Germination Issues or Impatience

Hi, minus 31C last night … but on the bright side … how long is too long for waiting for germination ?

I planted my seeds 1 week before Xmas and no evidence of lifeyet but samples are still “firm” and not rotted - moss in the trays.
The seeds are mostly zone 3 hardy OP roses such as Therese Bugnet, Rugosas, Suzanne, Dr Merkeley, Lillian Gibson (not really hardy), Alika etc … some seeds 2 years old sitting in the drawer, others off the bush. I never used a formal hardening off period as some sat on the bush during last winter. Seven trays were planted and under lights (probably couple hundred seeds). Planted in sterile soil (1inch) over pearlite (1inch) in standard seed trays, moistened till damp and covered.

Any suggestions if a reasonable period has passed for at least “1” germination, such as wait till next year and do again using plan B.

March is perennial start time so I should consider clean out as an option.

OK, outside the temps were in negative territory. What are the average temps inside where you have your seeds planted?

Riku,
It shouldn’t take this long for planted seeds to geminate. It doesn’t sound like you gave your seeds a proper cold treatment. Some seeds will germinate without cold treatment but most cold hardy rose seeds need to be kept moist at 2C to 5C from 4 weeks to 4 months. Sitting on the bush over winter is not the same as a cold treatment. If the seeds you planted are at room temp, some may still germinate but I don’t think most will until they have a proper cold treatment.

Riku, my ‘Therese Bugnet’ seeds had germinated pretty much two months to the day after receiving cold stratification in the fridge (+4C). A small amount of calcium nitrate had been sprinkled in the baggie containing a sterilized light loamy medium.

Terry

Zone 3, near Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Thanks folks,

Appears the consensus is skipping a formal cold stratification is not a good idea with these hardies … I never stop learning that part about do not take short cuts. I will see if I can wet screen, salvage, dry and stratify … unless somebody mentions not a good idea? The long term plan is start the skills building blocks to hybridizing … otherwise not much point if I do not learn how to germinate them successfully … looking to create that “nose delightful stinker” good to zone 3 to give Cuthbert and Merkeley a run for their efforts before clock is up. Color and bush form optional for now.

Kim good point, according to the vintage room thermometer it is about 18-20C in the grow area (vintage room has many uses - winter gardening area), and stays fairly constant, lights on for about 10 hours … the Red Dawn cuttings off Paul’s Pickering originals are doing well (on same stand) so I guess temps is okay ?

By the way for tose who might be interested those Red Dawns Paul had Pickering grow ever vigorous in my book … on the third set of cutting this winter from the original fall ones. Got a couple spares for those in Canada if you want them - can send in late May through Margit (very late).

You may not have to screen, rinse, “repeat”. What if you moved the trays where they can receive some freezes then move them back inside? Just keep them covered with screening so vermin don’t munch the seeds. You might explore the possibilities of leaving them where the weather can get to them a bit, then move them back inside to mimic the freeze-thaw cycle Nature would put them through. Just a thought. Good luck!

I stratify mine in the fridge first for several weeks but sometimes I will take them out for a week and then back in and so on like Kim suggest and that often starts some of them germinating. It’s like they think it’s spring!

Just a note about what “freeze” means in Alberta, Canada this winter. Edmonton has reported temperatures close to -40 C (-40 C is the same as -40 F) in the past several days. Riku lives in Calgary, a bit to the south and maybe slightly warmer, but “receive some freezes” might be problematic. Percy Wright used to bury cans of seeds in snowbanks and then germinate them in the spring. I don’t see any need to rinse (etc)–just keep them where they stay cold or slightly frozen, and sooner or later they probably will germinate. My guess is that “later” will apply. Surely room temperature will not work for many of them.

Back when we had consistently cold weather here in Charleston, WV (through about 2001) I would just plant the seeds in flats and keep the flats (protected from mice by metal mesh) in the garage. The temperature there was usually in the 35-40 F range, and when weather outside started to warm up the seeds would begin to germinate. One hybridizer said if she had to wait for two months or more she’d pull her hair out–but that was the sort of time I expected.

