Fun project for the grands
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Do the seeds need to be frozen for a little while before you try to germinate them?
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I’ve grown both with and without cold stratification. Cold stratification increased germination speed and rate but is not absolutely required.
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I don’t know if they need to be frozen. This is my first time to grow from seeds.
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I should have mentioned that I think this berry is a cross between a pineberry and a red strawberry. I see some reports that pineberries can’t be grown from seed. Planted these seed this morning so I will find out soon if they will germinate.
It is recommended to spread the seeds on top of the sterile wet substrate(seed mix works, microwaved), cover with plastic and refrigerate for couple weeks. Then place on well lit but no direct sun light place, keep the plastic or even better dome on until seeds start to germinate. Open it once a day for ventilation. Transplant into individual pots in 1-2 true leaves stage.
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Thanks
They look good. Will they set fruit this year?
Isn’t a pineberry just a name for a white “hybrid” strawberry- same as the red hybrid? Fragaria ananassa?
I don’t think strawberry seeds are “true to seed”, unless they are pollinated strictly by the same cultivar all around them? So you may end up with your own new cultivar. It may not even be white.
Maybe @JohannsGarden knows?
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Not sure, I started them early enough, so may be closer to fall, they are everbering
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Some strawberries have been bred to come true from seed and others have not. Breeding to come true from seed is easiest with diploid species since they inherit only one copy of each gene from each parent, but with polyploid species and hybrids (such as most large fruited strawberries) they inherit multiple copies of each gene from each parent making it much harder to breed for consistency (even if self pollinating). Alpine strawberries are the only strawberry cultivars I know of which very reliably come true from seed (they are diploids). Even so, if a variety selected to come true from seed is pollinated by other varieties then it will not be true to type anymore once grown from said seeds. All that said, I have grown strawberries of types which do not come true from seed and found that although the fruit was variable they were still of similar eating quality to the parent form.
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I had given up on the seeds germinating and went to toss them away. It took two looks but I had one tiny plant that had germinated and a couple more starting to come up. I thought the tomato seedlings were small but they are about the size of a hair. It took 18 days for the first one to pop up.
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Looks like they do need some cold stratification.
If you still want to grow some from seed you can get some varieties here and try again-
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Cold stratification would help I think. I’m okay if only a few grow.