Veratrum propagation question

Richard richrd@nas.com
Fri, 18 May 2012 21:12:02 PDT

On May 18, 2012, at 9:15 AM, Kathleen Sayce wrote:

> This is exciting news. 
> Did you plant the seeds fresh in the greenhouse, give them a cold dormancy period first, or some other treatment?  
> I located a population of vercal this year that is close to a main road rather tha


Yes, although I did have it going previously but mistook dormant bulbs for a failed planting. Suddenly it made sense and we weeded clover out of a 2009 planting and found these:
http://flic.kr/p/c1pHVQ/
with the 3yo plants showing the early dying down too:
http://flic.kr/p/c1pJsC/
Late summer, I am going to move them to another location and provide better maintenance.

We did however get a high percent germination and emergence this year which is new for us. Last fall after some discussion with Tom Mitchell I decided to try some warm stratification before cold. More important we held the seed in cold stratification until they were actively germinating. The imbibed seeds tend to look ready but wait for radicals to appear. We used 2 collections both from the same location but one stored dry for 1 year at 40 F. The stored seed was ready to plant 2 weeks longer in stratification. Not sure if the 3 weeks warm strat was needed but it did not hurt. The fresh collection germinated at 131 days. 

On other species stored in deep freezer for years we found warm stratification helped to break deep dormancy.

These are the young bulbs after their early dieback
http://flic.kr/p/bZVKqm/







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