3 replies to this topic

[nadja77]

I made this cross last year and got a fair amount of viable looking seeds. My first batch was sown as soon as I harvested them in February this year, but to date there is no germination. The seeds looked fine, no mold or other signs that would indicate them to be bad. I spoke to some of the recipients who got seeds, and it appears that only one managed to get germination. Between us we successfully produced 1 seedling, WHOOP DE DOO
I have heard before that this cross generally produces a low yield of seedlings. Has anyone got any experience with this hybrid?

Nadja

[Dicon]

Hi Nadja,
I think it is very hard to make any meaningful observations when it comes to seed germination and viability.
Some growers have good results with the very same seed that others fail with, and at other times the success has been reversed!
All seed that is viable still requires the right conditions and we all, as growers, have different methods and conditions.
Some seed will germinate very quickly with a high % rate, others will take many months but will still give good % rates.
I suspect that we will never really answer this type of question as there are simply too many variables and too few opportunities to test any theory. (we cannot make the same seed frequently enough due to hit and miss timings of flowering, clone variation, etc)

The likes of the Dutch growers would have the best opportunity from a quantity perspective, however I suspect firstly that they do not grow any plants to flowering size, and what is more, they don't grow the cross specific to your question, and therefore, could still not offer any specific answers.

In my opinion, niche plants require niche conditions, and every Nep species is in a specific niche of it's own, so lumping them together simply is not possible.
We can fit many species to a range of condition or requirements, but they by no means all fit perfectly. This surely means the same for their respective seed and subsequent germination.

A plant that produces many thousands of seeds expects low % levels of survival, and even when sown locally to the mother plant, many simply fail to germinate due to imperfect landing sites. If we confine our sowing ultimately to one set of micro conditions, we can reasonably expect total failure!

A personal anecdote: I have put Miranda pollen to many different females, produced much good looking seed and germinated not a single solitary seed!
I assumed that Miranda was not viable, however others have produced crosses with Miranda.

[christerb]

Hi Nadja,

Since Geoff from EP have been successful producing plants of this cross, I asked him about it on another forum recently. Apparently it took years from them before being successful. Germinating the seeds of this cross seems to be something of a hit-and-miss. Nothing from seeds that looked alright, and other times success with other seed batches in the same conditions.

Regards,

Christer

Edited by christerb, 29 April 2012 - 17:36 PM.

[nadja77]

@Dicon: Unfortunately lumping together plants with similar requirements is a necessity for most, and as you already said, one species might thrive for one grower and fail for another in seemingly the same conditions. I have been quite lucky with my respective setups so far, and when there was not germination at all (not only on my side) I started to wonder what the problem could be. The reason I asked about this particular cross is that it seems to have a reputation for low germination rates, and what Christer posted seems to confirm that somewhat.
Interesting about your miranda, could it be that your particular plant produces sterile pollen?

@Christerb: I would love to get that hit-and-miss formula right. It's not very encouraging to hear how long it took to get any success with germination! I'll have to try again if I get the opportunity.