First Post

I am a retired Farmer now living in a small unit with limited space All my roses are in pots so I can move them about and crowd them up under timed watering systems when I travel in winter,
I live at Deniliquin NSW near the Victorian Border(very hot summers short cold winters) Roses do well here but the heat this year really knoced mine about.
All roses are for breeding and so far I have 8 varieties of 3 separate lines I am working with. All are HTs with proven fertility and my first aim is to breed very good form with good scent. When I get my own breeders I will introduce Noisette to improve health characteristics.
That is the aim but at this stage the battle is to get good germination so I can apply selection pressure
This year I should have 2-3000 seeds (estimated from hip nos.) Harvest is not complete I am waiting on some to colour and there are many OPs that will have to mature over winter (I stopped pollinating in Dec then left all blooms to the bees)
Last year I got very poor germination and 0 plants from about 200 seeds so am open to any advice.
Look forward to all input

Russ.

G'Day Russ, nice to see you over here

Sometimes it can be just down to the variety of the seeds that results in poor germination. How did you do them last year?

Simon
I have typed long replys twice and both times I have lost them before they were sent.
I will try again tomorrow.
Russ.

Hi Russ,

Did it say that your session had timed out? You are the second person to have said this... it has never happened to me. I will investigate this further and let you know what I find out.

Welcome Russ. Sometimes I write it first on the notepad and then copy it on to the thread.

I have asked the technical support gurus about this and will let you know what I find out as it's not something I have ever noticed and there is no specific reference to timing out that I can find anywhere.

I am a very slow typer so if time is a limit I will need to send messages in segments .

Russ.

No worries.. either that or I can pester the programmers to turn the time limit off... but having said that I have started posts.. gone away and left them, come back and finished them and they've been fine... will get to the bottom of it.

Simon. in my case, mine was relatively long, I did some looking and the closest I could find was someone on the same thread posted as I did. Could this be possible.

Try Again
My roses all have multiple decendants on HMF so are definitely fertile but I dont know about actual germination rates.
Last year I had poor results in spring so did another pollination program in Autaum . The spring crop was harvested @ 120 days+ with colour then stored in moist peat in zip lock bags in the fridge till Aug then the Autaum crop were harvested the lot were then soaked 12 hrs. in H2O2 then24 hrs. in Bromilan then sowed on moist sand with a 3mm cover (from RHA)
I got 1 actual germination & about 20 seeds that appeared to split but nothing came of them. After about 12 weeks of intermittant in & out of the fridge I gave up on them and removed them from the sand and put them back in the Zip lock and saved them to try again this year

This year I had a good spring program getting my 20+ hips/cross before xmas then I deadheaded for a month, allowed all future blooms to self pollinate.There are many hips from this but I dont know if they will mature.
Iam harvesting the spring hips on colour and time. They are stored in moist sand in zip locks in the fridge and will be cleaned in Aug soaked,then sowed in flats (like Paul Barden)
Thats the plan. any suggestions on modifications or additions would be apprrecited

Russ.

G'Day Russ,

First I'd want to preface what I am about to say with these are just my personal feelings and thoughts about this hybridising game....

I never pre-treat the seeds with peroxide or bromilan or any other 'stimulant' because my own personal opinion is that my selection of good seedlings begins with germination and if a seed is not able to germinate without my assistance then... it shouldn't germinate at all. I don't even soak my seeds in fungicide these days because I have come to believe that a little fungus is actually good for the seeds and part of the natural germination process. In the ground fungus would form naturally on the surface of the seeds weakening the achene allowing the two halves to split as the embryo began to emerge. So now, when I harvest hips I husk them and either put the seeds in a zip-lock bag of moist perlite or I put them between a few sheets of moist paper towel in a zip-lock bag. Seeing as you follow Paul Barden's processes you might know that he strongly believes that rose seeds should not be allowed to germinate in the fridge. Instead he will stratify them for between 6 and 8 weeks and then sow them in flats to allow them to wake up of their own accord and then germinate. He will spread the seeds over the soil in the flats and then cover them with about 1cm of perlite as a mechanical barrier to damping off. Bigger seeds often require more stratification than do smaller seeds. Mature rose seeds are generally dormant to help them survive harsh winters so they don't germinate at the wrong time. Part of the dormancy is chemically induced by a substances called abscisic acid. Over the time the absiscic acid leaches out to of the seed and when levels are low enough germination is no longer inhibited and can begin (in the fridge or not). Absiscic acid in larger seeds will often take longer to fully leach out than in smaller seeds (you know.. the old surface area to volume thing everyone learnt in high school biology) and so may need longer stratification. That's why at around 6 weeks in the fridge I begin looking for germination and if I see any I will sow that lot of seed straight away. For late pollinations I will just do a second round of stratification if needed (Though I do try to stop pollinating about 120 days before winter). The peroxide and bromalin is to avoid the need to stratify the seeds so you can sow them all at once... I think I'd rather do a second round of stratification instead. Another thing is that sometomes some seeds will take a really long time to germinate. If I don't get germinations when I expect to then I sometimes leave the seed trays alone and forget about them, water them with everything else and then over time you might see some germinations. I had one seed germinate on me just recently from a pot of recycled soil that I sowed last year and gave up on. It's still alive now but I'll have to do something soon because it is really cold here at the moment and it chose a really bad time to germinate

So.. that's what I do. Some varieties also germinate more freely than others as well. I've found my rugosa seeds germinate REALLY easily whereas some of the HT seeds I've tried seem to have very low germination rates.

Thank you Simon that is a big help

I find that it is a lot easier to do things when you have seeds by the 1000s. when numbers are low you try too hard.

