Gibberellic Acid

Has anyone had experience with Gibberellic Acid for seed germination or enhancing plant growth?

Bill

I finally got hold of some GA3 a couple of months ago. Used it to induce germination in some unusual gentians... Gentiana verna, occidentalis, kurroo, cruciata.

Had tried several other methods for G. verna with not a peep.

After following Deno's instructions, now have good but not total genmination on verna and occidentalis, and almost 100% germination on the other two.

All praise to Norman Deno...

Technique used was soaking seeds in ~ 20ppm solution for the former rwo species and spraying sown seeds with the same solution for the others.

I think it is definitely worth trying for those difficult dormancies...

I looked all round the net to find the best method for Gentiana kurroo, couldn't find much, then encountered a 'learned' paper by some guy on the species. (http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/sep102003/667.pdf)

Dare I say that my experience blows his paper out of the water. Unless I have skipped something important, he seems to say that seeds must be fresh and is not fresh must be stored below 4deg C.

My seeds came from a NARGS seed exchange and, because of my ignorance were stored at room temperature or warmer from February until May, when they were planted. They must have been stored for at least four months before arriving at my door.

However, the little spray of GA3 has given me a pot of seedlings of all the consistency and vigour of cress!!!

In short, yes - try GA3...

Thanks for the info Cinemike. I have had only intermittent success with most seed germination. Have you tried Ga3 to increase growth on existing plants?

I plan to experiement with some cannas and a some duplicate musas to compare the growth patterns with and without Ga3.

I'll post the results for anyone who may be interested.

Bill

I'd like to hear about it. The first reference I had to Gibberellic Acid was with hosta. Please share your experience with it.

I'd like to hear how you're doing too.Next spring it might be the thing to try on germinating thse pesky meconopsis seeds.Tried colchicine years ago to induce polyploidy on orchids with no results.GA3 sounds like a better thing to expiriment with.

I had good luck getting some stubborn Passiflora incarnata to come up within 10 days instead of weeks or months. I scarified and soaked them in 20 ppm GA3 until they all sank (I think it took a couple of days)

There was some discussion on plant growth (as opposed to seed germinating) using Gibberellic Acid a couple of years ago but I don't find it just now in a search. Seems to me it was JustMeLisa and the results were wonderful.

Edited to say "Ooops! Just as I hit "send" I remembered! I still think it was Lisa but NOT Gibberellic Acid... but mycorrhiza. Sorry.

This message was edited Jul 21, 2004 8:15 PM