What are you going to do with ALL these seeds? 8-))

the ones i remember to collect - i am going to try and grow in the spring. i fully expect half of those pods to die off. i planted some of my sinningia seeds - boy did those take off! i now have something like 50-75 seedlings that are growing right now - er um plant overload soon.....

Why I am asking - first - if it is a selfing - you can grow 10 - and that's enough - they are much less variable then AVs - so you will have the good representation - if you work on part of one pod. Second - setting all these seeds takes a lot of energy from the plant - so I would remove all the seed pods and all the bloomstalks except a couple for the seed collection. I once collected a pod from "Moonlit Velvet" = and raised a lot of babies from this one pod - I had only 2 types when they came into bloom - pale vinca blue - and dark almost black purple. Both types had relatively small blossoms... and they took a lot of space...it was interesting... one time... but 2 trays full of solo cups with babies?? . Hybridizer Dale Martens - when she does her Strep crosses - seeds 25 seeds and raises to bloom 10 - she culls the weak ones on the early stages. Keep all your gessie seeds in a fridge. Otherwise in 6 months - they are not viable anymore.

I think you got an idea with your SInningias - 75 seedlings...you will not get 75 different ones. So start culling some - chuck the ones that are weak...

I.

good to know about the strep seeds - i might put some down rather soon then to see what happens. this was the first time i tried to germinate sinningia seeds - had no idea how many to try. they were from last seasons pull - they germinated quite well. I did figure that most would be the same or similar to the parent. but since i have no idea what the parent came from - i wanted to see what came out of the seedlings. i have one or two that seem to have varigated leaves - have to see if that continues next year. its a fun experiment...

I do not think you need to wait for another year. You can restart them pretty fast - if you have a light stand - you can make them bloom around the year. You harvest the tuber and put it in a baggie with barely moist vermiculite - they usually send the new shoot in a month or 2. You put them under fluorescent lights - and they are blooming again.

There is a way to speed up the development of seedlings. Dale Martens came up with it - basically - it is repotting every2-3 weeks or "tickling of the roots"- lifting the seedling with the soil with the fork - and dropping it down - with caution - speeds up growth 3 times. Since you do not need 75 plants - you can select the best of similar ones - and either compost - or give away the rest of them.

What a beautiful flower-- and a load of seed pods!