Hi all,
I soak my seeds for at least 24-48 hours and am wondering if this is really a necessary step of which I can eliminate. Do most of you still do this and if so for how long and what do you use to soak your seeds in?
Thanks so much!
Hi Jeanie,
I have not heard of soaking the seeds before. What are you soaking the seeds in? Is it just water to hydrate the seeds or is it a disinfectant? Do you soak them just before cold treatment?
Paul
Thank you Henry
I completely forgot about soaking in drain cleaner. Must be early onset alzheimer
Hi Jeanie,
I used to do soak seeds before cold stratification for a day or two. The idea was that I wanted to try to get them to imbibe water before the cold so they can go through the stratification treatment more efficiently and uniformly and be able to germinate then more uniformly. Moisture is important for the biochemical reactions to proceed well during stratification. Henry’s treatment is very good.
Over time here I unfortunately got a bit lazy. It became hard for me to manage the cups and baggies and seeds to soak. Lately, I just have put them directly into moist peat and have given some warm strat at room temp before cold hoping that during that time the seeds would absorb the moisture from the moist peat they needed and maybe microbes would help break down seed coats if they were a bit limiting.
Take Care,
David
I did the test with the enzymatic drain cleaner in 2007 with seeds of ‘Sympathie’. I know that the lot size was small (only 14 seeds of each)but in this case a postive affect on the germination was not observed.From this time I only let them soak in water for some hours.
drain cleaner is the red curve, the blue one only watered for 24 h:
lazy regards
Bernhard
Thank you Paul, Henry, Bernard and David for responding.
You have all been so helpful.
The reason I really wanted to know is that I wondered if there was a possibility that any sort of bacteria from the water could get into the achene and damage the seeds. We have well water but I have been using purified water from plastic bottles and H202 (1/2 dose of each). I’m going to skip the soaking on some of my seeds and see if that makes a difference in germinations.
Jeannie, if you are going to use peroxide dilute it to about 1000 ppm, or 2 ml in 60 ml of water. This is strong enough to supress mold and bacteria without being strong enough to damage the embryos. I wouldn’t worry so much about contamination from the well, the bugs that get embryos are the ones that are already present in the seeds. If your well water is certified potable it should be ok for seeds.
I found that soaking seeds was of no benefit when working with varieties that readily produce lots of easy to germinate seed. Soaks of various types might improve germination of difficult to sprout varieties where the reason for poor germination is high concentrations of germination inhibitors in the outer woody seed coat. I found that soaking was completely unnecessary for my chosen seed producers. It should also be mentioned that I will quickly abandon working with a cultivar whose seeds do not germinate readily without a lot of coaxing. Difficult germination can be an inheritable trait and in my opinion is best avoided.
Soaks of various types might improve germination of difficult to sprout varieties where the reason for poor germination is high concentrations of germination inhibitors in the outer woody seed coat.
Leaching of inhibitors is probably not the major benefit derived from soaking seeds in water. The embryo itself metabolizes away the inhibitor, but it has to be hydrated enough for the enzymes involved to function. An initial soaking assures that embryos are adequately hydrated so this can happen as the seeds later sit in stratification.
As a guage, it takes 24 to 48 hours of soaking for embryos extracted from bone-dry seeds to hydrate enough to be able to remove their testae.
Difficult germination can be an inheritable trait and in my opinion is best avoided.
That may depend on what your breeding goals are. High dormancy is an adaptive trait for cold hardiness so selecting for breeders with low seed dormancy may be counterproductive if that’s your target.
Don, what amount of time do you suggest achenes be pre-soaked before stratifying them?
Also do you use water or some other liquid?
It would be interesting to use digestive enzymes from health food stores. Maybe they would best mimic nature?
what amount of time do you suggest achenes be pre-soaked before stratifying them
Other people have far better experience than I do germinating seeds conventionally so I limit my comments to observations and speculations rather than recommendations.
Also do you use water or some other liquid?
I don’t germinate seeds conventionally except by accident.
I included a number of health food disestive enzymes in my tests, see:
http://home.roadrunner.com/~kuska/improvementrosegermination.htm
Link: home.roadrunner.com/~kuska/improvementrosegermination.htm
I am also selecting against dormancies as I do not stratificate. I sow early january in a cold greenhouse so that seeds experience a natural if short stratification.
Dormancies are also an adaptative trait to warm climates i.e: bracteata or banksiae. Different ones and it is a problem with roses that combine both dormancy types. And probably more a nuisance for the rose breeder as it is not as temp related so that stratification does not help much.
Rugosa and wichurana even if rather hardy have little dormancy.
Pierre, can you give us a number of the germination rate you reach, with your ‘natural method’ ?
When do the 1st seedlings appear? Do you have to heat your greenhouse then?
Where I am living temporary outdoor temps below 0
Pierre, if you have time, can you elaborate a little on what do you do, or not do, to achieve germination by your ‘septic way’?
Pierre, thanks for the information you just posted on the new thread about germinating the ‘septic way’