Sarracenia Seed Stratification Satisfaction

FINALLY. I got around to getting this done!!!

As you know with all the changes this year, it’s set me back quite a bit on a few things, however I’m glad to finally get around to this project. Stratification! I had a very poor seed count from last year, and I believe this was due to the unusually warm January we had that caused many plants to start to form flower buds early.  Then in February, we had very cold weather, and plenty of hail.  I think that the stress by these weird weather fluctuation affected pollen viability, stigma receptiveness, and just overall seed count production.  Out of all the crosses I did, I only managed to get seeds from half of what I did. And within those crosses, there was a low seed count.

Envelopes (that are not really) full of Sarracenia seeds.  After harvesting this year, I stored the crosses in the fridge.  This helps keep the seed viable.

Left: Seed envelopes and pre-made plant labels.  I wrote the cross of each plant and stuck it in front of the respective seed pouch.

Right: Stratification pouches.  I don’t have the room really to do this the Mother- Nature-Way of laying the seed on the media and having them stratify naturally.  I also didn’t want to mess with damp paper towels (although that works as well!)  So, it’s basically just peat moss and sand.  In the bags are currently a dry mix.  When it comes time to plant, I just dump the mixture onto the potting media in their new pots and will let them grow from there.

Oh, what awesomeness will come from these seeds??  Next I dump the seeds into their stratification pouches.

Here the seeds are mixed with the dry stratification/planting media.  I insert the plant tag as well for proper ID of the cross. I repeat for every seed packet.

So after a while, it gets kinda messy… I just started throwing the bags all over the place.  This is what it looked like as I was going through and getting the seeds into the strat-pouches. At least I kept them in kind of one area!

Sarracenia need damp stratification – so my next step is dropping some water into the mix.  I tried something new this year ( I don’t know if this will make a difference) but I added a little bit of hydrogen peroxide to this water mixture. I’ve heard that it helps inhibit fungus…  figure might as well try it. 🙂

Stratification pack: done!

… and when all done, throw em  in the fridge for 4-6 weeks or longer, then plant!