Peter

This year I had sufficient of some kinds that I did a couple tests. I put some Carefree Sunshine and Rainbow KO at room temp, and also an unknown very good yellow shrub that I call TCY. Then at intervals of a month I’ve put them into the cold. Of the CS at R.T. I’ve had about 1 seed in each bag of 115 germinate. Those CS that I put away Nov 15, directly to cold from harvesting out of hips after a month or so in fridge, I got 30 germinated this week. The one put in Dec 15 gave the same result. The RKO directly to cold gave 32/81. Those held warm for a time are lagging way behind now they are in cold. I did get 1-2 per bag germinate without a cold period. Same holds for TCY. Some seeds of other CV I tested last year showed benefit of warm stratification before cold, others did not- it simply delayed germination by that amount of time.

In the newest newsletter I have some numbers on “naturally after-ripened” seeds. Drying benefits some, not others. Some keep for years.

Part of the problem may also be the seeds you’re trying to germinate. Some of what you have listed will germinate easy and others won’t. You didn’t mention what Rugosa use tried, but for me species R.rugosa and Showy Pavement seeds germinated well, though Darts Dash and Blanc Double de Courbet had low germination rates. When I tried germinating Alika seeds I didn’t get any seedlings. I haven’t tried germinating Theresa Bugnet because the crosses I tried on it never took and I haven’t tried germinating OP seeds. But I’ve heard it’s better to use it as a pollen parent than the seed parent. I think the same can be said for Suzanne, most of the successful crosses are of it as the pollen parent. Some triploids (Dr Merkeley) and wide crosses (Lillian Gibson) can be difficult to germinate, though not always. I haven’t worked either rose, but the triploids Bonica and Prairie Joy have germinated well for me and OP seeds from my own wide cross (Marie Pavie x R.blanda) had a 25% germination rate this year. The only way to know for sure which seeds will and will not germinate well is to try them. That is why I almost always germinate OP seeds of plants I want to try as seed parents. It’s not fool proof since some plants like the Explorers produce lots OP seeds but they are very picky to what pollen they accept.

Ah yes seed germination. It was a shock for me when I started, as I was used to dealing with corn. I’m not sure that I’ve figured out the rules yet. I tend to work with Explorers on at least one side of the pedigree. Most of the time I use them as the pollen parent. What I think I know is:

  1. that the pollen parent can strongly influence germination. I have seed lots from the same seed parent plant involving very different pollen parents. The pollinations were done at the same time, hips were harvested and treated the same, and one seed lot has quite a few seedlings up, the other one nothing.

  2. For me, it does not seem to matter if they are removed from the hips before the hips dry or after they dry. And it seems like they can undergo the cold treatment in the hips, too.

  3. Temperature for germination does seem to be important. Too warm, seems to slow things down.

  4. In terms of germination, some roses just do not work as seed parents. Some roses are really good seed parents. And some roses are sort of middle of the road.

  5. Seed size does not seem to mean anything.

  6. Some seed parent, pollen parent combinations germinate quickly, 2 weeks after being planted in the seed trays. Others really do not get going until 2 months after sowing. I tend not to keep the seed trays for a second year, due to space issues.

  7. Things seem to work fairly well for me if the seeds spend at least 3 months in a cool/cold environment, which is either the garage or the fridge. I do not use paper towels. I just put the seeds in a ziploc bag. I put about an inch or so of moist promix in the bottom of the seed trays. Put the seeds on top of the promix and cover it with an inch or so of play ground sand. Place them under the lights and keep them moist. Once the seedlings have a couple of sets of leaves, I will transplant them to a pot.

Good luck and don’t give up. It is well worth the frustration and effort.

Liz

There may be some articles here that help your germination sucess:

http://home.roadrunner.com/~kuska/rosepublicationsindex.htm

Thanks everyone for the suggestions and guidance as I would like to salvage the hours spent on this 1st batch,

This coming weekend it is predicted to go to plus 15 / 0 C so I will take the trays out to get cooled down for awhile and then back in - back and forth so to speak based on weather permitting (garage is too full so can’t be used as an alternative).

I had always assumed cold stratification was just making up for harvesting the seeds before they spent a good cold winter hardening off (maturing?) … learned something new.

