Re: Seedlings that refuse to develop
- Subject: Re: Seedlings that refuse to develop
- From: L* R*
- Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 11:22:13 -0700 (PDT)
Susannah, I've never grown D. trolliifolium from seed, but I do know that
a few of our native delphiniums, notably the rare D. pavonaceum and D.
menziesii [the latter widespread and common] do stop at the cotyledon
stage and put their all into building a resting root structure [tuber].
These are among a number of grassland and dryland plants of the Northwest
that essentially act like bulbs. Other examples of this growth
pattern include the balsamroots and wyethias, and some or most of the
dodecatheons.
So, conceivably D. trollifolium does this too -- or you may have one of
the other delphiniums that follow this pattern.
loren russell, corvallis, oregon
On Wed, 24 Apr 2002 susannah@cyber-dyne.com wrote:
> Has anyone else had this problem? I started some hand-collected seeds of a
> Delphinium native here in western Oregon (probably D. trolliifolium, but
> I've misplaced my identification book). They sprouted happily after about
> three weeks' sratification. Problem is, once they got to be about 2-3
> inches tall with nice big juicy-looking seed leaves, they completely
> stopped growing and developing. For two months they continued to sit there
> happily dressed in only their seed leaves, while I tried everything I could
> think of to get them moving. I had them in sterile potting mix, and
> thought they might be missing some obscure nutrient or symbiote. I first
> tried giving them some dilute fish and seaweed emulsion. When that didn't
> help, I tried transplanting some to a pot with a bit of unamended garden
> soil (for the microflora), some homemade compost, and some peat and perlite
> to lighten the blend. I've given them assorted levels of light, indoors
> and outdoors, and assorted (reasonable) temperatures. In the last few
> weeks, they've started to die but I still have some left. There are no
> apparent insects or nibbles -- my best guess is that they die because their
> seed leaves are getting kind of worse for wear and tear after three months.
> Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get the remaining plants to
> grow??? I grow an awful lot a lot of stuff from wild-collected seed, and
> I've never run into anything like this before.
>
> Apologies to those who also read the CA-natives list, where I posted this
> question a while back.
>
> -- Susannah the mostly-lurker
>
