WOW Shelly.....your singles look super. I hope our green house is fully functional by next fall, so I can plant all my seeds one per cup and not have to go through the ordeal of untangling roots in the spring. I did lose several seeds in the peroxide solution bath. They went soft and popped when I gently squeezed them. This problem doesn't seem to happen as much in the wet towels. A few other seeds that did germinate are taking their good old time putting up top growth. I do hope others will continue to post pix of their progress. I enjoy hearing and seeing the results using various germination methods.

Linda

Shelly, yours look great.

I have lots of green just coming on the ones that had sprouted. Will try to get some pix in the next day or two.

It was interesting that a few pushed the seed out from the soil as the roots grew instead of the roots going down, so I'll be putting a bit more soil over them. I have 2 that look like they may end up albino but will give them some time to see if they may green up.

Still have 25 seeds that are just sitting. 2 or 3 days now w/o any sprouts. I took the coffee filters out and just put them in small plastic bags (seed size) with fresh peroxide solution today. The paper was getting infected with mildew and taking them out to check was getting to be a pain.

Of the seeds from the second vendor that sprouted so well there are 3 crosses with 1, 2, & 4 seeds left respectively.
From the first vendor where the seeds were drier, I only had 2 crosses, 15 seeds each, both put into germ. bags on 1/7. Lav. Tom. x Clarif. has 6 seeds remaining and Scottish Fant. x Apr. LaQuinta still has 11 seeds remaining.

I have one diploid cross in the bunch and it's interesting that the green blades are just a little finer/smaller than the tets.

Now I'm waiting for next ~180 more seeds to arrive.

Linda, I'm not going to do that gentle squeeze thing anymore. I murdered one seed that had split it's casing to sprout. Because the casing had split it felt "soft" but really it was just trying to sprout. It had viable seed germ inside until I squished it. The germ was just small so it had not poked out of the casing yet.

I've been reading up on winter sowing and I think I'll try doing this with some of my seed. I don't have any place to put them inside, and I've talked to several wsowers who've had good luck with dl seed. I figured this might give me a head start on sowing them directly into the ground this spring. I'll keep you posted if and when I do this and get results. :)
Jan

Berrytea, I do understand what you mean about the gentle squeeze. I had a BASS GIBSON X GOLDEN TENTACLES seed that split its casing and I planted it and it sprouted. In the case of the other seeds, they had a cloudy film clinging to the seed and when I applied some slight pressure they burst. IMO those seeds had degraded and were no longer viable. I don't know if the total liquid bath is more predisposed to this event, but I don't see this happening much with the toweling method.

Congrats on the new seedlings ! Here's a pic of my Photoron - where I keep my 'best' crosses. The large seedlings are about 3 months old. It grows them like crazy, I've had to cut them down twice because they were shading each other. If only they made them bigger. I've managed to cram it with:
Aliquippa x Rosy Spiketail
Drink the Light x Pufferfish
Blue Hippo x Blue Grass Music
Dragon Fang x Jurassic Jaws
Forestlake Ragamuffin x DragonFang
Forestlake x SabreTooth Tiger
Roses and Gold x Bass Gibson
Hopefully I can get these to bloom in under a year :)
It makes the winter past quicker I think...come on spring !

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:654472}}

howardchaz, Your seedlings look GREAT!!!! As I said in a previous post.....can't wait until I can plant one seed per cup. I too have planted many of the cross Blue Hippo X Bluegrass Music, and am heavily vested in Blue Hippo this season....as well as Bluegrass Music. My Dragon Fang crosses are primarily by Mort Morss and Tricolored Bite. I have some seeds of Forestlake Ragamuffin X various pollen parents.

This is my first year growing DL seeds and I have around 100 seedlings, but i have a good crop of fungus gnats and I understand you must not only get the adults, but they lay eggs in the soil and the larvas will eat the roots. SO what is a good product to get rid of these little pest, seedling look good, but I think they will decline if I don't get a hold of this problem.
Thank You for any info
Tammy

wow, these seedlings sure look better then m ine,that I planted in October.I left them outside until it came a freeze then brought them in and set them in a unheated utility room in front of the windows.Not under no lights,just in front of the windows.

{{gwi:654481}}
[IMG]http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/3876/0005381ke5.jpg[/IMG]

Jean

Tammy,
The thing that has worked best for me with fungus gnats has been those yellow stick fly traps to catch the adults before they can lay the next generation of eggs.