Paul I went down and looked at what I had planted … the complete list is,

  1. (El) Ariana
  2. Rotesmeer
  3. Lillian Gibson
  4. Martin Frobisher
  5. Gertrude Jykell (convinced I need to try as one of the building blocks - I have three own root samples growing in the gardens for at least 8 - 12 years and they still doing well, die to the ground as protection stopped about 4 or 5 years ago and come write back and I had not notice any decline … good genes and what a fragrance to capture - not sure if this comes true from seed)
  6. Suzanne
  7. Alika
    7.Prairie Dawn
  8. Prairie Joy
  9. unknown rose seed pack from Devonian Gardens Rose Day (faded writing looks like it spells Manetti but I would be surprised)
  10. unknown rose seed pack from Devonian Gardens Rose Day
  11. Therese Bugnet
  12. Carefree X (lost but did have both the pink and yellow version)
  13. Marguerite Hilling
  14. Michel Trudeau
  15. Dr. Merkeley

Personal opinion based on N=1 experiments. Freezing rose seeds directly and suddenly may be fatal to them. I got zero germination from Pink Meidiland that had been deliberately frozen in hips to 0 F, for a couple months, after some weeks in fridge. A couple possibilities. Maybe very slow freezing is OK, allowing adaptation to occur. Maybe this CV can’t take it like the ones you are interested in.

Counterargument. As reported in the newsletter this week, I harvested John Cabot seeds north of Yellowstone after winter and got 1/3 + to germinate.

A place that gets near freezing, but not more than 1-2 degrees below is what you need. Perhaps inside a big picnic cooler inside your car.

Forget the lights at this stage, all they do is grow the moss which can prevent the germinated seeds from penetrating.

There must be someplace in the house that feels like a refrigerator or worse, so put them there. Seven trays take up some space so get inventive.

With the fair amount of seeds you sowed even in the worst case something should should germinate from your efforts, just wait.

When the temps. outside are right there can be some amazing growth.

Good luck, Neil

I sow Dart’s dash seeds last winter and had a very high germination rate (but no flower yet).

Andre,
That’s great that you had such good germination with the Darts Dash seeds. Looking back at my records I see I didn’t have good luck with DD as a seed parent. Most of the pollens didn’t take on it and when I did get seeds, most didn’t germinate. Only once did I get seeds to germinate and they turned out to be OP seeds and not from the cross I made. But despite that, I put pollen on it again this year and got seeds. They haven’t started to germinate yet but it’s still early.

It doesn’t surprise me that your seedlings haven’t bloomed in the first year. Only the most vigorous of the Rugosa seedlings I’ve grown have bloomed late in their first season. More have bloomed in their second season and some didn’t bloom until their third season. So be patient, they’ll bloom eventually.

I’ll be patient.

I forgot to mention that my seeds was OP DD. Maybe that’s why the germination rate was good.

What was the cross you made ? Maybe it would be better to cross it with other rugosa

Rowley (1956) found that a period of heat before chilling greatly improved germination of Rosa canina seeds.

“By piecing together the findings of these and other experiments it has been possible to formulate a general procedure by which seeds of Rosa canina can be persuaded to skip a year and germinate as well the first spring as it would, untreated, the second. This procedure has been adopted as a matter of course for all rose seed, hybrid or otherwise, at the John Innes Institution. The hips are harvested as soon as ripe in the autumn, opened without delay and the achenes cleaned out. They are stratified in tall pots (“long toms”) of moist vermiculite, screened through an appropriate sieve so that the seeds can be sifted free with ease in the spring. Two or three layers can be included in one pot. The pots are then stood in a warm glasshouse for two months and then transferred to a refrigerator at approximately freezing point for a further two months. Care is taken to dampen the vermiculite so that at no time do they dry out completely. Finally the achenes are sifted out and sown in the normal way.”
http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Roses/breeding/Rowley/caninaseeds/caninaseeds.html

I stratified 228 DD OP seeds last year and only 8 germinated while none of them survived. I had to battle Downy Mildew that couple of years and it’s taken a toll on the seedlings, so that is why most of those didn’t survive.

I did use pollen from another Rugosa this time and I’m more hopeful they’ll germinate better. The pollen parent is a triploid R.rugosa that has single flowers. I’m hoping to get a triploid with more doubled flowers from the cross. I used Therese Bugnet pollen on the triploid R.rugosa and those seeds are starting to germinate. TB is more double than DD is so the TB seedlings maybe more double than the DD seedlings. But the DD seedlings will be pure Rugosa while the TB seedlings will hybrids.

I pretty much follow the same procedure as Rowley did with the R.canina seeds. Where I remove the seeds right after collecting the hips and I store them in moist paper towels until it’s time for cold treatment. Except this year I stored the hips of the earliest ripeners in the fridge until early October before giving them a warm treatment. Some of earliest hips are ripe in mid or late August so those seeds would be in warm treatment for three months if I didn’t store them in the fridge first.