I have lots of seeds from 2010 thru the current year and I have been checking to see what crosses I have. I can't believe some of them never got planted. I don't think many of them are still good. I will try some but I am guessing a few 2013 and most of the 2014 seeds are still good. Everything I have are crosses made by Ashton and myself.
I am trying some 2010 seeds in water H2O2 right now.
I sprouted some 2013 seeds last year that were good.
When I do the water H2O2 mix, I just put the seeds in small cups on a table. I don't have space in the fridge. If the seeds are good, a high percentage will sprout within 10 days. Also, I am not very scientific on my peroxide mix but if the seeds are good I get near 100%. My experience is that I get almost all or nothing from each cross to sprout with my method.
I also think there are some genetic consistencies that can be noted. For example, last year I started seeds at different times -about 20-25 crosses every few days. My seeds with the parent Moroccan Sapphire would be the first to sprout with every batch of seeds I started. It made no difference what Moroccan Sapphire was crossed with, they would start sprouting within 1 or 2 days.

I too wanted to say thank you for this posting and everyone testing and posting. I myself sowed some 2013 seeds to test. I didn't have any older to test, but would have just to see, if I would have had older seeds.

But I think the specific cross has some to do with it also. I had a bag of seeds that I had harvested from Siloam Plum Tree, a diploid, which sets bee pods easily. At end of season I had just plucked them all off into a paper bag and they got tossed into a spare bedroom with some other seed harvest. They ended up overlooked for a couple years, and then I sowed them for testing when they were a little over 2 years old. Now remember that these seeds were never stored in the fridge. The bedroom generally shut off, leaving it cold in the winter, and hot in the summer, but usually very dry. The seeds germinated, but I did not grow them on or take seed counts. So at that point I assumed many daylily seeds 2 years old and slightly older would germinate.

But one other note, in my opinion, is that diploid daylily seeds have always seemed to germinate far easier and at a higher rate than my tetraploid seeds.

Ashton/Terry and Kayleigh - You brought up some very good points. I, too, wondered about the cross (parents) of seeds. And also whether dips vs tets make a difference in how old and how fast they might geminate.

Anyone have any experience or have experimented with older seeds to share info with us?

I agree with you Kayleigh. Diploid seeds seem to keep better and older seeds can be viable no matter how you store them. In my test from last year with two year old seeds, about half tet and half dip, all the dips produced seedlings and none of the tet seeds sprouted.
I have lots of seeds stored in small cups in a back room as well. My real test will come this spring when I make some grow boxes and mass plant all my old seeds to see what I get to sprout. I am not going to take time to mark them except dip and tet.

I got out bags of seeds from past years and sorted to find some that look like they may be OK. I am talking about thousands of seeds from 2010 to 2014. I only found a few tet crosses from 2010-2013 that look like they could possibly be good. I have more than 100 dip crosses that look like they could be good seeds. The 2014 seeds look good.

I will have to see if any 2010 seeds are good. It will surprise me if any sprout.

I hope you will share your results! I am very curious to know.

kousa said:

How do you store your seeds? How do the sellers on LA keep the seeds so nice plump until they ship them? I don't know what I am doing wrong but some of the seeds that I received a month or two ago are looking rather shriveled. I keep them in the original bags that they come in and place all the seed bags in a gallon ziploc bag and store them on the refrigerator door rack.

First, not all seeds look the same. Some are wrinkled, other are plump. Tet seeds tend to be larger and more plump. Dip seeds smaller and often wrinkled. But it can go either was for both.

I keep my seeds in the small zip lock bag in the bottom drawer of my fridge. I have sown seeds several years old that sprouted just fine. Just soak those shriveled seeds overnight in hand hot water and they will plump up. Actually I soak all seeds before planting.

Never freeze any seeds. It kills the embryo since freezing is dry. To the question, if stored in the small zip lock bag and placed in the bottom drawer, they will last for at least 3 years, or more. As long as the seeds are still hard, they are ok.

sooby said:Scroll down to "Storage and Lifespan of Seeds" in this AHS article:

http://www.daylilies.org/AHSar...

Gee, no one told that to my old seeds, They sprouted anyway at age 3 years. It is the way seeds are handled that depends on longevity. They have to be ripe when harvested, then left to dry for a few days before storing in plastic bags. That goes for all seeds.

They did get germination after 25 months of storage in the fridge, 80% for one batch but lower for the others. Their fridge temperature was 40 degrees F which is a bit higher than most people would have their fridges these days so that may have made a difference. Also they don't say if they tested any longer, I imagine they were looking to see how much viability would diminish over time.

They did successfully freeze daylily seeds and they remained viable, but as noted earlier in the thread, they have to be sufficiently dry for this to work without killing the seeds. I know of at least one AHS member who has experimented with this and found daylily seeds could be successfully frozen if dry enough (which would take more than a few days). I don't think I would risk it though. Below freezing temperatures don't typically count as stratification time (that occurs primarily between 32F and 50F and requires hydrated seeds) so unless one really wants to make a daylily time capsule there's not much advantage

BTW as an aside for anyone interested, the author of that seeds article, Dr. Robert Griesbach, did his PhD (1955) on daylily seed dormancy and germination, was an original pioneer of developing tetraploid daylilies from diploids, and introduced dozens of daylily cultivars (currently handled by Klehm's Song Sparrow Farm). I was fortunate enough to meet him at a daylily club meeting once and had a very interesting chat about daylily seed dormancy/germination.

