David, I did not keep notes on how long to germination, sorry. Basically I just throw them in there, and check on them periodically. My vague sense is that at/by around 4 weeks you might see some root tips on some crosses, certainly by 6 weeks, but not all crosses emerge at the same time, and not all of the seeds in the same cross emerge at the same time. (There was one cross that I was particularly anxious about, and as I recall, it took about 2 weeks for most of the seeds to start growing roots, once the first one had emerged.)

It has also been my experience that dips emerge faster than tets, but then again, that could have been just the luck (seed dormancy traits) of the particular crosses that I did.

"...better part of one entire crisper"? DH would kill me... I have to jam my ziploc bags into part of a door shelf.

I should point out here that you do have to make sure that those ziploc bags are zipped tight. One year, I apparently didn't zip one tight enough, and the water I had in there (more than a bit) leaked out and pretty much obliterated the ink on parts of the labels of a few of the ziploc bags. I had to try to reconstruct what the crosses were for those bags. Nowadays, I put a 4" plastic label into the ziploc bag, with the cross written on it with a garden marker. When I plant the cross out, the plastic label goes into the pot.

TY for all that info. I was wondering on how long you left the seeds in for stratification purposes - not how long for germination. :-)

Unless I have other information, I generally stratify everything at 30 days. A few things require longer - sometimes much longer.

My worst experience was when I completely forgot some seeds and they were in there - moist - for ~ 6 months. They rotted.

I also learned a long time ago if something needs a long cold strat period, I do not do it moist. Just cold.

For daylily seeds the stratification must be damp or it doesn't work. I found for some daylily seeds three weeks stratification wasn't enough and they did better with six weeks. In the original research on daylily seed dormancy it was suggested 1-2 months was appropriate for seeds stratified outdoors. You know stratification was inadequate in some way (too dry or too short for example) if germination afterwards still takes several weeks instead of a week or two. There was some negative effect on germination when stratification was too long in the research, I think it was longer than 3 months but would have to re-read the research again. You can read the abstract of the research here, scroll down past the first page:

http://www.jstor.org/stable/24...

With regard to tap water vs. bottled vs. distilled;

The tap water here is relatively high quality and very palatable most of the year, however there is an occasional algae bloom which occurs in the reservoir during the warm season, which triggers an increase in treatment chemicals. Both the algae and the extra chemicals affect the flavor, so I maintain a drinking water cooler using water from a small local treatment facility. The pH of the tap water is 8.5+, and contains residual chloramine as part of the antimicrobial treatment. Unlike chlorine, chloramine is very persistent and won't simply dissipate/evaporate as chlorine would. Ever since the late 80's when the water district switched from chlorine to chloramine, I have noticed that my plants - particularly containerized plants - haven't looked as healthy as they used to. Part of this is probably due to the high pH locking up nutrients, but the timing suggests that chloramine plays a part.

http://www.ebmud.com/water-and...

The water all comes from the Sierra, but there are 6 separate treatments plants and water quality zones. Because their water is stored in earthen reservoirs, the Sobrante and San Leandro zones show markedly higher levels of TDS, Chlorides, Sulfates and Specific conductance. I'm not sure at what point these things become detrimental to plants, but I suspect they're not good.

The drinking water I buy for the water cooler is Sobrante zone water which goes through a multi-step treatment process including reverse-osmosis, ozonation, polishing and mineral supplementation via a softener. Finished product is pH 6-6.5. No fluoride is added. I don't know about its mineral or salt levels, so I don't normally use it for any plants.

I grow several species of Amaryllids which produce "winged" (flat) seed such as Hippeastrum, Cyrtanthus and Habranthus, and one of the ways I like to germinate seeds of the more valuable or "touchier" ones is by floating them on water. I've noticed some things about different types of water when doing this. The R-O drinking water with the low pH stimulates germination to a remarkable degree, but molds seem to develop fairly quickly, necessitating frequent water changes. Same with distilled water and grocery store bottled drinking water. Ironically, the chloramine in the tap water resists the growth of mold and fungus, so for the overall best seed sprouting and initial growth I use tap water or my own pH-corrected tap water, acidified with vinegar.

