Poll on Seed Expectations

What do you consider a good success rate for germination percentage and other methods of propagation? I know some of you are going to say, I'm happy if anything comes up and that is true for most of us but there is often a feeling of a little disappointment and failure that more didn't root or germinate.

For me, I've always considered 70% germination or rooting a fairly good level and have even be guilty of measuring my success as a plantsman against that percentage from fresh propagating material. I know some who think that even 80% is too low.

I do have a reason for asking, a fellow gardener recently told me that she too had expectations of seed and propagating material that were too high! Apparently, we shouldn't be disappointed if it's only 40-50% successful as that's a great rate to achieve, this she was told by a professional horticulturalist.

I've had time to reflect on this and recalled lectures on sowing rates (in agricultural), I realised that it's true, many of us amateur gardeners do have very high expectations of our material. I shall go into this season's sowing with a renewed enthusiasm and lower expectations of myself and the seed.

So, in all honesty (and bearing in mind the first paragraph) what do you consider a great success rate for your propagation methods?

First off, let me say that I am very new to growing from seed. While picking up some sunflower seeds for my son, I also grabbed a couple other packages to try some time. This summer I tried a container of Daisy and Coreposis seeds. In each case I threw in the entire package because I had no idea how many would germinate.

I made a number of mistakes with the Coreposis but the Daisies seemed to germinate pretty well. In the end I wound up with about 35 Daisies and 3 Coreposis plants that are now in the ground. I have no idea how many Daisy seeds were in the package, but there were a lot and 35 plants would give me a fairly poor percentage. But still, it is more plants than I can use. 3 Coreopsis plants was a terrible percentage, but still I ended up with 3 plants for a little time, a $1 package of seeds and maybe a couple dollars worth of supplies.

So I don't really have a point here, but to me it seems like germination percentage does not matter that much. Sure I can see if you are dealing with rare or expensive seeds, but in most cases if 20% of your seeds turned into plants you would have more plants than you can use yourself at a price that is still very low.

But I would like to take this time to brag about my 100% success rate at my first attempted rooting (some Hibiscus syriacus cuttings from my mother). ;-)

- Brent

Brent

I agree if you can get a packet of 200 seeds for a small cost in the local store, then it doesn't really matter but it does start to matter when you grow a lot from seed and your annual seed orders run into the price of a 3 month utility bill or you trade a lot of seeds. Seed germination rates are also a good way of knowing if a seed company is any good, sometimes it is the way they store the seed that causes some loss of viability. It doesn't have to be an important thing for a gardener but it is for some of us :)

If you trade seeds then their germination rates can be very important, especially since the general amount of seed is about 20. If it germinates for me, then I can be fairly certain that they they are capable of germinating (given the right conditions) for the other trader.

I personally find growing from seed very rewarding and a way to obtain plants that aren't widely available and for a lot less money, that goes for fairly common plants too such as Foxglove, our local garden centres are selling Foxgloves for $6+, a packet of seed costs around a $ here and that's a lot of foxgloves for the next few years in that one small packet. I also know a very experienced gardener who works in horticulture who always claims she can never get anything to germinate and refuses to grow from seed. It's horses for courses and no one can really tell us how to spend our gardening budget :)

Anyway, that's why the percentages are important to me.

Well done on your Hibiscus 100% success rate, may it long continue!

My husband ran a local retail nursery for about twenty years and insists that when I am upset with a 70% rate of my own seeds or my cuttings, I should be happy as a good average, according to the people he dealt with, is 50%. Hope that helps.

Baa...my story probably won't help you much, but I'm going to tell it anyway. :-)

I bought four packets of some off brand marigold seeds. They were the Tall 'Cracker Jack' variety. Marigolds are easy, right? Well, I thought I'd try my hand at starting them in seed trays so I could put them into the locations I wanted instead of broadcasting them into a bed. The first pack failed to germinate. The second pack failed...the third pack failed...I *threw* the fouth pack into the garden expecting the same result...and got it. It failed, too. Except for ONE SEED! One lousy seed out of probably 100 germinated, it grew...it bloomed...and it produced THREE flowers. And the flowers produced nice fat viable seeds.

