The germination of Achillea shall not be difficulty. For the growing you have to use a dry soil with a well drainage and with enough plant nutrient in a solid form and a limy nature. The Achillea is a light germinator. Therefore it only germinated with enough and the right light.

Mr. Schreiber, It is different with other species of achillea and has dormancy.

this species is growing at high altitude. These seeds haven't requiring very cold stratification. but I think, seeds can germinate better with various frequency of light as you said.

Do you have paper(s) about the germination of Achillea seed with the light frequency or somethings related to it???

Dear Mr. Farhang,

you can find an article about the light effects in growing Achillea in the alpes at

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23927610

Thank you Master.

I hope to return the favor.

I would suggest after-ripening or stratification. If this specie requires light treatment to germinate, so problably is not a dormancy effect that you see, but a germination requirement. Anyway, if the case is high dormancy the best solution is after-ripening (at 20 oC; relative humidity around 30%) in my opinion.

Achillea spp belongs to Asteraceae. This family is known for Physiological dormant seeds but seeds of some species in this genus don't show dormancy i.e. non-dormant. As you suggested that this species grow in cold habitat and don't require cold stratification, I would like to suggest you to either subject seeds to warm stratification or try to subject them a sequence of warm+cold+warm or Cold+warm+ cold stratification.

In order to help you to find the optimal germination method, the European Native Seed Conservation Network (ENSCONET) gives you the opportunity to search its database where you can have a look at the different protocols that have been applied by the network members on 11 Achillea species and the related germination results:

http://enscobase.maich.gr/search_germination.tml

Our colleagues have answered but I'd like emphasize about the possibility of empty seeds and the use of light period (8/16). About light everybody had contributed before. About empty seed, I suggest the use of blower. I hope that this comment can help you.

According to Sharianti et al. (2003), some Ashilla ecotypes or varieties showed a high seeds dormancy (more than 90%). In your experiments, your germination is about 3.25%, you shoud verifiey the viability of the used Ashilla seeds in your experiment. So, the used seeds parhaps they're not sound or they were sampled (harvested) before the maturity period!.

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Another possibility is to try priming the seeds in a solution with moderate osmotic strength, and also w the light exposure. This way you can get improved performance (if GH or field evaluations are needed) as well as dormancy breaking.

And I would follow the advice of previous posters and examine them under a dissecting scope or some such.

Dear Mr. Farhang, you my try at different low temperature, you can try different ranges with a difference of 2.5ºC, tye 22.5 to 25 ºC, for 72 hrs.You have to be secure in the quality of the seeds, you can do tetrazolium test before planting. Or simply, you can submerge in water all seeds, all seeds that are floating you have to discard, and you plant the heavy one. I hope this can help you. Sincerely yours.

Thank you dear Gadotti

Dear AYARI, your opinion was false, These had been harvested after maturity.

Thanks master Bonilla, really helped me. ;)

Best regards

You may also try a short soaking in a solution of sodium hypochlorite (bleach) and 2-chloro-ethanol (which is toxic, and a possible carcinogen). There is a publication on this method for breaking seed dormancy in pearl millet, written by Glenn W. Burton in Crop Science in the late 1960s or early 1970s.

You may also find it useful to search Kew's Seed Information Database for information on germination requirements: http://data.kew.org/sid/

Achillea is known to break dormancy after soil erosion or soil destabilization in natural environments (explaining why it grows so well beside roads or after overgrazing for example). So soil parameters are very important to take into account for the break of dormancy. Try to put seeds in a compacted soil, maybe it will work!

Achilla is known by its low seeds germination rate, its about 10% and your results showed just a very low germination rate of about 3.25%. So, just take care of your seed quality.

You may prepare a heavy animal's old tor water, seek the seeds for 24 hours before harvest. Wish you good lack

You may try to expose seeds to different light treatments before planting to activate phytochrome.

1. expose 30 seeds to red light for 10 mins plant the seeds

2. expose 30 seeds to far red light for 10 mins plant the seeds

3. expose 30 seeds to red light for 10 mins , followed by far red light for 10 mins plant the seeds

4. expose 30 seeds to red light for 10 mins, far red light for 10 mins, red light for 10 mins plant the seeds.

These trials will determine which intensity of light will break the dormancy of your seeds. Be sure to count the number of germinated seeds.

try soaking in diluted acid like Hcl

Dear Norberto, Do you suggest cold stratification?

Hi Abohassan,

Try light treatments first never done cold stratification yet. Instead of planting perform experiments on petri dish with wet filter paper to count germinated seeds easily. Try cold stratification followed by light treatments and compare the results. Goodluck

dear norberto, I've measured the percentage of germination of seeds without any treatment on petri dish with wet filter. the percentage of germination was 23.25% (93 seeds germinated from 400 seeds)

Hi Abohassan,

Now try different trials with light treatments and compare with untreated seeds as your control.

Try also cold stratification without light treatment and compare with your control.

Do also cold stratification with light treatments or vice versa and compare with control.

With these diff trials I guess will answer your possible answer about the dormancy of your seeds. Goodluck

OK, Thank you