Daylily seeds might be the easiest and most tenacious seeds I've ever grown, with the exception of radish. After drying for a week up to 3 months, I store them in the refrigerator, damp, in manila coin envelopes inside ZipLoc bags. After a few months the envelopes develop a good amount of mold, and the occasional "squisher" will rot, but the others in the envelope seem to not mind, and that's when I find little white sprouts emerging from most of the seeds. I like to plant when they have up to an inch of root, so that I have a much better idea of how many plants I am going to end up with in a pot, and also because I know which way is up. This isn't to say that any of this is necessary, because planting them directly in the garden shortly after harvest works very well too. I grow them in pots because birds, gophers, moles and other critters would leave me with too many dead, missing and/or unidentified seedlings, and because I don't want to waste garden space on the runts. I like the flexibility pots offer, because I may sprout 30 seeds of a cross, but end up lining out only 10-15 of the strongest plants. Also, some of the crosses that seemed magical when pollinating are less exciting months later when it's time to line out a limited number of seedlings.

I've used Physan 20 as a seed/cutting disinfectant with good results, and now that I know proper dilution rates for hydrogen peroxide, I'll be trying that. One year I used a Physan 20 solution to moisten the envelopes in the ZipLoc bags and even months later, they were almost devoid of mold. It was a nice touch, but it didn't seem to affect the overall success of the seeds & seedlings as far as I could tell. I've done all sorts of questionable things to daylilies, and they tend to keep plugging along. Over the years, the only thing that reliably ensures that the seeds won't grow is if I fail to plant them, so if people just stick to the basics and plant their seed, they'll be OK.

I fertilize everything that shows green, but I'm not that regular about it. The daylily seed doesn't have all that much energy stored in it, and my favorite seed-starting mediums (peat or coir mixed with perlite) don't have any significant nutrients. I found that if some sort of full-spectrum fertilizer isn't applied shortly after germination, the leaves grow thin and floppy, even with good light. This was particularly noticeable when using coir, and I had to supplement my fertilizer (Dyna-Gro Foliage Pro 9-3-7 - a "complete" fertilizer) with a Calcium-Magnesium liquid (General Hydroponics CALi MAGic) in order to correct the problem. As always, fertilization (and warmth) should be commensurate with light levels.

Ken

TY for all that info. I was wondering on how long you left the seeds in for stratification purposes - not how long for germination. :-)

David, my methodology perhaps differs from what other folk do. I stratify the seeds in the fridge, yes, but I also leave them in there beyond some fixed time period, until enough of them have germinated to plant out in a pot. That is helpful for me, in that I do not waste time/effort/space on seeds that haven't germinated.

I overlooked a packet of seed in the crisper of a cross I had done last year. The seed was in a zip lock bag. I found them again three weeks ago after 11 months. (Cringe - don't think about my fridge please). The seed was just six crinkle things that I couldn't rehydrate even after soaking them in water for a week. They just floated there. I was going to throw them out but a fit of sentimentality made me plant them amongst 300 radishes I had just sowed. Well, four out of the six daylily seeds germinated while only 15 out of the 300 radishes did. I don't know which is the greater shock.



Normally I plant seed in individual punnets of seed raising material after several weeks in the crisper.

Don't feel bad about your fridge, Glen.... (and I am happy for your survivors ).

Since we are telling tales...

The day before yesterday, I potted up a few remaining seeds from 2013 and 2014 crosses, which I had excavated out of the depths of my fridge. (Such treasures we have in our fridges!) These were the unrotted, unmolded survivors from seeds I had started stratifying at least six months ago... and forgotten about, again. All of these poor things had at least white root tips, and some had foliage too... so I put them into 4" pots, outside. If they survive all of that, and grow, it surely must say something for their vigor...

Hahahahaha. Well - I have forgotten several things in the frig for months as well. There upon to discover rot, mold, roots (yay) and stuff that looks like something from a sci fi film.

LOL!

(...ain't that the truth...)

I can relate. But mine all stay in small baggies inside a gallon or two baggie, so I have not "lost" any seeds ..... yet!

