FlyTrapCare Forums

Back in the summer I got some sarracenia and darlingtonia seeds. In cold stratified both of them for 8 weeks. It has been a little over 5 months and there has been no germination. During stratification I was on vacation for a 2 weeks, so I was not able to take them out of the refrigerator to air them out. Could this be the reason that I have no germination?

Were the seeds fresh? I've had some problems germinating some older seeds that I got.

Im not sure they were from the seed bank. I know that Chefdean said there were a lot of old sarr seeds when I requested them. I know that the darlingtonia seeds were fresh, but I only had three of them (Chef gave me a sample).

I've had the same experience with some of the sarrs from the seed bank. I treated them like fresh seeds and didn't have much luck. I only tried half of the seeds so I am going to try the rest using some more aggressive methods to get them to germinate.

Could try Gibberrellic acid to trigger germination. I had some Sarr seeds from the bank as well as some Darlingtonia seeds from a forum member that I kept in the refrigerator for months and I was able to get germination from them with ga3. Also, did you put the seeds in damp media in the fridge or did you just have the seeds in there?

Another option would be to keep them cold and let them germinate naturally in the spring when it warms up. The seeds may surprise you.

I did use damp media for stratification. Would you use the gibberrellic acid before or after stratification?

I've never had luck with artificial (fridge) stratification with any seed, but had great results with natural (winter) stratification.
Sow the seeds (if not already) and put them outside to let Mother Nature do her thing. Or, as I do, put them in a cold garage, just make sure they stay damp.

Berrybob wrote:I did use damp media for stratification. Would you use the gibberrellic acid before or after stratification?

I used the GA3 on my Sarr seeds immediately out of the envelope. I didn't stratify them in the fridge outside of how they were stored previously. The Darlingtonia were kept in the fridge for a while before I used them. I didn't put any of them on media before doing it. The GA3 was actually just an experiment. Of the three types I had, one entire packet rotted so I can only guess that those seeds weren't very viable, one that germinated multiple plants, and one that has still yet to do it. My mixture was 500ppm while others have done something like 750ppm. At 500ppm I had germination of the seeds after about 2 weeks. Comparing it to results before, I believe the lower concentration probably had an effect on how long it took the seeds to respond.

Anyway the idea with GA3 would be to skip stratifcation entirely, so you could try it whenever you want. Usually it works for "warm stratification" but it appears to help with these species as well.

I like Chef's idea though. The seeds that didn't germinate I was planning on just throwing outside and seeing if it had more success.

I have some sarr seeds that I have not sowed, so I think I'll try some with Ga3 and the others I'll naturally stratify.

To add to the great advice of Chef and Apollyon --

If the seeds were stratified for at least 4 weeks and the germination conditions were favorable (i.e. correct soil, correct water, warm temperature, elevated humidity, etc.) then the seeds likely weren't viable. However, if any of the optimal germination conditions weren't met or if the seeds weren't properly stratified, then the lack of germination could be due to one of those variables.

And some seeds are just a bit more "stubborn" than others, so trying to naturally stratify them or use GA3 is worth a try!