I'm thinking about sowing a couple in flats just to *see* if any of those will cooperate. My success rate? LOL With "Cracker Jack"...it's pretty low!

~julie~

Julie88, a quick question, were all the packets from the same company?

I'd say you were sold a bundle of pups there!

I hope for a 50% success rate. I think I get about 80% tho. I over plant my seeds for that reason but also for future problems. For instance, every year I grow about 30 new mango seedlings. From those 25 ought to make it. Then each time I repot I lose a few- don't know why but I repot for a few years so the #'s dwindle. I might in the long run get 15 mango trees and out of that maybe 10 hardy ones.

Some people only keep the stronger looking seedlings and weed out 2/3's but not me- I have found that they all need to get a good try- ya never know which will be the star and in some cases I have found it to be the "ugly duckling".

Whatever it is, I have learned to over plant just for the future.

My cutting propagation success is low- less than 50% but I think it's because I skimped and didn't use

Baa...yep! All from the same company. And boy, did that experience give me an inferiority complex when it comes to starting seed. :-D Or it *would have* if I hadn't managed to get others to grow quite well!

~julie~

A tiny bit off the subject but on an impulse buy I bought a pack of 'purple' basil from Wally world that came up green!

I will tell you something I am planning once I get all my seeds cleaned. Several years ago I bought a seed sprouter from Johnny's - I am going to use that to test my trading seeds to make sure they are viable.

One more thing - there are several threads about using hydrogen peroxide in a soaking process to help your seeds germinate. I have also read about some helpers called Maxicrop and Superthrive. I have been watering my houseplants with the peroxide this summer but have not tried any of the others out yet. I am going to try and find those threads and post them. It is very interesting stuff! Equilibrium
and Weezingreens are both very knowlegable on this subject as well!

This message was edited Oct 15, 2004 8:05 AM

Ok, there about a million posts on peroxide - do a search in the threads and there is a lot of good info on how to give you seeds a 'boost!'

As far as buying seeds, I had purchases from one on-line company, including a replacement shipment, with absolute zero success. I have also had 100% of locally purchased seeds come up. Never have I had a Tacca or a Teakwood tree sprout no matter what I tried, as well as a few others. I, too, plant double what I am hoping to have, but that goes for bread loaves and cookies as well. Considering all the variables the results will differ terrifically, but I am learning (or trying) to be content with anything above fifty percent.

I need to peek at the peroxide postings, but I fear it would disqualify us from being certified organic?

I couldn't answer that one ladyannne - hopefully someone else can!

Nicole

I was going through my notes from a turf class and remembered this thread when I saw the germination rates for bluegrass is 85% and for rye it is 95%. Some companies will put a germination rate on the packages and if you don't manage to achieve that rate you should check your system for problems. Sometimes poor seed quality will drop the percentages but some seeds simply have a high rate of infertility. Some companies like T&M test the viability of the seeds before they are packaged and some will increase the number of seeds if the germination rates are lower than should be expected. Others don't do any testing at all. I remember one year I opened a seed packet and there were 5 extra packs of seed with a note from the company that germination rates were lower than expected so they made up for it with the extra packets. I would guess that if your average germination rate for most seeds is not more than 85% you have a problem. The most common problems are sowing too deep, too wet or too dry or both, wrong temperatures and incorrect lighting. Some seeds can take up to 6 months or more although the more common interval is 7 days. I remember some martigonium lily seed that could take up to three years. Jessamine

I find that for seeds that I have collected myself (that is, from my own healthy mature plants) I achieve a 90% viability or greater with no trouble at all.
This begins to decrease for me as the seed's needs become more demanding. Seeds that need scarification or stratification I only get about 50% return from - probably due to my own inexperience.

Seeds that I have purchased from other online sources tend to have lower results, depending on the variety, usually between 40 and 60%. There have been a few notable exceptions where I get a zero return, and no amount of peroxide soaking or wet paper towels seems to help.

