asiatic lily seed question

17 years ago

I noticed a couple people here are working with asiatics. I tried my hand at them first time this year. I am collecting pods now.

How do you tell viable seed from chaff? Most of what is inside the pods looks like tissue paper. Some are thicker so I'm pretty sure viable but sometimes even those are like tissue paper after they dry a bit. Others are mostly tissue paper with small area of more substance at the base, and lots are just tissue paper stuff.

What does viable seed look like or do you just plant it all?

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Comments (7)

cheerpeople
17 years ago
I got my first asiatic to grow from seed! If your not sure plant them all.
You can google images of the seed and how to candle them to determine if they are viable. I'm not positive I've got the hang of it so am saving mostly all.
Karen
berrytea4me
Original Author
17 years ago
Hi,
Thanks Karen. Yes, I think I will have to plant them all. For some of my crosses there are only a couple seeds that I am sure have an embryo. For others, the whole pod was full of what are obvious seeds, not just the paper stuff.

I looked at some of the images online but still am not positive whether some of the thinner/paper like ones are viable or not. They "kinda" look like there is a line in there but they are soooo very thin it just not so obvious one way or the other. Guess it will just take some experience.

One site I found very helful was Mike's Backyard Garden
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cheerpeople
17 years ago
Berry,
Yeah it is a good site. Found that last week too. I emailed Mike at that site and he has helped with some questions.
I went thru my crosses looking for 'good seed' and only have maybe 8 possibly successful hybrids out of 3 pages!.
I'm trying a small sample of ea doing mikes baggie method right now.
I'd be nice to know if they are epigeal or delayed hypogeal, so I know when to plant the rest of the seeds. If they are the latter I might just start this winter.
Oh, I guess I should explain, these are not asiatic x asiatic crosses.
Karen
cheerpeople
17 years ago
http://www.the-genus-lilium.com/candling.htm

Berry,
I just found this image and info.
Karen

Here is a link that might be useful: a viable seed
berrytea4me
Original Author
17 years ago
Karen,
Thanks for the link. That does help. I think I was using too bright of light to "candle" my seeds. I also just bought an inexpensive microscope so could use that though it would be very tedious to go through hundreds of "seed" one at a time and may just be easier to plant them all.
cheerpeople
17 years ago
Berry,

Here's what I did in 4 pics-
I have 4 pics at the start of this album explaining it all.
If you open each one you should be able to see the lower caption info explaining what I did.
My asiatic seeds have sprouted!

Here is a link that might be useful: open first 4 pics to read lower captions :)
berrytea4me
Original Author
17 years ago
Cheerpeople,
Thanks for sharing your success. Congratulation!
I got your message a couple days ago but my computer hard drive crashed so I could read my e:mail messages from my cell phone but for some reason I can't log on here to post via my mobile and your photo host would not resolve on my mobile either.

Got a new computer today...so I could finally look at your photos. Great job documenting this. Really helps me see what a viable seed should look like.

BT4M