seedlings emerging

Johannes Ulrich Urban johannes-ulrich-urban@t-online.de
Thu, 09 Jan 2020 03:08:14 PST
Hello Gastil,


Nice to read that your sowing was sucessful and the donated seeds came 
into good hands.

You ask what to do next with the seedlings. I assume they were sown in 
pots. How big are the pots? It is most important that they NEVER dry out 
at this stage. I had to learn the hard way that bigger pots are better 
than smaller pots in this respect. You live in Southern California where 
even in winter it can be quite warm.

The next thing is to fertilize the seedlings. Not too much but young 
bulbs are quite greedy plants. And if they are kept green as long as 
ever possible in spring they will form bulbs big enough to survive the 
first dormancy. When the weather gets warmer in spring and the sun more 
intense I move the seed trays into a shady position and/or cover with 
shade cloth. Your sowing was fairly late for winter growers and an early 
dormancy triggered by heat would be fatal.

What you describe as a root loop in Lilium candidum seedlings is in fact 
the leaf and not the root. It germinates like a green loop with the leaf 
tip still attached to the seed but the tip will eventually free itself 
and stretch and become upright. A second or third more typical leaf will 
follow.

I sent an article to Robin Hanson for the next isue of the "Bulb Garden" 
which deals with my personal experience in raising bulbs from seed.


bye for today


Uli

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