African Violets and Gesneriads: Streptocarpus seedling progress, 1 by Keyring

Keyring wrote:
Hi folks,

I thought I'd start a new thread for updates on the strep seedlings (with a better thread title!) This is a continuation of this thread: http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/551970/ I hope you'll post your progress, frustrations, non-progress etc here.

Just to recap:

I tried crossing a big strep with floofy purple petals from Parks Seed's Royal series strain with a small narrow-leaved strep with simple white flowers. The white one was the mother.

The white strep often selfed itself, so I was quite rude when pollinating. I literally ripped the petals and the anthers (with pollen) off the flowers first, and then pollinated it. I still wasn't sure if I had managed to keep all the white pollen off the white stigmas, but I guess we shall see.

I harvested the seed around November 30 and let them dry in a paper envelope. I broke open the pods on December 2, 2005, and sowed them on December 5 using my usual method (http://www.flickr.com/groups/gesneriads/discuss/22059/). I didn't watch for germination, so I don't know exactly how long it took.

I am now treating this batch like royalty, and following the sage advice of expert hybridizers that it truly pays to disturb the seedlings every two weeks (by potting up, or repotting into the same pot, or at least jiggling the root zone).

Nannavarro posted a pic of her seedlings in the old thread. Sowed in the afternoon of December 14, germination noticed in the morning of December 26.

This image here is either the father or an uncle :^) I finally found a pic.


This message was edited Mar 25, 2007 10:53 PM