When do you consider winter starts and how does it affect maturity?
I will have a lot of OPs that are starting to colour but will definitely not be coloured by Jun, I plan to just leave them on and hope they will mature by Aug. Should I sow them then or stratify? It gets very hot here about Nov.

I also have about 40 large hips bursting with seeds on one bush they are 120-150 days, colouring now but the exposed seeds(100s of them)still look immature. any suggestions on how to handle them

Russ.

I go by when the calender says it is winter at the beginning of June. That makes it easy for me because conditions change widely from year to year otherwise to make accurate predictions. It was -1 here last night and I had a heavy frost but it's not officially winter here for two(ish) weeks. If the hips are around 120 days old I'll harvest them. In some varieties they need to be left a little longer.

I think, from memory, the term used to describe seeds that seem to develop on the outside of the hip is exogenous seeds. The hips seem so full they seem to burst out the top and continue to develop on the outside of the hip. I asked the question on RHA once about these and the reply was that most people treat them the same as they do any other seed and they are prepared and sown with all the others. Again... go by the age more than the look for maturity.

How cold does it get there? It might get cold enough to stratify your seeds on the bush and them you could sow them straight from the hip. I've never had much luck doing this, however, and usually end up just stratifying them and sowing them normally.

I know what you mean about treating small numbers of seeds specially. I have ONE seed this year from 'Green Ice'x Rosa wichurana and I really want to see if this one will grow and will be treating it extra special. The multiflora hybrid seeds will just be throw into foam fruit boxes of soil to let them do what they do because I have 100's of them.

Did the school give you an early mark, Simon, posting this early

Simon
Winter gets down to -3 but most days range from 6 to 16C. We get late frosts in Sep. and Oct that do alot of damage.
Roses start to bloom by Oct and it is too hot to pollinate and for germination by mid Dec.

We like to travel in winter so I dont want germination until we get home late July That leaves a short period to get seedlings each year so if late seeds need stratification I may have to hold them over till next year.

I have been looking for something to use for sowing seed
How do you use the fruit crates. they sound like they would suit my shelving. details re. depth medium dranage and anything you feel relevant please.

Russ

Like these Russ:



They are 50 x 30 x15cm. I just fill them potting mix, sow the seeds and add a 1cm(ish) layer of perlite over the top. I'll leave them in these all their first year so I don't have to prick out seedlings and damage their roots. there are some deeper ones too. As the year goes on the seedlings get culled so they get more room until there may only be one or two left in each box.

Our rose season down here is about a month behind you. Mine don't start flowering properly until about November (though the ones further down the hill seem to be a few weeks ahead of mine too). It doesn't get too hot to pollinate down here generally and I can pollinate right up until the end of summer though I need to leave about 120 -140 (14-20 weeks) days for the hips to ripen properly and I like to pick them all at the same time in early winter to stratify over winter in the fruit crisper in the fridge. My early autumn pollinations will be ready 2-3 weeks into winter.

what do you do about watering and drainage

There are drain holes already in these boxes and I try not to over water the seedlings anyway to reduce root rot other fungal issues. Those slots in the bottom are about 1cm wide and are on both sides. Water drains out pretty freely.

Another question Simon.

how many seeds can you fit in the fruit box.
Do you broardcast or sow in rows.

Russ, just as a point of view, if you know the seed and are only placing one type I would broadcast, if multiple types inline is the way to go I think.

Me again, forgot numbers, 100rds.

Hey Russ... for some reason I didn't see this question of yours... like David said... if they are all different lines and if they are the same broadcast. And again as David said you can literally put hundreds in there. You will be culling all the time and it is fairly clear which ones are just no good from a pretty early age, so you can begin thinning them very early on. I got the idea from an article I saw on the QLD Rose Society website on George Thompson (here: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]). It has a photo of a fruit box crammed full of seedlings. the article says each of his boxes contains up to 3000 seedlings... I'm not going to have that many but you can see the potential is there.

Hello Russcole !
Simon, I finally got around to buying the Mancozeb the other day to soak my seeds in, I haven't been able to get on the computer hardly. But I haven't done it to the seeds yet. So you don't reckon I should do that now ? I have had the seeds FDY seeds stored in a container for a month or two. Will this have hurt the seeds just having them dry like this ?
So I will buy some Perlite for putting the seeds in or is the wet towelling just as effective ?
When I do get some seedlings growing with some leaves should I then spray them with some Mancozeb to kill any mildrew ?

That was a very good article to read, thankyou very much Simon for having it here for us. I met George Thomson once while visiting Ross Roses, a very nice man, and also Andrew Ross.

rosemeadow wrote:Hello Russcole !
Simon, I finally got around to buying the Mancozeb the other day to soak my seeds in, I haven't been able to get on the computer hardly. But I haven't done it to the seeds yet. So you don't reckon I should do that now ? I have had the seeds FDY seeds stored in a container for a month or two. Will this have hurt the seeds just having them dry like this ?
So I will buy some Perlite for putting the seeds in or is the wet towelling just as effective ?
When I do get some seedlings growing with some leaves should I then spray them with some Mancozeb to kill any mildrew ?

I've stratified the seeds in both perlite and paper towel and really.... I don't think it makes that much difference. Only reason I liked the perlite is because it seems to prevent a lot of mould growth but this could work against me because the mould helps to break down the seed coat... a bit of mould isn't a bad thing. I don't use the mancoeb on the seeds any more. I haven't started stratifying my seeds yet... plan to do it at the end of next week and harvest the last of my hips. According to Paul Barden's description of how he raises seedlings, the purpose of the perlite is to prevent the development of fungus that would cause damping off. He sows the seeds across the top of the seed bed and covers them with about 1cm of perlite. Doing this, he says, he has eliminated to spray seedlings against damping off. I think I'd keep the Mancozeb newby just in case but this year I'm going to try it his way and see how it goes without preventative spraying.