Post by Wayne Jenski on Mar 1, 2010 14:43:41 GMT
I ‘m going to start by apologizing for the lousy quality of photos- I’m in the market for a new camera after this little exercise- but I wanted to share a few interesting experiences with my ceph seed. . .
All seed pictured below were produced from just one of my plants after a bit of help pollinating with a small water color brush. Most of the seed is selfed, but there is a chance that some cross pollination took place as there were other flowering cephalotus in the same tank. I was on the fence about whether to stratify or not, so I divided the seeds into two groups. One went in the refrigerator for 12 weeks, the other went straight into a germination chamber.
After 12 weeks no seed had germinated from the set in the germination chamber; I started to think that they were perhaps sterile. At that time the stratified seed came out of the refrigerator and joined the unstratifed seed in the germination chamber. This was by no means scientific, but virtually all controllable variables were the same (media, temp, photoperiod, etc). The interesting thing is that after 3 more weeks seeds from both groups started germinating! Again, this is my no means scientific but it seems to suggest that the stratification was unnecessary . . . and that ceph seeds take a long 15 weeks to start growing (given my conditions)! None of this is news, of course . . . but it is interesting.
One other strange thing: see the red circled seedlings below. One month ago I am absolutely certain that all seeds were growing “normally”. Yesterday, I took a close look at them and a few had somehow completely “uprooted”. They were entirely above the medium, root and all (not even the smallest of roots were subterranean I assure you). But the tiny plant was healthy otherwise. I just poked a small hole and tucked them back in but I thought it was rather strange. Does anyone have any ideas about this?
Thanks as always for any input!
All seed pictured below were produced from just one of my plants after a bit of help pollinating with a small water color brush. Most of the seed is selfed, but there is a chance that some cross pollination took place as there were other flowering cephalotus in the same tank. I was on the fence about whether to stratify or not, so I divided the seeds into two groups. One went in the refrigerator for 12 weeks, the other went straight into a germination chamber.
After 12 weeks no seed had germinated from the set in the germination chamber; I started to think that they were perhaps sterile. At that time the stratified seed came out of the refrigerator and joined the unstratifed seed in the germination chamber. This was by no means scientific, but virtually all controllable variables were the same (media, temp, photoperiod, etc). The interesting thing is that after 3 more weeks seeds from both groups started germinating! Again, this is my no means scientific but it seems to suggest that the stratification was unnecessary . . . and that ceph seeds take a long 15 weeks to start growing (given my conditions)! None of this is news, of course . . . but it is interesting.
One other strange thing: see the red circled seedlings below. One month ago I am absolutely certain that all seeds were growing “normally”. Yesterday, I took a close look at them and a few had somehow completely “uprooted”. They were entirely above the medium, root and all (not even the smallest of roots were subterranean I assure you). But the tiny plant was healthy otherwise. I just poked a small hole and tucked them back in but I thought it was rather strange. Does anyone have any ideas about this?
Thanks as always for any input!
