>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