I have researched different methods for sprouting daylilies. The first method that I came across involved placing the seeds on a damp paper towel and folding the towel around the seeds which was then placed in a plastic bag and refrigerated until the seeds began to sprout. I think this is known as stratification...and if I am wrong, please advise.
The other method involved placing the previously refrigerated daylily seeds in a sterile mason jar with a mixture of distilled water and Hydrogen Peroxide. Put on the lid, shake it up, and then place in a dark environment until the seeds sprout.
Have you had any experience in either of these methods?
Do you have a method that seems to work better than these?

Thanks in advance for your help.
Cynthia

You might find this article from the AHS Daylily Journal on daylily seed stratification of interest - stratification is sometimes misunderstood to mean they are left in the fridge until germination but that's not what is really intended. The damp paper towel, or damp vermiculite or whatever is used allows the seeds to take up some water, which is necessary for the chilling in the fridge to break any seed dormancy (refrigerating internally dry seeds doesn't do that). Then after roughly four weeks the seeds are taken out of the fridge and germinated at room temperature. The idea is to simulate winter (fridge) followed by spring (room temperature). Some may germinate while still in the fridge likely because either they only needed a short period of chilling or they didn't have seed dormancy to start with. With some daylily seeds stratification appears to be more effective than the alternative peroxide soak (for which you do not need to shake the seeds BTW but you are right to keep them out of the sun, it doesn't need to be dark though).

Daylily Journal article on seed stratification:
http://www.ctdaylily.com/files...

Cynthia,
I have used both methods not exactly as described, with great success. Here is what I do or have done:

stratification- I use small ziplock bags and place a small amount of moist vermiculite in the bag with the seeds. This process takes several weeks for the seeds to sprout. (maybe 6 weeks) Currently I have over 4000 seedlings growing from this method. I have had a few that mold but a small percentage. (1bag out of 100)



Water/Peroxide - I use small plastic mouthwash cups -the kind you can buy 100 for a couple of dollars.
I mix the water and peroxide and pour some in each cup and put the seeds in. Within a week or less, most of the seeds will sprout. Some will begin as soon as 1 day and others in the same cup take longer. I have thousands of seedlings growing in my gardens from this method. They do not need to go in the dark. Just sit them anywhere in the house and they will sprout. You can't just leave them for a long time or they can rot or mold.



After sprouting, I plant in cups, pots, or trays.

@kidfishing When you put the Daylily seeds in the moist vermiculite in the baggies, do you then put them in the fridge for 6 weeks or do you just leave them at room temperature? I want to also try this. I tried once before but I think I got impatient and didn't wait the full 6-8 weeks.

They must go in the fridge. It works very well and I get 100% seeds sprouted if you have just lightly moist vermiculite. Any good seeds that are not sprouted will quicly sprout at room temp after you take them out of the fridge. They sprout at different times, but if you want to force them, take them out of the fridge after 6 weeks or so and put them in a lighted area in the sealed bags to retain the moisture and they will soon look like the bags in my photo above. I put all seeds from a seed pod in one bag.

I put lots of bags in container and into the fridge. You don't have to be like us and need an extra fridge just for seeds.

Thanks for clarifying this for me. I am going to put some of my Daylily seeds in moist vermiculite in baggies and try this. We do have an extra fridge in the garage that holds pop and beer so there should be plenty of room for a few seeds. I will let you know how it turns out for me.

I am trying to germinate some Lily seeds that I collected yesterday that had been outside all winter still on the plant. I put them in a moist paper towel and put them into a baggie on a partial paper plate and put them on top of the refrigerator. I hope they sprout for me. I know I will have to wait a couple years before I see any blooms, though. That's going to be the hard part.

Just to add that if you take the seeds in damp vermiculite out of the fridge after about a month, the seeds should germinate and be well up and running within a week or two at room temperature.

Thank you, Sue. I do tend to get impatient.

sooby said:You might find this article from the AHS Daylily Journal on daylily seed stratification of interest - stratification is sometimes misunderstood to mean they are left in the fridge until germination but that's not what is really intended. The damp paper towel, or damp vermiculite or whatever is used allows the seeds to take up some water, which is necessary for the chilling in the fridge to break any seed dormancy
(refrigerating internally dry seeds doesn't do that). Then after roughly four weeks the seeds are taken out of the fridge and germinated at room temperature. The idea is to simulate winter (fridge) followed by spring (room temperature). Some may germinate while still in the fridge likely because either they only needed a short period of chilling or they didn't have seed dormancy to start with. With some daylily seeds stratification appears to be more effective than the alternative peroxide soak (for which you do not need to shake the seeds BTW but you are right to keep them out of the sun, it doesn't need to be dark though).

Daylily Journal article on seed stratification:
http://www.ctdaylily.com/files...

