Re: HYB: germination rates

Germination rate for me has gone up from less than 1% (euuw!) to fairly
consistantly around 30 to 40%, with one cross 100% (one seed in the pod
and it germinated <g>), a few 60 to 80%, all with the same treatment, a
few 100% "poppers", several less than 30%, some zero % the first year
(in spite of all my attempts to trick them by manipulation in and out of
refrigeration with warm spells in between) followed by zero (usually all
poppers) to the usual 30% the second year.

Some crosses just don't work for me - from what I've read about
germination in other species, climate during pod formation does affect
both viability of seeds and <can> affect germination inhibitors.  And I
am convinced that really wide crosses can have mismatched chromosome
pairs that result in lower seed viability.  At least in this
climate/"garden".

Ditto with the need for stratification to remove inhibitors - cultivars
that do well in our climate seem to need stratification to germinate.
Some of us have tried to germinate fresh seeds in this climate with no
luck - they just rot.  Donald Eaves has had good success cold
stratifying fresh seeds in the fridge without drying then soaking first,
but my one experiment trying that didn't work.

<Did that make the difference?                 .... Griff  zone 7 in
Virginia>

--
Linda Mann east Tennessee USA zone 7/8
East Tennessee Iris Society <http://www.korrnet.org/etis>
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