warm stratification

I’ve discovered, by accident, that Trier will germinate without cold stratification. I had soaked and then packaged op seeds from Trier the usual way on November 7th. Since I had oversoaked the coco fibre, I left the baggie open to let it dry out a bit. When I got ready to put it in the fridge, I had a look and noticed that three of the seeds had germinated. This was Nov. 21st. That’s two weeks! They’re still sprouting and so far 20 have germinated. By contrast I have had no germinations at all from the Trier seeds from last year that I stratified the usual way.

I had also left a bag out of r. Roxburghii and one of those seeds had also germinated. That went right into the fridge because I didn’t want to get overwhelmed this early in the season. I also had a very long sprout of Applejack that I inadvertently snapped.

Has anyone had experience with seeds of other roses that either don’t need cold stratification, or prefer not to get it?

I’ve had seeds germinate without stratification from a wide variety of crosses, including seeds of Armada, Coral Dawn, Duet, Fragrant Cloud, and Magenta. It makes me wonder how necessary stratification really is. Someday I’m going to do an experiment where I stratify one batch of seeds, and not stratify another and compare germination.

A couple of years ago, I kept seeds at room temperature for a month after removing them from the hips. If they started to germinate, I kept them at room temperature. If they didn’t, they went into the fridge for normal stratification. I ended up with a house full of seedlings in the middle of Winter - very inconvenient! Now I put all of the seeds into the refrigerator right away. So I’m really using chilling as a way to delay germination until Spring.

A year after Red Simplicity’s seeds were harvested, they germinated without germination in a short month.

without stratification, maybe??

I know guys who are sowing seeds directly (Gallica seeds mainly), but with seeds from not completly ripened hips.

Dormancy of seeds can be much less when they are not completly mature…

About stratification and/or after ripening; in my opinion we cannot generalize.

Among modern roses ancestors there are those that require cold stratification such as gallica. Others require more or less leaching of soluble inhibiting germination matters such as those from monsoon Asia.

Multiflora, wichurana or rugosa seed need little stratification.

When choosing a single seed stratification procedure we inevitably make a compromise.

By sowing seeds from not completly ripened hips one can bypass dormancy.

Friendly yours

Pierre Rutten

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We have had a rather short season in Southern Ontario this past year. After a relatively warm winter, we had an early spring that was interrupted by a hard freeze when the apricots were in bloom. So no apricots this year, and lots of cane damage to the roses, with the surprising exception of Trier and Vielchenblau. (Veilchenblau also germinates very fast.) Then came the drought. So hybridizing started late this year and many hips were still green when the snow came. So the above information is good to have.

My thanks to all.

One of my favorite hardy roses is Prairie Dawn. It is wonderfully fragrant, has blooms all the time, and is absolutely healthy, and it is upright. Its one fault is that the flowers don’t last in the vase. I think the term used is “self cleaning.” In the past if set only the occasional hip, so I assumed it was self sterile, and I wasn’t sure about the ploidy. I used the pollen on tetraploids and it worked fine. Now with Trier and Veilchenblau blooming beside it, it produced a fair number of hips. Live and learn. There’s nothing like experience!

With our odd weather, I also got op hips on Reine des Violettes and Topaz Jewel. The hips on RdV stayed green, but the ones on TJ ripened. The odd thing about TJ hips was that despite the size of the hip, each hip contained only one round seed. Whenever I used TJ pollen, I never got more than one seed per hip.

That’s really interesting you got ripe hips on Topaz Jewel. Congratulations. I sure hope you get a seedling or two from those rare seeds, and that they are noteworthy.

I have always thought TJ was totally sterile.

Has anyone else ever got ripe hips from TJ?..Seedlings?

Randy

I never got hips from Reine des Violettes, but I am very successful getting pollen. One just needs to sacrafice 13 or so flowers to get enough pollen. But the seedlings are very disease prone, but I’ve never really used it on other roses other than Prospero.

I have seedlings of Prospero x a rugosa rose that have produced very mat but crinkled foilage. I will give details of the rugosa rose I used in the future when I can get pictures of the flowers this spring.

