Okay, I know many of us put our daylily seeds in the refrigerator to give them a dose of chilling before planting (stratification). However, I have also heard 'many' who are adamant about 'not' allowing daylily seeds to freeze... the general reasoning being that too much moisture in the seeds, when frozen, will expand and the seeds will be damaged.

Well, here's another spin on the topic: Ken Oakes makes reference in the following link to his grandfather having regularly put daylily seeds in the freezer to be planted in the spring.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

I've been growing daylilies from seeds for a number of years now, but I still enjoy watching YouTube videos giving advice (to see what I may have missed, or pick up on new ideas). This one really surprised me. Any thoughts ...? Thank you.

You can freeze daylily seeds but they must be very dry (not just on the outside). It could prolong storage but is not likely to contribute stratification time which needs temps between 32F and 50F. There is actually an article about this in the recent Daylily Journal where testing was done on freezing of daylily seeds.

Does not sound like Ken Oakes' grandfather made 'any' effort to dry them ... rather, as though he just took any seeds that he considered too late in the year to start in the garden at the end of summer, tossed them in freezer to hold for later, and just planted them in the spring.

I have watched the video. You might want to contact Oakes to verify that when he said "freezer" he did mean a freezer that keeps a temperature of 0 F (-18C) rather than a refrigerator at say 38 F. Perhaps he may have been using the word freezer as a general term for refrigeration.

If he did mean keeping daylily seeds in a freezer at 0 F then those seeds would need to be quite dry. Now, can daylily seeds dry enough in an open pod in the field that has been left alone for a substantial time to survive being frozen in a freezer? That is an interesting question. It would be quite easy to test. Pollinate some daylily flowers; when the pods form wrap each one in a small piece of mosquito netting (or similarly open mesh material) to catch any seeds when the pods open; allow the pods to open leaving the seeds out in the field until late autumn; collect the seeds and place them immediately in a freezer; after some time (several months) remove them and try to germinate them. The control would need to be seeds from the same cross collected normally and treated normally. The control is needed to be certain that the seeds could germinate if not frozen.

The bottom line is that seeds of many plant species can be safely frozen but the amount of moisture in the seed at the time they are frozen determines if the seed will survive being frozen. Sometimes, perhaps the necessary moisture level might be possible in some natural conditions. Usually, seeds in simple conditions in a house are likely to naturally have higher levels of moisture than would be expected for them to survive being deeply frozen (0 F rather than say 30 F).

As an aside, Oakes stated that they do not bother to remove naturally pollinated pods - that is they do not prevent them from dropping their seeds in the rows of named cultivars. Even though natural pods tend to be few and far between that is a recipe for selling daylilies that are not true to name. I would hope that they rogue their daylilies when they flower. I have a substantial field of registered daylilies and after it snows I unfortunately find a few pods every year that I have missed. Of course most of those pods are empty by then. The result is that I find some daylilies that have grown in the field that are not true to name. There have not been many, but enough to potentially confound the identity of at least a handful of cultivars.

I am thinking that maybe the fall tended to be very dry like it is here most years. Any late seed pods found would probably be very dry along with the seeds inside them.
This has been one of those years here when any seed pods found in the late summer early fall would have been bone dry. I guess if there were some with too much moister they might not survive, but then again why put seeds in the freezer when the fridge will work for storage, unless maybe they are being saved for a few years down the road?

In response to the question of whether Ken Oakes 'misspoke' when he said 'freezer', one of the follow-up questions down below the video also questioned that:

I guess the next question would be at what temperature is the freezer? In the video it said until spring, so as Larry wondered, what would be the point to doing that?

It's been shown in scientific tests that freezing of hydrated daylily seeds is detrimental but that they can be safely frozen if internally dry enough, but why not test it yourself to see what happens? I might be able to find some daylily seeds here still in the pod but they'll already have been exposed to -6C (21F). Freezing being normal freezer temperature (0F/-18C) not just a few degrees below the freezing point.

The article in the Daylily Journal was inspired by the suggestion some have made that shipping daylily seeds to cold climates in winter can have a detrimental effect because the seeds can get frozen (presumably depending what the temperature was at the time and how long they were in an outside mailbox).

I have just collected 90 tetraploid seeds from some daylilies in my field. I quickly cleaned them of the debris from the pods, divided them into two sets of 45 seeds, placed one set of seeds in a poly bag with a label and into the freezer compartment of our refrigerator and the other set in a paper envelope at room temperature as I do normally.

The freezer compartment of the refrigerator has a temperature of 2°F (-16.7°C). Our stand-alone freezer has a temperature of 0°F/-17.8°C. The freezer used in the recent article in the Daylily Journal had a temperature of 14°F/-10°C. Note: all freezers do not have the same temperature.