Its a little slow (not instant kill of all) but really does work & w/o chemicals. It may take 2-3 weeks to get all generations that are in various development stages since they have to start flying for the trap to get them.

They come in different brands. The ones I have at the moment are by Tangle Trap and called "White Fly & Aphid Traps".

Depending on the plant & pot/s involved I may or may not use the holders they come with. They work best if they are right above the soil so sometimes if there is room w/o touching the plant I just tuck them into the side of the pot.

Shelly, here is a pic of my seedlings started on the first.
They are inside all the time under lights now, no warm days to put them outside. I don't know the crosses since they were free seeds from Tom Maddox. I do have 6 started from Victorian Lace X Sherry Candy. They were slower to germinate for me, they were drier.

Dot

{{gwi:654482}}

No sprouts here yet, so I went ahead and drained my baggies and planted the seeds in 18 oz red plastic cups. Hopefully they will start sprouting in a few days. Still have to setup the grow lights.

My little grow area is right across from the furnace in the basement, so it should stay nice and warm for my babies once they sprout.

Fungus gnats can be a real problem and can kill young seedlings. The yellow stick fly traps works very well but takes a long time to kill all the gnats. Raid house and garden spray is very effective on the adult gnats and does not seem to effect the seedlings in any way. I have used it several times with good results. The only problem with Raid is the smell. A friend of mine uses a red wine bottle to trap the adults with excellent results. He leaves about one inch of wine in the bottle and makes a funnel out of paper and places it in the top of the bottle secured with scotch tape. The funnel should be about l inch at the top and narrow at the bottom to the size of a lead pencil. Place the funnel in the bottle small end down and tape it to the top of the bottle. Make sure the tape is completely around the bottle leaving no place for the gnats to escape. Cut the top of the funnel off close to the top of the bottle. Gnats are attracted to the smell of the wine (apple juice works as well) and enter the top of the bottle and become trapped and droned in the liquid. Gnats lay their eggs on rotting organic material. The larva stage of the gnat will attack the new roots of the seedling and can kill the seedling. Place the wine bottle among you seedlings, replace the liquid as needed. I have never tried this method but my friend insists it is the best way to ride yourself of these gnats.

Gnats were an easy kill. My problem was spider mites, I had a couple waves of them. I think I finnally got them with this inscect soap with seaweed extract...so far so good.

Howardchaz: What method did you use to kill the Gnats?

I have used the wine method to control Fruit Fly infestations, but didn't realize that it would work for Fungus Gnats as well. Thanks for the tip virgo45!!!

I used a indoor/outdoor spray made by Schultz . Its main ingredient was a mum extract Pytherin ...not sure if I spelled it right- but it works pretty good.

no sprouts yet

sigh.

Oh where oh where are my daylily sprouts?

Oh where..oh where can they be?!?!?!?

zengeos - did your seeds start in your baggies at all? Don't lose hope as some of mine have taken their sweet seed time sprouting

No fungus gnats so far and I am keeping my fingers crossed - thanks to everyone here though, I am armed and ready should any take flight!

I have heard that watering from the bottom helps not only build stronger roots but keeps the surface dryer- thus cutting down on gnats??? I poked holes in what I thought was the bottom of the cups until I took them out of the meat trays and put them on the aluminum baking trays to make more space. Hence the single plants have been top watered - a real pain since they are getting taller. Yesterday, I took six of my largest plants- most with 4 plus leaves- and put them in new (and a bit larger) cups with properly cut holes.. I want to see how they adjust to the quick move before chancing it with others. Their old cup of dirt was easy to move as a whole and I had just added some new dirt to the bottom of their new home - add a bit more on top and wha la ..done. Now they can be fed easily from the bottom until they move to the seedling beds. I will start introducing them to outside temperatures about the middle of March so they still have a good 6 or 7 weeks under the lights.

I made another discovery yesterday while I was rearranging seedlings - I AM RUNNING OUT OF ROOM..lol.. I have had to put a large STOP sign on my box of crossed I wanted to start because I realized that if all the ones I have soaking right now do their thing - then I am going to be right at (or over) my space limit... lol. Ever heard the saying "eyes are bigger than your stomach" - well in my case my dreams are bigger than my seed starting stand -- LOL
The easy fix is to ask my DH to build me another.. but in reality, we are replacing our backyard fence AND putting my raised beds around the entire exterior of that one as well beginning on my Spring Break in April -- so counting him building those and filling with a combination of dirt, peat moss,alphalfa pellets, more dirt and a healthy count of earthworms, I think I am already asking the poor man to do enough.. : )
My babies are doing my mood good so I have enough to baby at the moment.. : )
Shelly

Shelly, I was recently entertaining thoughts of doing the same thing with some of my crosses....moving them into larger pots. I would have enough room to do it since I still haven't needed to use my sister's old grow light rack system. I had hoped I wouldn't need to, because it takes up a lot of space and is basically an older, heavier commercial type setup. However, I too am running out of room and still have many crosses soaking and a lot more in containers in the refrigerator.