I have a question that I hope others can share their experience with me ....

How long are daylily seed viable in a refrigerator? And if they should happen to warm up and then get cold again, are they still viable? (We just replaced our fridge because it stopped cooling consistently.) I've got some seeds still left in my fridge that are probably 2 years old.

As you know Becky, a couple of years ago I sold a lot of older seeds on LA. Most were between 2 to 4 years old. I got a lot of complaints from customers about lack of germination. I will never do that again. I cannot say why they did not germinate. They were in the fridge the entire time. Maybe they needed stratification and a lot of customers did not use that method, I can't really say. I always thought that they should germinate no matter how old.

LA?

Actually, the majority of seeds in general across species would not be viable after many years, but very dependent on how stored. There are exceptions at both ends - those that must be planted and immediately and those viable after a 1,000 years.

LA - Lily Auction

Cynthia - Thanks for your personal experience with older seeds.

David - I am aware that some seeds can stay viable for a very long time like Water Lotus and Morning Glory seeds. Have you had any experience with Daylily seeds specifically?

Becky, daylily seeds are considered relatively short-lived but, as has been said, it depends also on how they are stored. For more info see this article on harvesting and storage of daylily seeds on the AHS site, click on the bottom of the three articles on this page:

http://www.daylilies.org/AHSar...

That said, I've heard of people getting germination from daylily seeds that were fairly old so you've not much to lose by trying. You can test viability by dropping a few of the seeds into hydrogen peroxide:water at around 1:5 to 1:9 and leaving them at room temp but out of the sun for a couple of weeks or so in the solution.

beckygardener said: Have you had any experience with Daylily seeds specifically?

WRT Daylily seeds.

Longest I have stored and grown was ~ 2 years. Stored dry in dark lower humidity location then cold stratified for 45 days. I have never tried longer periods of storage.

In terms of longest in fridge as cold stratification, that was 60 or so days.

Longest I stored anything that germinated was species Morning Glory seeds - 11 years. Had ~ 40 % germination.

What type of lighting should one use for starting daylily seeds? T5 bulbs???

T5 can work fine. Or T 8 or 12. 5 is newest and most efficient, T12 is oldest technology and least efficient. Least costly.
In terms of bulbs, grow lights are most expensive. I like the full spectrum bulbs aka natural light.
LED is most expensive particularly in view of efficiency. Don't be fooled with some of the cheap junk out there.
CFL - the compact fluorescent is really coming down in price and are efficient for a small space bulb. I just built my own 800 watt equivalent dome/hood.

what are T5, T8 or T12 bulbs?

How important is the amount of lumen a lamp is emitting?

I have found the red and blue lights Becky mentioned before, they are TCL lights (?)
(75 Watt Turbo Neon 9500°K BlueSky "Cutting" Light and Turbo Neon TCL 75 Watt 2700°K Yellow "Blooming" light)
Both give 5,000 lumen and I would use 1 of each in an armature, so the total would be 10,000 lumen.

Or I could go for 1 400watt lamp that has the full spectrum of light and would be emitting 56,500 (!) lumen
(for instance the GE LUCALOX® HO 400W lamp : http://www.gelighting.com/Ligh...)

Would I need several of the blue/red armatures (because they need to be right on top of the plants?) and could I do with 1 of the 400W lamps for a larger space = more plants?


Mayo

Mayo - I never tallied up the total lumen on my lighting set-up. I was told years ago to use 1 "warm" light and 1 "cool" light in each shop light fixture to emit the full spectrum of light needed for the seedlings to grow well. That is exactly what I did. This worked out very well for me. I did rotate the plants around every other day to make sure they were exposed to each spectrum. Something else that I did find to be very important ..... is how "close" the lights are to the plants. There was also a challenge of trying to get the light to "surround" the area of each plant. Using reflectors hanging off the light fixture does help with this. I never did try that though. But I did try to locate my young sprouting seedlings very close to the lights during germination and then was able to move the light a little further away as they grew. But it is still important to keep them close. My plants grew well during the Winter months and were ready to slowly be introduced to real sunlight in the Spring.