Re: starting seeds & Wright intro's

In a message dated 8/12/2004 4:18:13 PM Central Daylight Time, willwarner@alltel.net writes:


I'm looking for suggestions for starting seeds.  I'm wanting to get the biggest head start.


The fastest start and highest germination rates for iris seed here have been achieved starting in water soaked paper towels placed inside quart freezer bags. I label the bags with a Sharpie and stack, flat, a number of them together wrapped in aluminum foil.

I do not know with certainty the aluminum foil is necessary. I bowed to conventional wisdom suggesting dark was a necessity for iris seed germination. This is not true for daylily seeds.

My seed packs were stored flat in frig and were periodically shuffled and repositioned as I sought midnight snacks. Were I to uses this method again, I would likely follow a recent suggestion (Eaves' I think)  to store them upright so that the seeds roots could easily orient themselves.

I have not grown irises under lights but have kick started daylilies is a similar way. I set high intensity florescents (Wal Mart parking lot lamps) two feet over a bed inside a heated green house. I rigged the lights with a photo cell that came on at dusk and off at dawn. The growth rate was accelerated by approximately 2x as one would expect.

At the time this project was taking place there was a body of thought suggesting plants needed a "rest period" and 24 hours of light would be detrimental. I did not find this to be true for daylily seedlings and doubt it would be true for iris seedlings and most other seedlings.

In a basement operation I would think the best results would be obtained locating the lights as close as possible to the seedlings and making some provision to raise the lights as the seedlings grow.

Smiles,
Bill Burleson
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