We have had a few nights in the past couple of months when the temperatures were below freezing for at least part of the time.

I will update this post in a couple of months when both sets of seeds have been tested for germination.

Seedfork said: I am thinking that maybe the fall tended to be very dry like it is here most years. Any late seed pods found would probably be very dry along with the seeds inside them.
This has been one of those years here when any seed pods found in the late summer early fall would have been bone dry.

I agree. I'm about 50 miles from Oakes and that's my experience in this area. What fully ripens in the late summer and fall is DRY. And I think the last few months have been the second dryest I've seen in the last 27 years. It rained once in three months and not terribly much! The couple of times it drizzled doesn't count.
Also, I suspect that the modern habit of storing seed in plastic baggies wasn't always a thing. Envelopes and paper baggies may have been preferred some decades ago, and that would add to seed dessication.

When I read the journal article, I made a mental note not to freeze my seeds. I prefer the fridge anyway- it's easier to sort and select seeds without condensation from warming or yo-yo temps. If done on a cool day, the baggies barely notice they left the fridge for a while.

@admmad Thank you for your detailed and thorough contributions to this thread!

When I have seeds coming in the mail, I always call my post office and ask that they 'hold' my incoming seed (plants, leaf cuttings, etc.) for pickup at the post office... inevitably, folks tend to ship at the start of a week, thinking they will arrive near a weekend when the receiver can take care of whatever is coming.

With my schedule, that means arrivals hit the post office on the days I work 12-hrs (Thurs) or 14-hrs (Fri / Sat), when I can not possibly get to the post. And then, they would sit there all weekend, till I have a free day on Monday (can only catch the post open during a narrow window, 10 am to 2 pm in our area). So Ron picks seeds up for me, once they reach the post.

The day seeds arrived here a couple of weeks ago, it was 21 degrees... not a day to leave something outdoors all day.

Your comment, "I have just collected 90 tetraploid seeds from some daylilies in my field. I quickly cleaned them of the debris from the pods, divided them into two sets of 45 seeds, placed one set of seeds in a poly bag with a label and into the freezer compartment of our refrigerator and the other set in a paper envelope at room temperature as I do normally." ...

Thank you! I am so happy to have someone with more daylily knowledge than myself testing this.

On the other hand, based on the 'really dry' theory... @Sooby @Hembrain and @Seedfork ... I just planted over 20 seeds recovered from a pod I found outdoors in the spring ... a pod I did not find the previous fall, still on its scape, nicely dry and just lightly cracked open at the top, with a lot of seeds... which wintered outdoors in temps this past winter down to -35 F.

I could not bring myself to toss the seeds, they looked so full, shiny black and perfect - firm when you squeezed them. I do 'not' expect any of them to germinate, honestly. But wouldn't it be astounding if any of them did?

@adknative

adknative said:Thank you for your detailed and thorough contributions to this thread!

You are very welcome.

Thank you! I am so happy to have someone with more daylily knowledge than myself testing this.

You are very welcome.

On the other hand, based on the 'really dry' theory... @Sooby @Hembrain and @Seedfork ... I just planted over 20 seeds recovered from a pod I found outdoors in the spring ... a pod I did not find the previous fall, still on its scape, nicely dry and just lightly cracked open at the top, with a lot of seeds... which wintered outdoors in temps this past winter down to -35 F.

I could not bring myself to toss the seeds, they looked so full, shiny black and perfect - firm when you squeezed them. I do 'not' expect any of them to germinate, honestly. But wouldn't it be astounding if any of them did?

Let's look at what happens naturally. The pods dry; they crack open; the seeds fall to the ground. Or perhaps deer eat the pods and a few of the seeds survive their passage through the digestive tract and fall to the ground somewhere. The seeds might become covered by wind-blown dust, falling leaves or fall into cracks in the soil surface. I will assume that somehow at least some of them are not eaten and become covered with sufficient soil to germinate in the spring. If the seeds have too much moisture (are too plump) to survive winter then how would daylilies naturally increase in locations with cold (below 32°F) winters? Presumably those daylily species that are native to sub/semi tropical areas would not need to evolve to have sufficiently dried seeds. However, those daylily species (or populations) native to areas with cold winters would need some way for their seeds to survive those winters. There are some qualifiers. Seeds buried under sufficiently deep snow cover may not experience temperatures below 32°F. But those same seeds might experience much colder temperatures when the snow cover was not present or deep enough.

In other words - how do seeds naturally survive lethally cold winters? Do they dry sufficiently in the autumn to survive being frozen? Do they naturally (when they fall to soil) not experience sufficiently cold temperatures to die (in locations with potentially lethal cold winter temperatures)?

