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stevelau1911

Most tree peony seeds failing to sprout roots

stevelau1911
11 years ago

I just checked a few of my peony seed beds for sprouting and I hardly see any of them putting out roots. Is this due to the hot summer? I hope the drought and hot summer didn't kill them off.

In the previous years, I usually see most of them sprouting roots by now. I'm not sure if all these seeds are goners, or if they were eaten by pests. Do I still have a chance of having a decent crop of new seedlings next year?

Comments (6)

  • overdrive
    11 years ago

    Hi, same thing happened here, 10 weeks later - nothing - i just placed an order for more seeds from ebay - they sell 100 seeds for $10 - all of my ebay seeds sprouted last year, but i had damping off problems, so the seedlings all died. this year i am going to transplant the seedlings into different medium: hardwood bark mixed with compost - this is a good medium because it drains well, and the bacterial flora in the compost inhibits the damping off fungus from finding the seed.
    - this is according to Allison Jack at Cornell University.
    - best regards, paul m.

  • stevelau1911
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    I have lots of seedlings from previous years, but it will be a problem if I don't have any from this year because I want to make sure there is a generation from each year. I guess the hot dry summer may have killed a lot of the seeds off or something. I guess they still have a chance eh.

    Anyways you could get the 2.99 for 80 tree peony seeds deal, or maybe even go for a bulk rate to get them for less then 3 cents per seed.

  • stevelau1911
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    I think next year, some will certainly still germinate, but one possibility for all of us which don't seem to be having much germination is that the hot and dry summer simply caused the seeds to go dormant, and they may not sprout until 2014.

    Maybe I might still get a good batch to come out next spring, but there's no way to tell. I'm not an expert at all on these guys.

  • stevelau1911
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    With some of the snow thawing off of my flower beds, it looks like some germinated tree peony seeds are starting to appear which were not there 1 month ago. This really doesn't make sense to me. As the snow melts, some of them tend to heave out of the soil so does that simply mean that the soil temperature needs to approach freezing to initiate their growth?

    I'm still pretty much a newbie with tree peony seeds even though I've been growing them for a few years as I still don't understand what causes them to start growing. It is quite a relief that it means not all the seeds ended up rotting away.

  • minotpeonies
    11 years ago

    Tree peonies and herbaceous peonies would need to put out root first in a warm period then the cold weather causes them to put out the plumule or the eye for the first stems.now seeds collected in late summer or in fall planted in raised beds may not get enough warm weather for most to put out the initial roots.i got maybe 15% -25% at best when planted in open beds immediately. I do recommend mulching with straw to conserve moisture and prevent heaving from spring thaws and freezing. I waited with all my crosses to plant out until this spring because I had so few terminations from my hybridzing crosses.I need to find a home for around 500 seeds including tree,herbaceous and ITOh crosses made . I made sure during extreme heat to water raised seedling beds. I used to try indoor germination in bags but found too much rot in hybrids and species. I found that lactiflora seeds are easier to germinate in bags.

  • stevelau1911
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Thanks for your input.

    It seems like most of the peonies I have grown tend to initially sprout roots as it starts getting cooler so it was not unusual for me to not notice them until the beginning of January when there were some days in the 60s. The rooting may have occurred in December, but to develop their eyes, I am observing a couple of indoor ones do that with temperatures in the 50s in a cool room.

    One of them is starting to put out a leaf so I think they first need the warmth in order to break the dormancy, but once the ball is rolling, they would prefer a temperature range from 40-50F in order to sprout roots and develop their buds.

    I've had some problems with non viable seeds, pill bugs, or diseases which have killed off many of my seeds so it is about time for me to look for even more peony seeds to grow.

    Do you know of any wholesale tree peony seed sources? I don't have anything set to sprout for 2014.

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