FINAL JAR CULTURE RESULTS (REFER TO DISCUSSIONS IMMEDIATELY ABOVE FOR RELEVANT DETAILS)
My main OBJECTIVE in doing these 2 particular cultures was to get very fast germinations happening to gain growing time as we are already in the middle of our growing season. This gives a greater chance to start moving the generation along this season, if any of them decide to flower before winter sets in!
CLINOPHYLLA x OP…3 successful germinations (initial prediction was for 2 germinations). The members of this colony were prematurely taken out of the jar and buried in seed raising mix due to fungus growing on one from this colony…this one disintegrated. Three from this colony sprouted simultaneously on day 10.
(CLINOPHYLLA X BRACTEATA) x OP… 5 successful germinations (initial prediction was for 6 germinations). All germinations were achieved by day 5 of jar culture.
Here are some personal thoughts of mine, that spring from these latest jar embryo cultures:
Seed that is massively dessicated (to the point of marginal viability) is also infinitely difficult to extract, as it has no “give” and easily fractures compared to viable yet dessicated seed. In other words, there appears to be a point beyond which seed dessication becomes a hinderance rather than a help, in achene extractions.
It appears that there should be more study done on when is the best time to plant the embryos from the jar and out into the germination medium (commercial seed raising mix in my case).
It is becoming apparent in my work with this jar method, that the optimal timing of embryo planting into seed raising mix could be when they partially green their cotyledons (and not anything to do with root development at all)… too many of these embryos with partially greening cotyledons (and hardly any root development in some cases) are germinating within days of being buried in the germination medium. This is too important to ignore.
In fact a fair few embryos just green their cotyledons in jar culture, but root developemt is almost nothing to speak of…yet once buried in seed raising mix they sometimes germinate in days.
I wonder if root development for SOME embryos is at times HINDERED by something in embryo culture, and I just wonder if that “thing” is light itself.
I speculate that for these reasons, once the embryo has greened its cotyledons, it should be buried in germination medium where the relative darkness does something to promote the bottom end…LOL!
Just for fun, this embryo in jar culture (flower carpet-white xop) is 4 days old.
“So what” you say…well…the webcam picked up something I would never have stood a chance of detecting with my eyes this morning…have a look at the top right cotyledon, can you see the partial fracture it has sustained? It is like looking at an X-Ray of a broken limb ROFLOL.
BTW to get three embryos from about ten flower carpet (white) plants, I must have looked through twenty or more hips. Most were empty hips, some had achenes, half of which had no embryo inside them, just a dried up testa.
I wonder if any of these op embryos will produce a seed fertile version of flower carpet-white…(yeah, and pigs fly!)
Update on Clinophylla x op seedlings…One of the three has decided to die (damping off)…the other two look very frail and are a worry! What is it with this Clinophylla?? Are we talking the same language about Clinophylla here… I thought it liked to live in a swamp LOL.
On the other hand the (clinophylla x bracteata) xop continue to grow just fine.
Just for fun, here is a tetracotyledon flower-carpet x OP embryo. As I mentioned in some other thread, the ‘Flower Carpet-white’ x OP embryos are showing me a high frequency of embryo abnormalities (for the relative few embryos that it produces).
This one is just starting to green up when I look at it with my eyes (this greening is not so obvious in this iamge).
I am now going to plant it into commercial seed raising mix, hoping that like most others at this very early stage of embryo development (ie. just starting to green up without root growth), the darkness of the germination medium will promt it to grow roots and sprout in a few days time. The less time it needs to spend in the jar, the better!
Here is another ‘Flower Carpet’-white’ embryo with partial greening but without roots, which I will also plant now. It can be a sort of ‘control’ for me, because the tetracotyledon may be less likely to succeed to germination due to higher likelihood of some inherent “disorder”.
"Update on Clinophylla x op seedlings…One of the three has decided to die (damping off)…the other two look very frail and are a worry! What is it with this Clinophylla?? Are we talking the same language about Clinophylla here… I thought it liked to live in a swamp LOL. "
My clinophylla seeds have just started to germinate naturally… got 8 up so far and counting and they are very strong seedlings with rich dark cotyledons and red/green true leaves. More are coming up all the time. In this case I think there was little advantage to culturing these seeds and the naturally germinated ones will overtake the cultured ones very quickly.
I am about to post pictures below of the two embryo cultured Clinophylla seedlings, which at the time of their germination looked pathetic in the 100F+ heat and super humidity… The temperatures have dropped considerably from the over 100F mark when they germinated. We have gorgeous mild autumn days now. I dislike heat and humidity, so I am very much in my element now, and I am looking forward to the rest of autumn winter and spring (these are my favourite seasons here where I live).
Simon, these are your back up seedlings if ever you need them. I hope you are pleased I have nursed them all along like they were the most precious thing, mainly for you, and yes maybe I will use them also, time and space permitting.
Germinated on Jan 25 2010 after being completely buried in commercial seed raising mix, as a partially greened embryo with incomplete root formation, @ 10 days into its jar culture.
Here is how it looks todsay (at 5 weeks and 2 days of growth):
This sister seedling also germinated on Jan 25 2010 after being completely buried in commercial seed raising mix, as a partially greened embryo with hardly any root formation, @ 10 days into its jar culture.
Here is how it looks today (at 5 weeks and 2 days of growth):
If a study WERE to be performed comparing easy to germinate seed like Clinophylla with embryo culture of the same, one should consider collecting fresh seed and sowing it immediately, and do the embryo culture simultaneously.
This eliminates possible time bias- I wonder whether freshly collected Clinophylla seed would germinate as fast as Clinophylla seed sown which has spent time drying out and travelling all around the place (ie. a “warm stratification” of sorts)… There are also climactic, cultural and probably a few other biases that would need addressing, before a true comparison can be achieved…dunno…shrugs
Anyway, in the final analysis, embryo culture for me has an imporatant but limited application, such as for obtaining super-fast germinations, or for germinating recalcitrant seed…It is just another skill that is handy to have when you need it most, like grafting or budding…just my opinion, of course.
On the question of dried seeds vs fresh. George is undoubtedly right, there is a difference. David Zlesak published a paper showing even a short while dry affects germ %. Many earlier studies on germ responses used commercial seed that had been dried for shipping. I’d say all of these need big ?? around their results. I’m in process of testing for one CV (Country Dancer) both short and longer drying, freezing in the hips, holding in frig of the hips, etc. It will take a year to have the results. I’ve not even taken the last lot of seed from hips to stratification yet and they’ll need 10-12 months to see the final tally. Some of the early treatments do have germ already at a constant 4-5 C.
On the other hand for R. soulieana the best results were obtained with 68 weeks dry before planting, and for some canina types the germ % rose very year for 5 yr.
I will get that review finished and “published” soon.
