Refrigerator time (for seeds)

[Mike Slater]

A tale of two treatments:

In early December 1995 a friend gave me some nice cleaned seed of
Arisaema sikokianum in a Zip-loc with some moistened sphagnum moss. I
cheerfully accepted it because the one seedhead I had on my plants was
still quite green and I was afraid it would never ripen at all.  It was
a very hectic time of year so I just popped the bag into the fridge and
promtly forgot about it as it became buried behind left over Christmas
turkey and other food.

Also last winter (I can still say that and refer to 1995-96 for another
few days) the snows arrived in early december and that was the last I
saw of it until early March, when the thaw arrived and the bright red
berries appeared as the snow melted. I brought in the seedhead and
cleaned the fruit off the seed and let them have several changes of
water as they sat for about 24 hours. I then sowed them and put the pots
under my lights in the basement where it is about 65 degrees F (18 C)
and I had tremendous, nearly 100%, germination in 3 weeks to one month.
After I had done all this sowing Jan, my wife, said now what are you
going to do with the ones in the fridge? I said, "Oops, I forgaot about
them." and I when to check on them. They had all sprouted and were like
tiny bean sprouts and green too, although I am pretty sure that the
little light in the fridge DOES go out when the door closes! I carefully
potted them up ( and mailed a few to a new Aroid-L friend in Canada; I
hope they are doing well Rand!) and the grew fine under the lights as
well. Aside from a slight infestation of whitefly I don't really think
there was much difference between the two treatments in terms of first
year growth.

Are there any Arisaemas which must have cold treatment to germinated?
Would dry stored seed be different? How long is dry stored seed viable?

|_____________
|               \   Mike Slater
|               /   Southeastern Pennsylvania, z6
|            *  \   DVC of NARGS and AEG
|_______________/