- Sun Feb 08, 2009 12:09 am
#3711
You could try treating the seeds with Gibberellic Acid-3 (GA-3), a naturally occurring plant growth regulator which may cause a variety of effects including the stimulation of seed germination in some cases. GA-3 occurs naturally in the seeds of many species and is produced commercially by growing Gibberella fujikuroi fungus cultures in vats, then extracting and purifying the GA-3. Presoaking seeds in GA-3 solution will in many cases cause the rapid germination of many types of highly dormant seeds which would otherwise need cold treatment, after-ripening or aging, or other prolonged pretreatments. Many different types of dormancy are overcome with GA-3, excellent results have been achieved with many ordinarily difficult seeds, including some types which we have never before succeeded with. Not all seeds respond well. A great deal of research needs to be done to determine which species benefit, and the proper concentration of GA-3 for each type.
I'm not altogether sure about the effects of GA-3 on Dionaea seed, you could also try scarification, a natural process important for germination of many species' seeds. This process involves the breaching of the natural seed coating by mechanical, thermal or microbial methods. While this process occurs naturally in the wild, humans have developed techniques to emulate the natural processes for some seeds used in cultivation. Probably to easiest method used to scarify seed is to rub the seed on some very fine sandpaper until the seed coat is breached, this should allow water to penetrate more rapidly and encourage faster germination, but be very careful not to damage the embryo seedling inside by rubbing too deep..
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