Hmm. My carefully worded post vanished. The gist is:
Clivia nobilis x C. miniata aurea, seed set and harvested. Small seeds. Very slow to germinate, VERY small seedlings, trying 1/4 strength fertilizer to push them a little, but they are still slow - only to a tiny first leaf 6 weeks after germination. Some are still germinating, some are not even that far, but seeds are solid. The nobilis parent was slow also, but I expected some sort of hybrid vigor. Any suggestions?
Maybe I'll get this to post this time?
Thank you!
Michael
Interlaken, NY z6a or something.
Hybrid vigor is not guaranteed in anything, sometimes it happens, sometimes not. If you trawl the literature poor performance in hybrids is mentioned frequently - if all showed vigor, the plant breeding industry probably wouldn't exist as it does.
Ah yes, plant breeding, I should have said "hoped" for some sort of hybrid vigor. Poor choice of words.
I also meant to note that I had two crosses with different pollen parents, both C.m. aurea. Neither cross is particularly vigorous. I keep going back to the C. nobilis being slow. Perhaps the species is slower? Those plants from seed grew at about the half rate of miniata, gardenii, or robusta. After 5/6 years the nobilis, while blooming, continues to be considerably smaller than the other species. Maybe I'm hoping for too much. The C.m aurea X C. gardenii from last season is still ripening. We'll see.
Several years ago a friend gave me a seedling of a cross he had made: Clivia miniata x gardenii.
The leaves are narrower than the other clivias I grow, but it hasn't flowered yet.
Hmm - I've just checked the labels on some of my other clivias and several are hybrids (F1 or F2) of the same two species. I've had them for many years and don't recall them ever flowering either.
My C.nobilis seeds are also moving way slower than the miniata cultivars I'm used to growing.
Of the 7 seeds coming from C. nobilis x C miniata, 4 have germinated, three remain solid, no rot, but not germinating, about 20 weeks after sowing. Slow indeed! The first growth challenged seedling which started the conversation has yet to develop a true leaf. The others are growing at about C. nobilis rate and are working on a second true leaf.
Of the 16 seeds from the last PBS Clivia seed distribution in November, the last one germinated this past week, 14 weeks after sowing.