Great idea George, thanks so much.
George:
I tried your idea of embryo culture this afternoon. I extracted four embryos from OP Henri Martin and five embroys of Chihuly X George Burns. I’ll post the results in a few days under a new thread.
I tried this several years ago with Monterey Pine seeds. The method was a little different as I set up a pair of vice grips to just squeeze and crack the outer shell. The results were pretty good. I tried the squeeze and crack method with roses and it was a complete failure. I managed to smash a number of OP Scarlet Knight and launched several into the living room. I guess I’ll see if vacuum cleaner dust works as a seed staring medium LOL.
You were sooooooo right when you said it requires practice. Thanks for the suggestion. I hope mine germinate.
Jeff
I think this method would be especially valuable in terms of trying to utilize those few seed that are sometimes produced by normally infertile cultivars.
There is a lady in Melbourne that posted some ripe hips of ‘Gloire Lyonnaise’ at HMF.
My specimen has never set hips but I really like what it has to offer genetically. There are no recorded descendants.
It would be fun to see if seed like this could be grown out and carried forward.
Hi all.
Jeff, if you extracted your embryos without damaging the radicle, then there is no reason that they will not germinate, and FAST! Good on you for trying, I am sure it will make your day.
I am also doing another little experiment at the moment to see if the whole thing can be made even easier…will keep posting here if anything new comes up…
Pictures can take the place of lots of words…
Here is an achene (Iceberg x OP) that I just opened a few minutes ago.
As you may be able to see here, it was opened from a cotyledonary approach, after first identifying the ‘polarity’ of the seed by doing a few key cuts…If it is done really carefully, you can get this situation where basically a lid has been created and opened up! There is no seed, because it has been extracted out easily.
The bottom part of the achene on this picture is the closest end to you, and it is the wider cotyledonary ‘pole’…the radicle ‘pole’ appears at the top end of the picture, and is further away in the distance.
Here is the Iceberg x OP seed, as it appeared when dislodged from the achene shown above. A little bit of care in the slicing usually produces undamaged seed. This is the typical appearance of a viable seed.
If the seed looks black or jelly-like, it is dead!
More ponderings…
I clean the jars out with a tiny amount of household bleach plus dishwashing detergent prior to useage.
I would like to emphasise again however that the level of success shown here has been achieved with seed picked and incubated in the same 24hr period.
Using older/stored seed is not part of my experience here, as it defeats the whole purpose of getting the quickest germinations from harvest.
I do not know how stored seed would behave in contrast, but I suspect pathogens are more likely to show up, a problem I have never encountered in my ‘jar culture’ thus far.
Also, I do avoid harvesting hips that are mouldy or showing any other signs of disease.
As far as I can, I collect hips at their earliest stage of maturity (ie. just starting to show a flush of color, or else where the sepals have started to dry out).
Here is the typical appearance of dead rose seed (Iceberg x OP).
Only a small amount of slicing can reveal this bad seed, and it can be immediately discarded without a second more wasted on it!
This is another good thing about extracting, you can eliminate crap seed without having to complete the extraction.