Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Germinating Orienpet Seeds

A couple of weeks ago, I was very fortunate to obtain some tetraploid orienpet seeds from Dr. Griesbach after his lecture at my local lily society.





These seeds are all viable. Dr. G. candles lily seeds around October and November and donates tons of seeds to the NALS Seed Exchange every year. Candling the seeds is done by spreading the seeds to a piece of clear glass or plastic illuminating behind it with a low intensity light and you can detect which seeds are viable to germinate, that is, the embryos are visible in the seeds versus seeds without.


Following Dr. G's technique of soaking seeds for five days (changing water everyday) and refrigerating the fully imbibed seeds for six weeks. The seeds has to be wrap in moist paper towel and put it in a closed container prior to refrigeration. After six weeks, the seeds will be sown. (NALS QB: Dec. 1, 2004, Discussions with Dr. Griesbach Concerning the Germination of OT Lily Seeds.)


Dr. Griesbach after the lecture.


His granddaughter Pearl Gracie.


And the lily he named for her: Pearl Stacey(supose to be Pearl Gracie).

4 comments:

Gatsbys Gardens said...

I am really hooked on the Orienput lillies and planted a ton of them last fall. They are just stunning!

Eileen

Larry said...

Wow... how neat! how many years to bloom? Larry

Anonymous said...

Great post Lily.Very informative and you had a good teacher in Dr. G.

Lily said...

@Eileen,

Me too! There are a lot of new ones and soon a double orienpet will be out in the market. I am running out of space to grow lilies!

@Larry,

It will take two years. Lily enthusiasts are saying that the real joy of growing lilies is growing them from seeds.


@GWGT,

Thank you!

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