What Stratifacation Procedure To Use?

     The following three Figures were published in: "Germination In Rosa Canina", G.D. Rowley, American Rose Annual, volumn 41 pages 70 - 73, (1956).  The research was done at the John Innes Horticultural Institution, Bayfordbury, Hertford, England.  

     The following is part of their conclusion section: "By piecing together the findings of these and other experiments it has been possible to formulate a general procedure by which seeds of Rosa canina can be persuaded to skip a year and germinate as well the first spring as it would, untreated, the second. This procedure has been adopted as a matter of course for all rose seed, hybrid or otherwise, at the John Innes Institution. The hips are harvested as soon as ripe in the autumn, opened without delay and the achenes cleaned out. They are stratified in tall pots ("long toms") of moist vermiculite, screened through an appropriate sieve so that the seeds can be sifted free with ease in the spring. Two or three layers can be included in one pot. The pots are then stood in a warm glasshouse for two months and then transferred to a refrigerator at approximately freezing point for a further two months. Care is taken to dampen the vermiculite so that at no time do they dry out completely. Finally the achenes are sifted out and sown in the normal way.

     A simpler method, if no refrigerator is available, is to bed the pots in ashes outdoors during the winter. It gives almost as good results, but protection from mice and rats is necessary."

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