Re: HYB: CULT: cross to seedlings (was early g)

Christian, that's close but not enough time for some of those steps.

Pods may take longer than 12 weeks to mature - I've had some go almost 2
months.

I soak for 10 days (not sure where I got that magic number).

Cold treatment varies a lot - but 12 weeks isn't anywhere near long
enough for most of my crosses.  In the experiments I did last year,
hardly anything germinated after one month of chill, some germinated
after two, but most took a full 3 months of chilling for any
germination.  And then there are those that require some chilling,
followed by at least a month at room temperature, then another round of
chilling (2 seasons if planted outdoors).

Germination has been anywhere from starting inside the fridge after 3
months of chilling (very rare in my crosses, tho I did have an early SDB
X TB batch of seeds this fall), to taking several weeks.  I'd have to
double check to be sure, but I think there were a few that took over a
month to germinate.  The ones that germinated first were more uniform in
germination.  I think.

Germination less than 6 months after making the cross is overly
optimistic for the material I'm working with. My goal has been to get
seedlings up and growing before it gets really cold here, which is
'normally' after Christmas.

However, for early germinants (those that don't require much chilling to
germinate), less than 6 months might be possible.

Is that helpful?

Then there is the mystery of germination of fresh seeds (no drying, no
soaking, no chilling) which still eludes me....

Not sure what you mean by "Linda's second germinants"...

Christian said:
<Can anyone lay out for me a timeline from say the cross to
germination....
                  cross is made
                   8-12 weeks pod matures and dries and cracks,
                   seeds harvested
                   seeds dried roughly 1 week
                   seeds soaked roughly one week
                   cold treatment 8 - 12 weeks
                   germination (give or take some room temp
days...Linda's second season
                   germinants...)

--
Linda Mann east Tennessee USA zone 7/8
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