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[Inyan]

Just wee bit of insight on how I go about producing these hybrid seeds. First, I emasculate each and every female flower before the pistil comes out of the calyx and before the anthers can ripen. I only grow one compatible male Datura wrightii so there is no fear of any other Datura pollinating my Datura metel hybrid girls. I also pollinate my Datura metel hybrids as soon as the emasculation is completed. Using stored dried frozen pollen if need be. Drying and freezing pollen can extend a pollens life from a mere day in some instances to several years so it makes sense to go that extra step of freezing pollen if your serious about your crosses. My Datura wrightii was sourced directly from the wild in the Mojave desert. Seed pods take 60 days to fully mature on average, but if you grow a bit impatient with many crosses... not just Datura you can create a window into the pod to see how things are progressing. When you finally open your pod, you may find that many gametes have aborted. This is of little concern if you get even a few seeds that are mature. As you can see, this particular  pod produced ~14 mature seeds.

2 Likes kykeion and SKUNK like this.

[Inyan]

I thought I might update this with a picture of seeds for those of you who haven't tried to grow this particular hybrid out. Seeds from a typical pod from this hybrid cross are mostly immature in size with a few decent sized ones that I feel have a better chance at germinating. This is one of the problems I am finding with this particular hybrid cross. Many seeds abort early if they grow at all and only a few nice fully mature seeds appear in a mostly empty seed pod. I am doing a test run on germination right now with hybrid the hybrid seed and their pure species dad to see if they can be sprouted. Datura wrightii var. Mojave generally sprouts starts sprouting within a few hours for me when placed in water.

I am testing whether this particular batch of seeds will germinate as we speak. Of course, I have planted some pure species Datura wrightii var. Mojave beside them in identical containers and soil to compare. If any of you I have sent seeds to get these to germinate please post some pictures as so far only my Datura wrightii var. Mohave have sprouted from this particular cross, but then they tend to start to sprout within hours of being soaked in water for me.

[Inyan]

Another hybrid seed pod ripened today. I have drawn an arrow to show the immature seeds (white to light beige) that have  aborted and another arrow to a nice fully developed seed. As you can see... not many seeds of likely viable size are in this pod. I take this as another sign that my cross was executed in a timely manner and with the right foreign pollen.

[kykeion]

Hopefully at least a few of them are viable. So far none of the seeds you sent me from the first pod have germinated.

[Inyan]

Very few seeds per pod, many aborted seeds, and very low germination rates. Count yourself very lucky indeed if you get some seed to germinate.