Hybridizers: It can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 6, 1 by Zen_Man

Zen_Man wrote:
[quote=\"Loretta_NJ\"]...The only zinnias I\'ve grown were out of a seed packet. I did collect seed in the past but I didn\'t get anything different out of it nor did I try to.[/quote]Hi Loretta,

The next time you grow zinnias and decide to save seeds from them, just save seeds from your very favorite ones. It\'s hard to know what your favorite ones were after the zinnias have died and \"gone to seed\", so while the zinnias are still growing and blooming, you can look them over and form your opinions about individual specimens, and tie a bit of string or yarn on your most favorite ones. Seeds saved from your favorites can give better results than seed packets.

I think that most people who save seeds from zinnias wait until late Fall after the plants have died and turned brown, and then save the dried brown seed heads.

A better way to save zinnia seeds is to save the seeds as green seeds. You can pull individual petals from a selected zinnia bloom and save the ones that have plump seeds that contain a developed embryo. You can plant them immediately for a second generation of zinnias, or dry them on a newspaper or the equivalent preparatory to packaging them for use next year.

There are several advantages to saving green zinnia seeds. Brown zinnia seeds in dead seed heads are vulnerable to extended periods of wet weather, which can cause zinnia seeds to sprout in the seed head. Obviously seeds that have sprouted in the seed head are \"goners\". The green seed technique avoids water damage to matured seeds.

Some people have trouble with seed eating birds eating their zinnia seeds. Saving your seeds early as green seeds shortens the \"window of opportunity\" for the seed eating birds.

And, when you are saving green seeds, you can still tell what the bloom looks like (notice that the petals of the green seeds still have their coloration), which reduces the chance of your saving seeds from a zinnia bloom that you don\'t like.

The attached picture shows some saved zinnia green seeds, and how you can tell the \"good\" ones from the empty ones that lack a matured embryo.

ZM