Anyone have tips for harvest/growing bearded iris from seed?

[applestar]

My yellow bearded iris out in the front yard has produced a couple of seed pods. Since there were some blue bearded iris growing in the same bed, there maybe some chance that they have crossed.

I can't resist the challenge.

Anyone know what to do from here? All the other flowers and flower stalks have withered weeks ago, obviously. I've been letting the two pods grow/ripen on the stalk. As of 3 days ago, the pods are still light frost green -- looking a bit like overgrown sugar snap pea pods that have been allowed to mature on the vine.

[lorax]

I used to do this as a hobby, Applestar. The key is to wait for it. The pod will eventually start to turn gold/brown - at that point, tie a paper bag over it and give it another week. The bag will catch the seed when the pod opens. Seeds are enveloped in a brown-black "paper" which gives them a bit of a boost with the wind, hence the need for the bag.

These can be planted immediately, but will sprout more quickly if you cold-stratify them in the freezer for a couple or three weeks. After that, it's a patience game - you won't find out if you've got a hybrid for about 2 years, because that's how long they take to mature enough to flower.

[applestar]

Yay! <Whoosh! CLICK! -- that's me latching on. Get ready for a barrage of questions (and thank you in advance )>
Sounds good. I'll keep an eye on the pods then until they're ripe.

About the 2~3 week cold stratification, were you doing this while in Canada or since you've been in Ecuador? Should I wait until spring to try to grow the seeds (keep them in the freezer or meat bin of the fridge until then?) How long until they germinate? Should I start them mid-winter? (So far, I don't start seeds until around Feb)

Also, with REALLY easy temperate perennials, fruit seeds, or ones that I have a lot of seeds for (or ones that I can live with either way) I sow in largish containers and LEAVE OUTSIDE in a semi-protected area for the winter. More often than not, it's the ones I leave outside that germinate in spring and grow well rather than the ones that I try to cold stratefy in the freezer, coddle and watch over, etc. (so much for my seed starting skills ) What do you think?

[lorax]

I did the cold-strat thing in Canada as well as here (although I'm the only one in my entire barrio with irises, and they're all a brilliant grape colour, so it's not like I'm breeding them anymore), in order to bring the sprouting time up into midwinter indoors, so that I'd have little plants ready for the iris garden as soon as the frost left the soil.

Here, I don't give my irises a dormant period and let my overnight temps dictate when they'll bloom. I have one head open at the moment, and another three stalkss coming, because it's been clear and hence colder at night lately.
[img]https://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh196/HabloPorArboles/Best%20Photography/Botany/DSCN2851.jpg[/img]

After the strat process, they seem to take about 4 weeks to sprout; I used to plant the seeds straight out of the fridge into a coir/soil mix in those little yogurt tubs, pop ziplocks overtop to boost the humidity, and forget them on the back of the top of the fridge (the frugal gardener's heat-mat of choice). I generally check anything I'm sprouting this way once a week (when I clean the fridge ) to see if they need more water or are growing interesting fungi (which means it's time to apply cinnamon powder) or anything like that. I have almost no problem with damping off using this method. Down here, I let the irises self-seed right into the beds they live in. This means that I occasionally have to pull irises out of the grass under my plum trees, but it's all good. If they weren't so hard to walk on, I'd just let them go.

I'd try both indoor with cold-strat and outdoor directly in your iris beds (with a marker, of course) - I find that wintersowing in pots with monocots like irises and amaryllis tends to kill them because the soil in pots gets much much colder than the soil in beds does.

Personally, generally I'm fairly neglectful of things once they're in the sprouting pots, and they always do well for me. The only plants I have ever coddled in any way are the bananas I'm currently challenging at 10,000' (which is well above where conventional wisdom says they should grow.)

[applestar]

Thanks Lorax!
I'll try this. You make it sound very do-able.
BTW, that is a beautiful iris.

I have a habit of sticking seeds in the base of any handy container plant. I don't always -- OK face it, I hardly ever -- label. The ones that I DO label don't seem to make it. Most of the time, I'll recognize what sprouts and have vague memory of planting the seeds. They get transplanted out in individual pots in spring when the container plant is repotted or upper soil layer is refreshed with compost. THOSE are the ones that grow best.

I have about a dozen citrus plants that have been started this way. Unfortunately, I don't know what KIND of citrus. I'll just have to wait until they fruit, if they ever do. I also have seedling apple trees that started out this way. They get planted out and culled if they can't take the diseases or the bugs. MY excuse is that they'll make good rootstock material if and when I learn to graft fruit trees.

[lorax]

It is really very easy. I'm fundamentally really lazy.

If you show me what the leaves and petioles look like, I can probably ID your citrus for you. You don't have to wait for fruit.

I'm a little OCD and I keep a journal of what I plant and when, along with little sticky labels on pots. It helps me remember what I've planted and where, and to track which things work at this altitude.

And call me odd, but I actually really like the fruit of seed-grown apples. Perhaps it's because the rootstock that my apples have always been on is either Spye, Pippin, or Jonagold, all of which are marvelous to begin with. It also helps that I like a tarter flavour than many folks.

[applestar]

Ooh, thanks! I will schedule a photo session with my citruses.