To combat this, I will often purchase a desired plant ONCE, already developed at a nursery, and then only propagate it by seed from then on.

I've also noted the same thing from T&M, and have received double the seed because their own tests gave a low seed viability. I really like that they take that responsibility. :)

T&M US obviously take more care of their customers and seeds than T&M UK!

Cyberageous, welcome to DG!

I've been buying from T&M for about 25 years now and I have had no reason to complain. I was surprised to hear others did not have the same high opinion. I have especially been pleased to find some very unusual seeds that I didn't find elsewhere. I have two copies of the germination database they used to send out with every order and have had remarkable sucess using their instructions.
LegoBrickster: The only problen I see with your method is so many plants available now are hybrids and the chances of getting the same plant are seriously reduced. However you might come up with a new hybrid that is even better. Have you tried layering or taking cuttings? Jessamine

I expected and got 80+% germ on most of my purchased and collected seeds this year. This is the first year I done very much seed starting inside. There were only 2 things I was really disappointed in. I sowed a whole pack of garlic chive seed and did not get a sprout (from Walmart). Some White Swan Echinacea seed that I bought on line from a company I have dealt with before (and had great germination with) I only got about 40% germ. I called the company & they sent more and I got the same rate. Enough germinated to get the 9 plants I wanted, but was disappointing because I had to keep resowing to get those 9. I had started some 2 year old purple echinacea seeds at the same time and got very good germ. with them, don't know what the problem was. I have 3 of the White Swan plants that I had bought last year and I have collected seeds from them, will be interested to see how those do.

Edited to say none of the seeds I started were supposed to be difficult, maybe my rate would be lower with different kinds of seeds.

This message was edited Oct 16, 2004 8:58 PM

After reading all your posts, I'm not even sure my answer qualifies, but here's my two cents' ...

Knowing bupkiss about gardening in the beginning, I was collecting seed from so many generous folks for anything that bloomed (all that glitters is not gold). Not knowing a wit about growing from seed, I was thinking you could just put the seeds in a hole where you wanted them to grow (any ol' time of the year) and POOF you got plants!

Having said that... it's taken me quite a lot time to weed out (pardon the pun) all the "too difficult for Carole" seeds, and come to grips with the fact that I'm basically a lazy gardener. If I can't just throw the seeds ON the ground (basically) either in fall or in the spring... it's probably not going to be in my garden... well not from seed anyway.

So in conclusion, I think I'd have to say it depends very much on the difficulty of the seeds you're trying to germinate. As I have improved my success rate (tongue in cheek ; ) by leaps and bounds!! I'm probably up to a 90% success rate... due to the fact that I tend to grow some of the easiest non-thinking plants from seed known to man / woman / gardener.

This message was edited Oct 16, 2004 9:00 PM

Jessamine, I'm sorry I didn't see that you're a new member to DG, welcome :)

You've probably not come across Baa's boring rants about T&M and I'll save you and the long suffering members from another, at least on this thread *G* I'm glad that they get it right for some of their customers and I'm very fortunate in the fact that there are several seed companies here who offer a much wider and/or (depending on company) more unusual range, higher quality and for less money IMHO.

I will say in their favour that their germination pamphlets are good and are worth obtaining.

Sadiemaewebb

I had trouble with White Swan Echinacea seeds too where as the purple germinated, I wonder if they naturally have lower germination rates. This summer one of the local gardening clubs was having a sale and I nabbed a pot of 5 seedlings, the seller told me she had trouble with them too!

Cajun2

We're really fortunate here to be able to sow pretty much year round but in pots and usually under cover, this makes up for the overly wet Springs and Autumns. Each year we mix up a load of seed we don't have space to grow in pots and give them a 'chance' by throwing them willy nilly on the borders, it's always surprising what will come up from seed in this manner, sometimes a couple of years later.

That's interesting, must just be a trait of the white ones then...at least I know I'm not alone : )