I have gotten many times a volunteer daylily plant come up right next to the mother plant, and it's bloom was a different color. That tells me that a seed fell that I missed and germinated and grew. We have freezing temps all winter here so my conclusion is that frozen daylily seeds will withstand freezing temperatures, germinate and grow.

Yes Cindy, I tend to agree.

I had this seedling pop up in one of my beds, I know I didn't plant it, so it had to be from a seed that overwintered.

I know of a couple well known hybridizers that have spoken at our club meetings that direct plant their seeds in November, just before the ground freezes for the winter. I know the germination rate is lower, but they do survive the cold winter temps.

Nice one Sandi!!! I know germination rate is lower because I did the same thing one year, planted a bunch in November. Only about a third came up.

Thanks Cindy....I actually do really like this surprise seedling. It's whimsical, sways to the beat of the wind

Thank you @Sooby for posting that information about daylily seed germination and hydrogen peroxide dilutions. I have examined the information statistically.

By August 23
There is no statistically significant difference in the percentage germination for the different hydrogen peroxide solutions. By this date they had all effectively germinated about 52%.

By Sept 3
There are statistically significant differences in the percentage germination for the different hydrogen peroxide solutions. There is no statistically significant difference between the germination percentage in plain water and that in the damp vermiculite. Since there are significant differences in the germination a graph is appropriate.



With the current information, looking at the graph suggests that about 1 to 4 dilution is optimal. If anyone has enough seeds from the same cross and was interested in testing between 1:4 and 100% peroxide that might be very useful (eg 1:4, 1:3, 1:2, 1:1, 2:1, 3:1, 4:1, etc.)

Interesting, Maurice, thanks for doing that. One thing I would suggest if someone can try this is to grow the seedlings on after germination to see if the stronger solutions are in any way detrimental. The advantage I had with my tests is that the seeds were all from the same pod parent which I believe to be Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus, and were insect pollinated most likely with pollen also from the same daylily because no other daylilies were flowering in the vicinity that early. There's more likely to be a mix of parentages and ploidies in most peoples' seeds, is it necessary to design the experiment around that and, if so, what would you suggest?

sooby said:Interesting, Maurice, thanks for doing that.

You are welcome.

One thing I would suggest if someone can try this is to grow the seedlings on after germination to see if the stronger solutions are in any way detrimental.

Good idea; I agree.

The advantage I had with my tests is that the seeds were all from the same pod parent which I believe to be Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus, and were insect pollinated most likely with pollen also from the same daylily because no other daylilies were flowering in the vicinity that early. There's more likely to be a mix of parentages and ploidies in most peoples' seeds, is it necessary to design the experiment around that and, if so, what would you suggest?

25 seeds per dilution is a good number; more is better. I would suggest that 20 seeds is the minimum per dilution.

It is best and simpler if all the seeds used come from the same pod parent; The same pollen parent is not necessary as long as all the seeds for the test are mixed in one batch and selected at random for each dilution. Best if the same number of seeds is tested at each dilution.
What is absolutely important is that the seeds tested at each dilution are similar; have no known differences. Some examples below:
You have 100 seeds from cross of A x B and you are going to test 5 dilutions - then choose 20 seeds at random (e.g. with eyes closed) from the pile of seeds for each dilution.

You have 20 seeds from A x B, 40 seeds from D x S and 60 seeds from J x G - total number of seeds is 120. You are going to test five dilutions then choose 24 seeds for each dilution. Choose 4 seeds from cross A x B, 8 seeds from cross D x S and 12 seeds from cross J x G for each dilution. The 4, 8, and 12 seeds from the different crosses can be combined. Not quite as good but also acceptable is to combine the 20 AxB seeds, the 40 DxS seeds and the 60 JxG seeds in one container with a lid and mix them very thoroughly. Then choose 24 seeds at a time from the container for each peroxide dilution.

If seeds from different crosses need to be mixed then it is important to keep the number of seeds used from each cross a multiple of the number of dilutions being tested. So if we are going to test five dilutions then the number of seeds from each cross should be 5 or 10 or 15 or 20 or 25, etc. If we are going to test 6 dilutions then the number of seeds from each cross should be 6 or 12 or 18 or 24, etc. That way each dilution has a good chance of getting the same number of seeds from each cross. If we used 3 seeds from one cross and 7 seven seeds from another cross and five dilutions then two of the dilutions would not get a seed from the first cross and probably three of the dilutions would get one seed from the second cross while two of the dilutions would get two seeds from that cross.

The important thing is to make certain each dilution receives seeds that are as similar as possible.

Another suggestion for anyone interested in testing hydrogen peroxide dilutions and daylily seed germination. The more information collected usually the better. Checking the seeds each day provides the most information. All that needs to be recorded is the total number of seeds germinated by that day for each dilution.

Happy to report I have some (dip) Laddie Boy x Hot Wheels seed collected in 2009 beginning to sprout ! I use 12 tbsp Hyd Peroxide per gallon of distilled water.

Keeping an eye on the other ones......

Sandi - That means those seeds are almost 7 years old! Great news!!!

I take it they have been in the refrigerator all that time .... or not?

Yes Becky, I have my own little dorm size fridge that I store all my flower seeds in !

That gives me hope that I can continue to save daylily seeds in the fridge and they might stay viable for longer than 1 or 2 years. Yay!!!! I have more seeds than I can grow at this time, so that's really encouraging to know!

Thanks for sharing your experiment results with us, Sandi!