Sue,
Thanks so much for the link to the article. It was very informative and I am eager to start some seeds using their advice.

Cynthia

kidfishing said:Cynthia,
I have used both methods not exactly as described, with great success. Here is what I do or have done:

stratification- I use small ziplock bags and place a small amount of moist vermiculite in the bag with the seeds. This process takes several weeks for the seeds to sprout. (maybe 6 weeks) Currently I have over 4000 seedlings growing from this method. I have had a few that mold but a small percentage. (1bag out of 100)



Water/Peroxide - I use small plastic mouthwash cups -the kind you can buy 100 for a couple of dollars.
I mix the water and peroxide and pour some in each cup and put the seeds in. Within a week or less, most of the seeds will sprout. Some will begin as soon as 1 day and others in the same cup take longer. I have thousands of seedlings growing in my gardens from this method. They do not need to go in the dark. Just sit them anywhere in the house and they will sprout. You can't just leave them for a long time or they can rot or mold.



After sprouting, I plant in cups, pots, or trays.

Thank you so much for the informative reply and also for including the pictures. An image always helps me to better understand things. I am actually going to try both of your methods. For the seeds I've had in the refrigerator, I am going to use the cup method with the peroxide mixture. For the seeds I just found that I forgot to refrigerate, I am going to try the vermiculite method. Thanks again for your help.
Cynthia

I sprout my seeds in a damp coffee filter folded and placed inside the small plastic bag the seeds were stored in. I keep these in a dark box and check them daily. When the seeds begin to germinate I plant them in red solo cups with Jiffy seed starting mix. I got really great germination rates this year - 100 percent germination on 43 crosses, 75% on four, and two crosses had all rotten seeeds.

Snack sized Ziploc baggie, seeds, a piece of paper toweling, pour in a little water (with hydrogen peroxide) to get the paper towel wet, drain, seal, toss into fridge. Check periodically. Similar to what Debra did, but no coffee filters.

What amount of peroxide to water do you use? I do something similar only I have not used peroxide, and I put my paper towel on a foam plate and use a large baggie with a few plates stacked on top of each other. I have peroxide but don't know how much to use with the right amount of water.

In a 16-20 oz soda/water/tea bottle, I eyeball pour in about 1-2 Tbl of hydrogen peroxide. (I'm impatient, and of the "good enough" school wrt some things. This isn't rocket science and it doesn't have to be precise.)

I do enough seeds that I don't want to waste fridge space with plates; I also don't want to risk confusion if seeds get loose and mixed (there already tends to be enough confusion due to pod clips getting lost or faded ). Each cross goes into its own small snack size baggie, along with a 4" plastic label with the cross written on it with a garden marking pen. (I learned to include that label the hard way... one time there was a leak, and the writing on the external labels of a few bags got wiped out. I had to guess what the most likely crosses were, based on notes I made while harvesting the seeds.)

Several baggies (ziplocked tight) go into a larger one gallon baggie, and that is what gets tossed into the fridge. I usually try to separate out the crosses into the larger baggies based on planting tiers (PLANT ME FIRST! to Plant me last...), based on the desirability/interest of the cross to me. Ymmv... if you generate enough seeds to warrant this approach, you may want to segregate by color, ploidy, form, whatever.

sooby said:Just to add that if you take the seeds in damp vermiculite out of the fridge after about a month, the seeds should germinate and be well up and running within a week or two at room temperature.

What if your seeds were previously stored in the fridge? I collected seeds in the fall, stored them in bags in my fridge with dry paper towels to collect any condensation. I just recently put some in bags with damp vermiculite. Will I need to keep them in the fridge the full four weeks for stratification or do you think I could put some in damp vermiculite and immediately put them somewhere at room temp so that they can germinate?

It's kind of a difficult question. If the seeds had a low internal moisture content then storing in the fridge doesn't stratify them and you would need to chill them in damp vermiculite if you want quick and even germination when they are started at room temp. It is possible that if the seeds still had enough internal moisture during storage in the fridge that chilling might have broken seed dormancy. It is also possible that your seeds don't have seed dormancy. Almost certainly not all of them do. They would also most likely germinate if you just start them now, but without stratification it could take weeks or months for any that have seed dormancy to sprout.

What I would do in that situation is try both methods then you will have the answer for the future - and please share it with us!

I can't avoid mold when I try to stratify seeds with damp kitchen paper or cotton pads in a ziplock bags.

Maybe they are too moist?

cybersix said:I can't avoid mold when I try to stratify seeds with damp kitchen paper or cotton pads in a ziplock bags.

The seeds should not be touching the sides of the plastic bag. Often seeds that mold were non viable to start with. I think damp vermiculite works better. What is the temperature of your fridge where the bags are?

After the seeds are sprouting are you guys planting in pots or directly in the ground?