Seed Germination in the Red Raspberry

Abstract

Raspberry breeding programs are often hampered by poor seed germination. Germination may be improved by seed treatments. Jennings and Tulloch (1) reported on several of these but even with the best (20 minutes in concentrated sulphuric acid followed by six days in 1.0 per cent calcium hypochlorite and a six-week period of moist chilling) germination seldom exceeded 50%, although in an earlier and little known work, Williams (3) reported 20-95% germination after 50 minutes in concentrated sulphuric acid. In genetic experiments such as conducted at this Station, involving large-scaled dialled crosses where the number of seeds is limited and any missing item may upset the whole project, most existing methods seemed to be unsatisfactory and it was thought that longer H ²SO ⁴treatments (3) may be too risky by causing seed damage.