TOW seed dormancy - Alstroemeria
Roy M. Sachs (Fri, 16 Jan 2004 08:25:43 PST)

I am curious as to why Roy is having success chilling Alstroemeria
seed as his first treatment. Does he live in a very warm place
where the seeds are warm for a while before he sows them? He
mentions soaking them for a day and then chilling them. Chilling is
relative, though. I consider 18 C (~ 65 F) to be warm, but someone
in Texas or Australia might consider it cool.

Diane: Are the days to germination (emergence) that you posted, the
number elapsed from the beginning of the outdoor (5 to 10 C) period?
excluding of course the 4 weeks of 18 C. It sounds as if that's what
you meant.

Jack Elliot said that he never chilled his alstro seed, but I'm not
certain where he had his germination bed...10 C outdoors in parts of
the south of England might be the norm post-sundown to sunrise temp
and then his seed would have been chilled at least by my standards.
I use a reefer in Davis in the April to October period, where night
temps might only rarely dip below 10 C, but I can get by in the
headhouse of the greenhouse from November through March.

I tried the warm, then cold or no cold, and found that, for most seed
that I harvested from my own plants, I could eliminate the warm
treatment altogether and not affect the post-chilling germination
(emergence) percentage or rate.

The data on germination of the same species as a function of seed
source is very helpful.

Thanks,

Roy