Byblis liniflora germination

[gj]

I've got some Byblis liniflora seeds on their way, and have been reading about their germination, and thought I'd ask for some input here in case some of you have some experience with growing rainbows.

The Savage Garden states that B. liniflora doesn't require any smoke treatment to germinate, but it seems most of the posts I've read on other forums and website suggest that many people treat their seeds anyway. The person I'm getting the seeds from has confirmed that he uses GA3 (gibberellic acid), and has found that treated seeds germinate faster, and at a higher rate, than those he has tried to start untreated.

I don't have any GA3 handy at the moment, so I thought I might experiment with the ten seeds I'm getting and try a couple different techniques on a couple seeds each. The following were what I thought I might try:

A) No treatment
B) Sprinkle seeds with liquid smoke (suggested in The Savage Garden)
C) The bleach treatment as described here.
D) A technique using real smoke, based on the video which can be viewed here.

I'm not worried about trying to achieve the highest possible germination rate, and with such a small sample size, the results of this aren't going to necessarily be all that reliable for drawing any conclusions, but I thought it might be interesting to see what comes of it.

Are there any methods above I should absolutely avoid? (Even though I'm not going for perfection, I'm not exactly trying to waste the seed either haha). Has anybody had any great success with any particular methods?

[bonfield]

A smoke treatment certainly couldn't hurt. It's been years since I've grown it, but I had success with a mild bleach treatment which I was quick to rinse off. Good luck with them!

[gj]

Thanks Cole! I'll definitely try the bleach treatment for a couple of them then.

[gj]

Well. it looks like bleach is winning the race verse liquid smoke soak, and real smoke treatment. I did the bleach treatment for four of the seeds, and two of them appear to be germinating, just nine days later. There's no sign of any life yet from the non-bleached seeds.

The colour in the seeds leeches out, and makes neat little trails behind the seeds in the bleach:



After bleaching, the seeds were soaked in water for 30 min, then sown on a peat and perlite mix.

Nine days later:

[gj]

The real smoke treatment has taken second. 2 of 3 seeds from that treatment are waking up as of today.

[dvg]

That's good news GJ!

So how many of the ten seeds have germinated so far, four or more?







dvg

[gj]

3 of the 4 bleached, and 2 of the 3 smoked have germinated so far. Nothing doing in the 3 that were soaked in liquid smoke.

So so far I'm batting .500.

[gj]

No new germination to report, but here's the bleach treated seedlings finally out of the bag. I've been slowly opening the bag over the past few weeks to harden them off, and am going to start exposing them to some direct sun little by little.

[dvg]

Those are looking very nice and dewy GJ!

Were you able the convince any more seeds to pop up with your other germination stimulating techniques?

*Edit: guess I just  somehow selectively skipped over the openings five words of your  previous post... Much more coffee needed... 








dvg

[gj]

Haha, happens to the best of us DVG. I'll certainly update if/when I see anymore germination happen!

[gj]

Just a quick update on those B. liniflora. I transplanted the ones that had germinated into bigger pots a couple months ago. I've read that they have pretty fragile roots so I was a little worried about moving them, but they seem to have handled the move fine enough. The ones that were bigger to begin with have really taken off with all the new room they have to grow. 

It's been interesting to watch how they've reacted to the sun. Now that they are getting some real, direct light, some of them have started to show tinges of red, while others have stayed a solid green. The difference is most obvious when comparing the biggest plant in each pot.

Bleach treated:




Smoke treated:




No further germination has occurred with the remaining seed. The liquid smoke treated seeds that were yet to germinate might be goners as algae has begun to invade that pot. Probably shouldn't have misted it with that unboiled rainwater haha. Oh well. It seems if you don't have GA3, and don't want to go through the labour of treating them with actual smoke, the bleach method seems to work just fine!

[dvg]

That was a nice piece of work with gingerly repotting those dewy seedlings - they're gonna be fine! 

And good to know that commonly available household bleach does the germinating trick with ease.

Thanks for sharing your growing experience with these GJ.












dvg

[gj]

My pleasure DVG. I know the declarations that certain methods work are already out there, but I enjoy experimenting, even if it's on a limited scale. I was also really worried about over bleaching the seeds, so turning it into a little project with multiple methods felt like the safest way to increase the chances of getting at least a few to germinate.

[ellsie]

Great growing gj ! Thanks for sharing your little germinating experiment, as I'm sure this information will be helpful to others, myself included

I was wondering what dilution of bleach did you try and for how long?  Did you just simply bleached the seeds until the dark color came off?

[gj]

ellsie

I just realised the link for the bleach method in my original post didn't lead to the page I meant it to, so hopefully that's fixed now in case you'd like to check it out.

I did 1 part bleach to 10 parts water, and removed the seeds from the solution just after they started changing colour, then placed them in pure water to soak for around 30 mins. It didn't take nearly as long in the bleach as the 10 mins suggested in the post I was using as a guide. In fact, the only seed that didn't germinate from the bleach treated seeds went a little lighter than the others, leaving me wondering if I might have lost it due to leaving it in the bleach too long. Maybe I accidentally used some extra strong bleach or something haha.