Ok, so nobody wanted to trade for other lingonberry varieties, so I'll try to get some interest going here in another way.
I have a good crop of Ida lingonberries this year, so if you send me a SASBE (self addressed stamped bubble envelop) I'll seal enough berries to get you about 20 seeds in a plastic bag. The berries will likely be crushed in shipping, but you are looking for seeds, right?
Growing: Do not let berries or seed dry out. Ferment crushed berries several days with small amount of water, then rinse carefully to remove junk. Seeds are small, pinkish and sink. Plant in 50% fine peat, 50% fine sand moist but not wet and seal in plastic bag in bright window. Seeds firmly on top of the peat so they can get light. Do not let dry out or chill. I just did a test planting and am getting excellent germination (gemination takes about 2 weeks). Carefully transplant in the spring.
!! D-MAIL me before sending the envelope!!! so that I can make sure I have enough. I have not offered like this before, so I am not sure how much, if any, interest there may be.
Lingonberry seed for sasbe
Sent D-Mail
Cinda
Me too! :-)
Me too
D-mail back at all three of ya!
Am sending you a D mail
Just thought I should take a minute to clarify. The seed parent of these is Ida, which are the majority of my plants, but I do have 1 Baalsgard (sp?), 1 Red Pearl and 1 dwarf plant that all bloomed this year. This means that the pollen parent, though likely Ida, could also be one of these other varieties so it probably would not be correct to label resulting plants as "Ida", but instead "seedling of Ida"
I thought you might like a pic of the plants from the germination check I did,
These are about 1 month old - note that this is at the limit of what my camera can do, and you can also see that some of the seed are still sprouting.
Lingonberries are mostly self-sterile. If 'Ida' is mommy, it would be rare if she was dad. 'Ida' is a patented clone. If Ida x Ida (ultimate incest)occured each one would be slightly different.
UUallace, Could you d-mail me your sources? I'd like to learn more. I've researched lingonberries and never encountered reference to Ida as patented.
Vaccinium patents.
I could only find 'Ida' as listed as "US patent applied for", but could not find an application.
Foreign
Sanna (Patent Number VF 829.940525).
Sussi (Patent Number. VF 846.941220).
For full details paste the US patent number here:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.htm
PP17,300 Rabbiteye blueberry plant named `Ochlockonee`
PP16,756 Southern highbush blueberry plant named `Palmetto`
PP16,476 Blueberry plant called `Abundance`
PP16,404 Blueberry plant called `Springhigh`
PP16,333 Blueberry plant called `Springwide`
PP16,266 Rabbiteye blueberry plant named `Alapaha`
PP14,225 Cranberry variety named `HyRed`
PP13,735 Geranium plant named `Patriot Cranberry Red`
Stupid name:
Vaccinium vitis-idaea means that it resembles the vine (or grape) of Ida Mountain. Naming an Ida cultivar 'Ida' is a terrible idea, making 'net searching difficult.
Cranberries and blueberries fruit once. Lingonberries fruit twice. The shiny ones make a cute groundcover.
Do you have any more left? I would delight in trying some of these. sounds neat!!
Thanks, Sharon
savage, d-mail on its way (great handle by the way, I'm intimidated lol !)
Hi, all. I'd like to hear back how the lingonberry plants are doing. Here's a pic of some of my seedlings started last summer, transplanted into 4" pots. These are some of the best, have more that are smaller.
Krowten. My seeds arrived. Thank you very much. I went back up and read where you said crushed berries need to be fermented with a littl ebit of water. Can you give me some more detailed step by step instructions on this process. I want to get cute little seedlings like yours. : )
I believe I had posted follow up pics and postings for this process, but could not turn them up in this or other posts after searching. Here is the deal.
1) I fermented the seeds in about a cup of water or slightly more for a period of about two weeks. Gently crush the fruit before ferments and after fermenting to free the seeds. I fermented several batches at different times and varied the amount of water and time - did not seem to affect anything.
2) I used clear plastic containers about 6" tall and filled about half-way with a 50/50 mix of peat and small sand, slightly more peat than sand if you are not sure of the mix. They were recycled food containers.
3) Placed the seeds, after rinsing and extracting from fermented fruit (the seeds that sink) on the surface of the sand/peat mix. I used very light pressure to assure contact with the surface. The "soil" was damp, but not wet. Note that I placed too many seeds in the container. Doing it again, I would probably put no more than 10 seeds in each container.
4) Closed container in plastic food storage bag with twist tie. Checked daily to make sure that soil was not drying out, using a misting to increase moisture if saw color of peat changing (indicating drying out).
5) Container went under fluorescent light setup I have. Germination start about 2 weeks after planting, but went on for some time, perhaps as long as two months. (inside)
6) Did nothing except take pictures and check/adjust moisture for several months. (inside)
7) After about 5-6 months, as test, moved some individual plants to individual containers. (still inside)
8) In spring, transplanted into containers for outside. Here is where I made my mistakes in that I transplanted from inside container to outside container without hardening off. I thought the weather was mild enough but think the temperature swings, light changes and transplanting combine to create too much stress - lost a lot early on. Once plants hardened off, losses stopped, provided transplanted plants received frequent, regular watering after transplanting.
A couple of things to consider. I believe that the transparent container helped develop more sturdy plants by allowing light to come from all directions while supplying a sturdy support to keep the plastic bags from damaging the seedlings. Later during hardening off, the half-filled containers acted as a humidity dome to ease the process. Plants tolerate drying much better than I expected, so don't over water. I provided artificial light throughout the winter which may have helped keep the plants growing. Using the plastic bags gave seedlings a stable environment easy for me to manage, because I did not need to worry about watering regularly. Just inspect every few weeks to adjust water content.
Patience is required for this process but it is very easy. I hope I addressed your questions. This is a good way to get a lot of lingonberry plants, but I cannot speak for the quality of the fruit until these start producing. However, my seeds were from quality stock, so I feel there is a decent chance of good results - that's part of the exploration process. Note also that my out-planted seedlings get about 50% sun where I have them and that has appeared to work well.
BTW, I used the same process with blueberry seeds. BB's seemed to need to take a bit longer to germinate but also grew faster. I have bb seedlings much larger than my best lingonberry seedlings, even though I started the bb seed later.