So far no fungus gnats here either. My seedlings are all bottom watered too, but our house is so dry in the winter that I do have to mist the surface soil every 2-3 days. Wish I could start putting my seedlings out mid March......my babies won't see the great outdoors until late April or mid May depending on how long winter wants to linger.

Linda

Zengeos, after germination was seen in the bags & they were potted, my seedlings took another 4-6 days to show green. Some are still in bags (20days) w/o germinating. So, be patient, it could take a while.

Here are my babies. The camera lens exaggerates my overful baking pan but you get the idea. The largest seedlings had their tops pinched off. Still not sure whether it was one of my 4yo's or the cat- I chased both of them out from it earlier that day.
{{gwi:654484}}

Here is one of the albinos. Both were in the same cross so makes me wonder if one of those parents (Lady Betty Fretz x Bold Tiger) are susceptible to passing it on. I've just let them go. Does anyone know how long it takes for an albino plant to die on it's own from lack of chloriphyl? Any chance that they will develop green leaves later if they start out albino?

{{gwi:654487}}

That sluggish cross is still sitting in the bag w/the exception of the 2 seeds that germinated at 12-13 days. Those two that sprouted are showing nice green leaves. There are 5 seeds left soaking from the other cross that was started into germination the same day. I'm thinking if I don't see another start by tomorrow that I'll put all of them back in the fridge for a week.

Well.. I planted mine in soil after a week. Figured that many people have good luck both ways, soooo into plastic cups of soil kept moist with plastic baggies overtop....

Yippee!!! My very 1st Daylily seeds have sprouted! I'm now the proud papa to:

Brigade of Butterflies Seedling x Rebekah's Gothic Spider

Haily Henrion Memorial Seedling x Phenomenal Phoenix

Firestorm x Gudrid

The 1st and 3rd of these are bonus seeds. Psych!!!

Of course, I'm still waiting for the other seeds to sprout, AND only one seed of each cross.

These 3 crosses were soaked in a peroxide/water solution, and have been soaking for around 8 days. All seeds from all 3 crosses have been planted. It's my hope that the other seeds will sprout in the near future.

Finally! Babies to call my own!!!

oooohh Congrats Zengeos... nothing like seeing a little green sprout to make us happy - especially during this cold winter time. The first thing I do when I get home to is go check the seedlings. I discovered 5 more cups with sprouts today - making everything seem bright and happy..lol. I'll now take my note pad into the room and make any notes about the new residents as well as anything else I might deem noteworthy - mostly scribble to everyone else. I am OFFICALLY out of room when I plant the seeds that have sprouted as of today.. I don't know what I am going to do about the others already soaking - the good news is that I am not having a very high mortality rate and so far - not one albino.
Berrytea - Your seedlings are doing well. My money is on the cat as they seem to love tender shoots

How are everyone else's seedling coming along.
Shelly

Xengeos, Congratulations! My bet is you'll start seeing a few new green shoots every day now.

My two 20d soaked crosses went back into the fridge. I lost a couple more seeds from the other crosses- again not viable. There are 4 seeds still in the closet from 2 crosses and I'm not holding out much hope for them. But I just got mail that my next batch of crosses was sent out in snail mail yesterday...something to look forward to.

Still wondering how long those 2 albino's will last and now there is one little seedling that is putting out a very strange looking first leaf. The first shoot came up nicely but the first real leaf is a scrawny round, worm looking thing that is all curly and does not look like it will flatten out like the leaves usually do.

Mark, Great to hear that you finally have some green to look at!!!!

I have had a few more albinos this year than in the past. One Vertical Horizon cross produced 2 out of the 8 seeds planted and only six of that cross have popped out of the soil so far. Another was from a Voodoo Magic cross and yet another from an Ultimate Fantasy cross. Otherwise all my seedlings are growing well.