Update for freezing seeds.
I left the seeds in the freezer for one week. I then removed them from the freezer, placed them in a moist paper towel and put them in the crisper of the refrigerator. I took the 45 seeds that had been at room temperature in a paper envelope and put them in a moist paper towel and then in the crisper of the refrigerator.
I took both sets of seeds out of the refrigerator three days ago. I checked the conditions of the seeds and replaced the moistened paper towels. {edited - removed} As of today three (3/45) of the frozen seeds show signs of sprouting. Many of the seeds that had been frozen had mould; I did not see any obvious mould on the seeds that had not been frozen.
{edited - removed}

I just saw this thread. If I forget or miss a pod (or two or ten) at the end of the year I do find that I have lots of little seedlings coming up the next Spring. While I have had quite mild winters the last few years, I still get plenty of days with cold days (around freezing) and very cold nights (teens and twenties). I don't mulch my plants, so the only covering the seeds would have are leaves that have fallen.

I am curious as to what mechanism the seeds have for survival. In the late Fall/early Winter, I get quite a bit of rain so I don't know how the seeds would stay dry even if they were quite dry when they fell.

I do find that I get a lot more seedlings from diploids than tetraploids. But that's most likely because I have more late dips than tets.

bxncbx,
Also one of the main reasons you would get more Dip seedlings than Tet seedlings is because overall Dips make way more seeds in the pods than Tets.
Is is interesting that you actually get seedlings from the dropped seeds.

I have gotten some seedlings from tets but I'm not sure any have survived long enough to bloom. I'm pretty rough transplanting them and honestly don't try too hard to keep them alive since they are Unknown x Unknown. I have gotten a dip seedling to bloom and based on the characteristics and where the seedling was found I was able to deduce the parents. It helped a lot that it was a double as I don't have that many of them.

I am curious as to what mechanism the seeds have for survival.

@bxncbx
I don't know if the answer to why daylily seeds survive winter is known. The following is my conjecture.

Daylily plants may survive winter cold or may not survive winter cold if the temperatures are too low. The temperature which kills a daylily plant will depend on whether the plant has acclimated or has not acclimated. Daylily plants can become acclimated to freezing temperatures by experiencing low temperatures. Daylily plants that become winter dormant (endodormant) stop growing and that helps them to survive long winters.
Seeds on the other hand are not expected to be growing. In some species seeds that are not yet completely mature may be able to sprout given appropriate conditions. Those same seeds that have become mature may no longer be able to sprout under the same conditions until they have dried a certain amount and then re-absorbed water. Seeds that have dried that amount may be able to survive the low temperatures of winter. On the other hand seeds that have become dried and then re-absorbed moisture may be in the same condition as a daylily plant. That is, like the daylily plant those seeds may be able to acclimate to winter temperatures.
Perhaps daylily seeds in the autumn may be able to experience conditions that allow them to acclimate to winter temperatures even though they are not actively growing.

Daylily seeds are classified as being "orthodox".

The meaning of the term "orthodox" as it applies to seeds.
"Orthodox seeds are capable of being dried to internal seed moisture of less than 12% water, stored at freezing temperatures, and surviving."

So, basically, we should feel safe in drying daylily seeds sufficiently and storing them in freezers.

IMPORTANT NOTICE
The results I posted previously had an error. When I did another count of the germinated seeds today I noticed a problem and found the error. Unfortunately, I ran two tests at the same time and some of the results became confounded.
I am reporting the corrected results of both tests below.
Freezer versus refrigerator storage.
45 seeds in each packet. These seeds were from a mixed set of 90 seeds from different pod parents but the same pollen parent.
Frozen seeds - today's germination - direct into freezer for one week first, 20/45
Refrigerated seeds - today's germination - dried for one week first, 18/45
Mould is present on most of the seeds in both packets.
There is no relevant difference between the germination totals.
===
The other test I was running is what happens if seeds are brought inside in the autumn and directly placed into moist paper towels in the refrigerator. Unfortunately the seeds for this test were not from the same cultivars as those for the frozen versus refrigerated test. The number germinated for this batch of seeds is 39/45. These seeds were collected from outside on the same day that the other seeds were removed from the freezer and placed in the vegetable crisper of the refrigerator (which was the same day that the dried seeds were placed in the same vegetable crisper). This set of seeds is from different pollen parents and different pod parents than the other seeds. This set of seeds spent one week more outside than the other two sets of seeds (collection date - Nov. 12 versus Nov. 5). We cannot compare the results of this test with the results of the other test as it is fairly obvious that these seeds are more viable than the other seeds.

@bxncbx
@Seedfork
@adknative
@sooby
Please note that in my previous post today I have corrected a major error in the results that I had posted before.

@admmad We cannot compare the results of this test with the results of the other test as it is fairly obvious that these seeds are more viable than the other seeds.

Perhaps I missed something but isn't this the difference between stratified and not stratified, i.e. damp chilled vs. dry?