>There is a simpler way to germinate Drosophyllum seed without using GA3. Try
>soaking the seeds in distilled water for 24 hours or so. Michael Chamberland
>suggested this to me once. It reduced the length until germination down to 3
>-4
>weeks.
Sounds interesting and is indeed a cheaper method.
>Those of you using 500ppm GA3 are probably wasting money. That is an
>enormously
>high concentration. I've had very good results with a 24 hour soak in 1mg/L
>(1ppm) with D. spathulata. This soak reduced the germination time to two
>weeks. The control still hasn't germinated after 6 weeks.
Yes, maybe, but on the other side I only use a few ml of GA3 solution per
seed batch, and when I take the price of GA3 into account, the solution (500
ppm) is about 5 dutch cents (about 3 $cents) per ml. When you know that Allen
Lowrie's seeds are 3 Austr. $ per seed batch, the price of the GA3 isn't that
expensive. Furthermore, I have some seed from Allen that refuses to germinate
even with this high GA3 concentration and some others of which only a few
germinate. So I'm not sure if you will succeed with a lower concentration.
Martin Zevenbergen
Dept. of Plant taxonomy
Agricultural University
P.O. box 8010
6700 ED Wageningen
The Netherlands
martin.zevenbergen@algem.pt.wau.nl
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End of CP Digest 579
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