Mark, are those seedlings from planting them indoors or from your winter sown ones?
Jan

Another way to get rid of fungus gnats is to put a Mosquito Dunk in your watering can. The bacteria that kills the mosquito larvae is also supposed to be effective against fungus gnat larvae.
Ed

Still no green.

While I planted my seeds that had started to germinate, none has poked it's green head through the soil yet.

grumble....

Mark, Patience,patience, patience. :-) Not easy when you first start doing the seed thing....I know lol. Some crosses will hit the soil with all seeds showing that wee bit o white that we all look for. Some of those will show vegitative growth in a day or two, and others may take 7 days or more to break surface......depending on conditions. In my earlier seed starting days, I actually damaged seedlings that were starting up by poking and prodding into the soil to see what was taking so long. I have learned since then to wait for nature to take it's course. I'm sure you'll see some green poking up soon.

Linda

Another seed germinated. Planted the seeds from that cross this AM. Covered with baggies until one actually sprouts through the soil. Hopefully this one will pop through relatively fast...

Mark,
I rechecked my cups (planted each seed as it germinated and wrote the planting date & number of seeds on the side of each cup). I just had one seedling pop up it's green as late as 10 days after planting. A few were 4 days after planting, most were 5-7 days- so that's my range 4-10 days after germination/planting they have shown green. This was a small sample size so I'm sure statistically that some crosses may take longer to sprout.

I received my next batch of seeds with some fun bonus crosses. Put all 92 of them in to soak last night and entered them into my database to track progress. These seeds were on the drier side again so I'm not expecting any I still have another set of auction wins coming that are from the seller who sent the overnight sprouters. Looking forward to that.

On the first batch of seeds, still have two crosses back in the fridge.....experienced DL sprouters, how long should I leave them there before trying to germinate again?

I'm surprised by the characteristics of some of the leaves of those that are growing. I have 2 now with very deformed leaves. One almost looks like Siamese twin leaves- it's first leaf came out very broad and has not been able to fully flatten out- it has a ridge in the middle like the edges of two leaves growing connected in the middle. It has not sent out a second leaf yet. The one with the curly snake like leaf has grown minimally (maybe 1/16 inch in a week) so I doubt it will survive. There is another with a similar 2nd leaf that grew taller 1st leaf but likewise, I am doubtful it will survive.

I also have a number of seedlings whose leaves are beginning to fold backwards almost like a recurved petal. Does this mean they are getting too much light? or is it just a normal difference in growth patterns?

Two crosses I just received a couple days ago are germinating prolifically.

Trahlyta, open pollenating, I received around a dozen seeds and about 1/2 are germinating.

Another prolific cross, Goldenzilla x Goldie Fritz is also germinating very well. So far, these two are my quickest and most prolific crosses. Just planted them in soil so we'll see how things go from there, ehh?

Hopefully they will sprout just as quickly!

Mark-

Woohoo!!! We have sprouts! 5 containers each has at least 1 little teeny tiny green shoot popping up!

I removed their little mini greenhouses (baggies) or should I leave the baggies on a little longer?

Mark, I usually leave my baggies on until most seeds are up about an inch or so. If I have 6 seeds in a cup and 4- 5 have made it to an inch or two in height, I will then take the bag off. I would add here that this is my way of doing it, and if you're not comfortable with leaving the covers on then at least make sure that the soil is kept somewhat moist or your other seeds may have a difficult time coming out of the soil. CONGRATS on your new kids!!

Linda

I donj't seem to be having any trouble keeping the soil moist, with bottom watering....

Found more new sprouts. Today was the best sprouting day so far.

Also have more of the seeds I started a few days ago that are germinating. These seeds just want to grow grow grow!!!!!!

Mark, Congrats on seeing green! Glad you got to experience some of those quick germinating seeds too. What a difference after those you have to wait & wait on. Makes it much more fun when they are so happy to be fast growing.

Yes indeed Berry! These are all the seeds from Scooter...and true to the name...they scooted right up!

LOL

My seeds that germinated so fast were from Scooter too! I'm waiting for my next batch from her to arrive.

She must be doing something to keep them from drying out too much while in the fridge. I read that some hybridizers put a damp paper towel in the bag with the seeds while they are in the fridge to keep them hydrated. That's what I've done with the ones I put back into the fridge last week.

The others that I received last week are beginning to germinate. These seeds were drier so it took 36 hours before I saw the first one poke out. I started 6 new cups today- though none are "full".

A couple of these seeds were squished in transit but I soaked them anyway and they seem to be the first ones germinating in their cross. Another thing I read is that some hybridizers score the seed casing with a razor blade to speed germination. So maybe I'll try that with some of the hard to germinate seeds.

