This is tedious stuff and hard on the eyes and neck if you aren't careful to take plenty of breaks (walks up to the nursery to see Terry are a good idea). It is however very necessary as any impurities, foreign matter etc will mean we are unable to meet tight phytosanitary requirements for export.
Clean dry seed is then counted into packets, labelled and stored in the fridge. You should see our fridge! All batches of seed are germination tested. This is very necessary, not only to ensure that our customers receive good seed, but also to keep track of variety traits so that improvements can be made. Delphinium seed does not remain viable for long, keeping just a year or two in the fridge, sometimes more, according to variety. One of the aims of our breeding programme is to select varieties that have better keeping qualities. A post-graduate student from Massey University is assisting us in this respect over the next couple of years and we are hopeful of identifying better drying and storage methods also.
Our delphiniums are coming up for their second flowering this season and now is the time when we make most of the experimental crosses. Being a small, family concern we are able to be very flexible in our approach to breeding and it occurs to me that gardeners may, indeed will have many ideas for traits they would like emphasized - anything - flower shape, size, dwarf, tall, stripes, bee colours, resistance to being trampled by elephants and eaten by elks etc. so how about dropping a line to terry at delphinium co nz (
) with any ideas or requests. Breeding is a long job. The first step however is to identify where you want to go, daring to think of the impossible (maybe). I already have a suggestion that we breed slug and snail resistant delphiniums!
Next month I hope to have details, or at least a few teasers, about a proposed New Year's Eve paddle steamer trip on the Whanganui River. |