Enrique

Reine des Violettes really needs a warmer climate than I have and I get very few blooms from it. One year after a cold winter, I didn’t even get flowers. I just keep it around for scentimental reasons. I didn’t intend to use it for breeding. I love lavender, purple, and maroon tones and I have other roses for that purpose. At least now you know that it can set hips on its own and you don’t have to work so hard. A better rose for me, although its not recurrent, is the gallica Belle de Crecy. I’ve gotten a fair number of seedlings from it, though none have bloomed as yet. It doesn’t set seed on its own, but when pollinated, it sets hips very well and they germinate well with normal cold stratification. Since its reputed to have China in it, maybe it won’t be too difficult to get reblooming seedlings before too long.

Randy

I’m surprised myself. I’m giving all the credit to the pollinators who must have loved the hot dry weather. I have an idea that the pollen came from another rugosa. For me that’s okay. I have a special fondness for diploids.

I was following the posts a couple of years ago of someone who got a germination from TJ and decided to get another plant of it. Last year I used the pollen and did get seeds, but so far no germinations. I got one seed this year from pollen on Little Darling. You must know that LD produces many, many seeds and has a high germination rate, but for TJ one seed was all it could do.

By the way, to my great surprise, after 14 months, one seed of your Prospero/Ferdinand Pichard cross germinated. Did I get the Calocarpa seeds from you? They germinated very well and a good proportion of them had rather smooth stems, which is kind of nice for a rugosa hybrid.

Sorry Randy. It’s Wenlock x Ferd Pichard.

Lydia,

Why yes, I do remember sending you the Wenlock X Ferd Pichard seeds, along with the OP Calocarpa seeds. It’s amazing that the W x FP seeds took so long to sprout. I like Wenlock as a parent as it usually has pretty good germination and produces fragrant seedlings about half the time, My seedlings from the same cross were for the most part fairly uniform in doubleness and about half were striped red on pink. Most are nice enough to give friends and family to enjoy but I’m still looking for a really special one.I have some stratifying now from Wenlock x Dr Eckener that I’m really hopeful for . Last season I got a nice Wenlock x Rugelda that is really quite nice with a dark pink that is an unusual shade, almost has brown tones to it sometimes. It set OP hips and I hope to get a seedling or two from them.

I really am hoping for something special from Rugelda x Dr’ Eckener.

I kind of got off the subject didn’t I? Well, You know how we are.

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Hi Randy

Good to here from you. I’ve been using Fourth of July for stripes. Wenlock is not available in these parts, so I got Prospero, but so far it refuses to set seed. I thought I bought Rugelda, but the supplier in question is notorious for mislabelling, and it turned out to be Sarah van Fleet. I removed it this fall because it gets rust and produces far too much plant and not enough flowers. I have better use for the space.I had been thinking about Dr. Eckener, but in the meantime have acquired Apricot Beauty, a Canadian hybrid, that I think has a lot of potential and is just the right color. There’s always a yellowish rose that I have in mind to get. Its good to know that Dr. Eckener has good pollen. I just planted another triploid, Roberta Bondar, for which I have high hopes. My most prolific seed parent last year was Morden Blush. I never thought of using it until someone mentioned it on a post. This is how we learn. I didn’t even know that it produced hips. It does get blackspot, but it survives very well in my Lake Ontario sand. I used two healthy singles for pollen, Cherry Meidilland, which I adore, and Peach Schnapps, and I added in pollen from Topaz Jewel. I’ve kept the thorny yellowish seedlings hoping that they could be from TJ. The nice thing was that most of the seedlings were somethat double, and some were fragrant, and there’s lots of them. Now its a matter of what survives the winter.

Lydia,

I really like Cherry Meidiland too. Never has any disease here in the humid Mid-Atlantic U.S. If only it had more fragrance… Anyway, I used it last year as the seed parent with gallica officinalis pollen and wow! The seedlings were some of the healthiest half-gallicas that I’ve produced so far. Really nice leaves; I can’t wait to see what the blooms might be like. Oh and the seedlings have some of the resinous gland hairs like the gallica, with a piney sort of scent. Well, that’s all for now.

Tom,

that really gives me ideas. I haven’t had any germinatins from CM. Now I have some hope.