A couple from this vender were 2-3 seeds to the cross. That will challenge my space planning a bit as I try to count on 5-7 per cup.

berrytea4me:
I had the same space problem as you and solved it with a piece of plastic. Cut a piece of plastic to the profile of the cup. Fill the cup one half full on its side and insert the plastic divider on top of the soil. Fill the remainder of the cup and now you have two divided spaces to plant. Keep the plastic about 1/2 inch above the soil level and mark the crosses on each side of the cup. It worked for me and saved that valuable space. Hope this helps.

I'm telling ya...once these puppies start sprouting they just go crazy! New green shoots popping up all over!

All of Scooters crosses have at least 1 seed germinating...most had several germinating when I planted them. Ver impressive germination speed!

10 dfferent crosses all took less than 5 days to start germinating! I have one that's two weeks with no germination.

Still, about 1/2 of 30 crosses have at least one sprout, most of those have several.

Berrytea4me, What I do to save space is a little different from Virgo45's. I don't divide the whole cup. What I do is use those little colored sip and stir straws and mark the row ends with a designated color. I assign the cup a number. So if I have 4 seeds of BASS GIBSON X GOLDEN TENTACLES, I will place 2 red straws....one on each side of the middle of the cup (like planting rows in a garden) and then plant all 4 seeds in that row and number the cup #1. On my master sheet I have the cup # followed by red and then the cross ID. I then will go left or right of center and place 2 yellow straws and plant the next 3 seeds of another cross. I keep my master sheet updated and never lose track of what was planted in those multi cross cups.

Linda

Virgo45 & Linda, thanks for the great ideas. Don't have to deal with it yet but will in a few days so I'll use your ideas to figure out my plan.

Mark, check out my post on the thread about best/worst crosses. I'm experimenting with some of those never germinated seeds. Will let you know if it makes a difference in germination results.

8 more crosses have germinating seeds so have been potted up. Many of these are from Alison on LA site. 1.5 days from soak to germinate is pretty good! 5 of the 9 crosses received germinated.

Another cross had 5 seeds and all 5 seeds germinated within hours of each other.

Berry...any luck on the difficult ones yet? I think I may have an albino sprouting.

One more seed germinated last night from Scottish Fantasy x April Laquinta (stubborn cross). That makes 3 of 15 seeds to germinate in that cross.

This is after ~ 36 hours back in germination closet, following 1.5 week back in the fridge, following 22 days soaking w/o germinating. And it WAS one of the seeds where I cut open the casing a tiny bit.

A couple others in that cross look like they are swelling at the tip so may start to germinate but we'll see over the next few days.

Down to just 6 or 7 crosses left to germinate. several of those are the seeds I started soaking Monday, and 1 cross may actually be ready to pot up from those. I've had very good AND very even germination from Alison's seeds. two crosses where nearly all the seeds germinated on the same day Scooters seeds have given similar results. Even some smallish seeds have started to germinate; seeds I thought would be slow due to their size.

As for sprouts...those are a little more erratic. I have 6 of 7 of one cross, and 5 of 6 of another cross sprouted. Most others I only have around 30-50% sprouting. Still, this is more than enough seedlings to plant out in Spring, and I'm sure more will continue to sprout in coming weeks.

A whole lot of green shoots popped up yesterday on my latest batch of seeds. I've found that having the cups on a heating mat speeds sprouting of shoots after germination. Most of this batch have sprouted their shoots w/in 4 days after germination/planting.

I still have a bunch that have not germinated yet and am still waiting on snailmail for additional seeds to arrive.

Looks like the new leaf on my "siamese twin" seedling is turning out to be a normal leaf while both albino seedlings are finally starting to fail. The tips of their leaves are starting to whither and there has been no new growth in 2 wks. The other severely deformed seedling is not growing & not withering- just sitting there with no outward appearance of growth.

Nothing new on the stubborn seeds that I've been trying to germinate since 1/7.

Unfortunately, it looks like one cross didn't cut the mustard. Asian Fairy Bluebird x Isleworth failed. All seeds soft and oozing.

All in all though, it's the only cross so far that has failed. There are still a few containers that haven't sprouted yet, and 4 more crosses that haven't yet germinated. All in all, even if I only get the sprouts so far to survive and keep growing I'm not unhappy. I think there will continue to be more new sprouts poking their green shoots out for a few weeks yet.