foot high over them to keep them from drying out and to moderate the temperatures now ranging from highs in the 80s to lows in the 50s.  I will see how they get through the winter like that.  They can't do worse than my seedlings did this summer when the bed I call the nursery became the morgue.  I don't want to waste another year's seedlings like that.  Out of 396, I have about 50 left.  At least those are the rot resistant ones.

Right now I'm up at our cabin at 6700 ft. elevation, zone 6, where a third of the pine trees have died of drouth and Pine Bark beetle.  My irises up here that are inside a fence and doing great.  I have had some botritis fungus that shows up as dead irises in the springtime, but never any rot.  From November of last year to August of this year these mountains didn't get a drop of rain.  I only came up about once a month to water my plants, but the irises look greener and stronger than those well watered in the heat down in the valley.  I even watered some of my pine trees to keep them alive.  There has been a good rain in the past month.  We all just pray for more rain and snow this winter.

Francelle Edwards   Glendale, AZ   Zone 9
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Linda Mann 
  To: iris-talk@yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Monday, November 04, 2002 6:28 AM
  Subject: [iris-talk] Re: HYB: Germination!!!


  Dana said:
  <We have 31 seeds germinating.  While
                         checking our seeds in the fridge we found these
  first few starting up.>

  Now I'm wondering about refrigerator temperatures <g>.  None of mine
  germinated while in the fridge & only a few germinated once seeds were
  potted after 3 mos in the fridge.

  My fridge temps are not as stable as I'd like - you know the syndrome,
  everything is fine for weeks at a time, then suddenly, it decides to
  freeze the lettuce if it's on the top or bottom shelf (not the middle
  ones).  Maybe I need to set it a bit warmer?  Colder, so the lettuce
  always freezes?

  Or was maybe 3 months in the fridge not long enough?

  --
  Linda Mann east Tennessee USA zone 7/8

  Tennessee Whooping Crane Walkathon:
  <http://www.whoopingcranesovertn.org>
  American Iris Society web site <http://www.irises.org>
  iris-talk/Mallorn archives: <http://www.hort.net/lists/iris-talk/>
  iris-photos/Mallorn archives: <http://www.hort.net/lists/iris-photos/>




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