i tried embryo culture 5 days ago and today i see root.
i didn’t expect it at all bc it was just for fun and i didn’t even peel off testa.
so suprised!
seed is from a random rose of road, and it was in fridge for a month
what i did was…
cracked the seed coat and pulled out what’s inside, soaked it in NaDCC solution for half an hour(to kill germ and fungus), and put the embryo in plastic bag with a drop of water.
then i taped the bag on window to get some sunlight
A great success and helpful experience. Thanks for sharing! It’s interesting for me to see that germination could take place with testa. I have not been able to achieve this in my attempts so far, so I have always removed it. Maybe I was too impatient after all, or it has been successful due to the soaking in Calcium Hypochlorite solution , which I had never used before. In any case it is a fine message.
I crushed like 6-7 seeds and got only 1 successfuly extracted embryo, so I couldn’t take risk of peeling testa off. maybe impact of strong light is more dominant than existance of testa. and since the embryo was in water drop, swollen embryo may have torn open testa by itself
Amazing! I’ve tried and never succeeded.
Well this is very exciting, I can do to this stage most times! Please update us on if their is any consistency to this method!!
Thank you for sharing! Embryo culture may well be a winner! What we need is a protocol that is simple enough and at the same time precise enough on the crucial and decisive details!
today I saw the sprout has risen above the soil.
I’ve seen unstripped testa can choke seed leaf which leads to seedling’s death
,So I got rid of testa with two pincets.
BTW I tried the same method once again 5 days earler, today I noticed some of the seeds started to bloat. only seeds soaked fully in trickle have swollen enough to crack testa. hope they let out roots. most of those are directly from fresh rosehips.
Sadly this seedling turned out as an albino.
I have another seed about to sprout but it has not developed root yet.
Hi Marshall,
I’m enjoying reading about your experiment! Are you using regular tap water or something special?
It’s so frustrating when the cotyledons appear, but the radicle fails to grow. I’ve seen this on many of my OP Honorine de Brabant sproutlings. None of the ones that were like that ended up surviving. I wonder why it happens?
I use regular tap water, and I also don’t know what makes rootless sproutling yet. I guess it happens when cotyledons apper earlier than radicle, maybe I need to cover seed with soil well to shut off light.(I’ve done rooting many times and it felt like strong light isn’t that good for growth of root, and good for wakening of bud…)
or maybe it could be just because the end of radicle was damaged somehow.
anyway I planted this rootless sproutling in pot, hope it makes a miracle.
another seeds from fresh rosehip started to germinate.
those were extracted and dipped 2 weeks ago.
just extracted my 2024 1st cross’ seed embryo and dipped it in water.
LBfulla(my own rose) X munstead wood.
polination 8.14. / harvesting 11.15.
it had only 3 seeds(exogenous)
one was dead inside, one was crushed in extracting, last one was successfully extracted. even testa was removed during the process.
Btw this is my first rose, LBFulla.
Leak(japanese florist’s rose) X Minerva, 2023.
quite pretty and fragrant, but also a blackspot prone
Congratulations with your germinations Marshall 
This protocol was a game-changer for me (big thanks to Don). Today, all my hybrid seeds germinate using this method, making my life significantly easier. While embryo rescue is time-consuming, it’s definitely worth it if you’re dealing with low germination rates. It also streamlines the process beautifully, eliminating those few late-season germinations that never seem to thrive or amount to anything despite your best efforts.
The protocol is straightforward yet detailed enough to allow for adjustments to the setup and workflow as you progress. From my experience, leaving the embryos encased in their testa for 2-6 hours in the hydrogen peroxide solution greatly facilitates the dissection process, I even have started leaving them overnight. Skipping the removal of the testa doesn’t work in this workflow; even the smallest piece left behind hinders seedling growth and sometimes be detrimental.
Instead of plastic bags, I use single-use, food-grade shallow cups with transparent lids. I place the embryos on vermiculite saturated with a hydrogen peroxide solution.
Since I prefer not to perform embryo rescue until around Christmas, I stratify all seeds in vermiculite with a weak calcium nitrate solution, as described by Larry Davis in one of the newsletters. I take good care of the seeds in the bags and I even clean them in hydrogen peroxide solution when necessary and freshen the vermiculite. When I begin excising the embryos one or two months after harvesting, I find the seeds much easier to cut through. Amazingly, there’s almost nothing left of the very irritating ring fibers.
I would love to hear more about your experiments. Skipping the step of removing the testa would be fantastic! 
Best wishes
Hjörtur
Add images
you have amazing facility.
unfortunately I slipped down and broke my ankle few days ago, will get sugery next week.
I’ll try to keep those embryos alive but honestly just watering my roses with crutches is quite challenging rn…
I couldn’t take photo but they are still germinating.
the rootless sproutling up there also seems to survive and is perparing first true leaf.
btw I guess uv rays in natural sunlight somehow decompose inhibitory substances in testa. that’s the only reasonable explanation why I see germination even tho I didn’t get rid of it.
Ouch! I’m sorry! Recover quickly!
the rootless sproutling has gone due to improper watering, so I planted ‘LBfullaXMunstead Wood’ in that empty pot.
