Seed germination guides (was geophyte seed germination)
Tom Mitchell (Fri, 12 Jun 2009 03:51:04 PDT)

I guess that many of you will already know of the following two
compilations of seed germination techniques.

http://tomclothier.hort.net/ and

http://www.onrockgarden.com/

I have used both, with some success, but I find that the germination
regimes they prescribe are often unnecessarily complicated. Sowing
seed on a sterile compost, covering with grit and leaving over winter
in a cold frame works for me nine times out of ten (including for
Narcissus and Tulipa seed, by the way). Top of my wish list for a
truly valuable web-based seed germination guide would be some system
for compiling feedback from people who have actually used the
recommended techniques.

For example (apologies for the non-geophyte example), I was curious
about the suggestion on the Ontario Rock Garden Society website that
rose seeds germinate more readily after scarifying with concentrated
sulphuric acid.

I divided a batch of wild-collected seed from a (still unidentified)
rose species into batches of 50 seeds each and applied the following
treatments: (1) no treatment; (2) soaking for 36 hours in water; (3)
scarifying with sandpaper; (4) soaking for 6 minutes in 95% sulphuric
acid followed by washing; (5) 12 minutes in sulphuric acid; (6) 30
minutes in sulphuric acid; (7) one hour in sulphuric acid and (8)
three hours in sulphuric acid.

The seeds were sown as described above and, one year later, the
results are as follows: (1) no seedlings; (2 ) one seedling; (3) no
seedlings; (4) no seedlings; (5) two seedlings; (6) six seedlings;
(7) seven seedlings and (8)18 seedlings.

In other words, the recommended treatment works beautifully, but only
if you soak the seeds for at least three hours. This is an anecdote,
not a scientific experiment that I'm reporting but loads of these
anecdotes are being accumulated and then lost again every day. I
think it would be mighty useful to have some systematic means of
collating anecdotes into a useable web tool.

Tom Mitchell,
Zone 7, in the west of England.