carolem said:Yes I've plenty of zinnia blooms ------- I was just cutting off the spent flower-heads and popping them into a paper-bag to dry out. Perhaps I should try for some green-seed. You are hand-pollinating your zinnias that are indoors for this viable seed then?
Hi Carole,
You definitely should look for some green-seeds in your zinnia flower heads. Also, the lack of bee pollination won't keep you from having some viable zinnia seed in those heads. Zinnia pollen florets can set seeds in the absence of bee activity. The floret seeds look somewhat different from the petal seeds, but they can produce a plant, and it will almost always be a self of the zinnia plant that produced it. Selfs are usually similar to the plant that produced the floret seed, but recombinations can produce some surprises.
It is important that you be able to recognize floret seeds, as well as the petal seeds. This photo contains a good representation of each. Click on the photo for a better view.
Notice that the floret seeds have a concave attachment point, whereas the petal seeds have part of the petal root at the attachment.
There weren't any of the unusual floret seeds in that photo, but be aware that some pollen floret zinnia seeds can be decidedly un-zinnia like. Some floret seeds can look like grains of wheat, while others can look like mouse pellets, including the black color.
Since you have a good supply of zinnia heads, you have a good chance of finding some usable green seeds, or some semi-green ones. Don't forget the pinch test to distinguish empty seeds from embryo-containing ones.
I am doing a lot of cross pollination and some self pollination of selected specimens of my indoor zinnias. I am immediately planting green seeds to get a second generation of indoor zinnias. In order to accelerate the germination of my green seeds, I "breach" them. There are several ways to do that.
That exposes the embryo to moisture. I do that because the green seed coat is still alive and impervious to water. Unbreached green seeds will germinate, but only after the green seedcoat has died and become pervious. That can add a week or more to their germination time.
ZM
