How to properly collect petunia seeds at home

Petunia is valued for its rapid growth, beautiful, abundant and long-lasting flowering. It is an incomparable joy for a gardener to grow a flower from a seed. Watching how a seedling emerges from a seed, which then turns into a beautiful, flowering plant, evokes a lot of emotions and pride in the work done. And for this, first of all, you need to stock up on high-quality planting material. Let's look at how to collect petunia seeds, when to do it and how best to store them.

Is it possible to collect petunia seeds yourself?

Petunia is a flowering herbaceous or subshrub plant characterized by its diversity varieties and types. Gardeners usually breed it as an annual plant, decorating balconies, flower beds, and front gardens.

Reference. With any variety of petunia, except double and overhead, you can collect the seeds yourself.

The best option for collecting material is simple one-color varieties, because new plants will completely repeat all the characteristics of the mother: from the color and shape of the flower to the characteristics of the bush itself. White, pink, violet, lilac colors are well inherited, but red and yellow can change their shade a little.

You can also collect seeds from hybrid petunias. Only the seedlings will differ significantly from the parent plants. Seedlings of hybrid types rarely repeat the flower shape and color - only in 30-40% of cases.

How to properly collect petunia seeds at home

The principle of collecting petunia seeds is the same for all varieties and varieties and comes down to several stages:

1. Selection of mother plant.
2. Compliance with the timing of ripening of seed pods.
3. Direct collection of planting material.
4. Proper preparation of grains in the form of drying and ripening.

The exception is ampelous and terry varieties. Ampel varieties are extremely capricious and whimsical, so they are bred vegetatively.

Terry petunias do not form seed material; they are not adapted to this. Their ovary is transformed into additional petals, which is how terry is achieved. In this regard, their breeding is carried out exclusively by vegetative methods.

When to collect

The seeds ripen 3 months after the beginning of active and abundant flowering. Favorable time for collecting planting material is August and September.

Reference. It is better to collect in dry, sunny and windless weather.

The color of the box in which they are located will indicate that the seeds are ripe. It will dry out and turn yellow or light brown. It is important not to miss the moment here, otherwise the box will open and all the contents will fly apart.

Where are the seeds

To find out where the seeds are in petunia, you should wait until after flowering. A box appears in place of the wilted flower. It is bivalve, oval, slightly pointed in shape. At first it is green in color, and as it ripens it becomes light brown, yellowish, dry and reaches a size of 10x8 mm.

The box is filled with very small seeds. Their size does not exceed 0.6 mm, and their weight is 0.05 g (smaller than poppy seeds). Color dark brown or black. There are about 100 seeds in a box.

Collection and preparation of seeds

Collecting petunia seeds at home is a painstaking and lengthy process:

1. Carefully remove the wilted and dried flower without damaging the peduncle, sepals and receptacle. It is better to take flowers that are at the bottom of the stem. There the seeds set and ripen faster.
2. A box will appear under the flower, initially small and green. As it matures (about 3 weeks), it will increase slightly in size, dry out and turn light brown.
3. Cut off the ripe box along with the sepals, bring it into the house and place it on white paper or a napkin.
4. Open the box and pour the seeds onto a white surface so that the black grains are clearly visible.

The collected material must be dried for 2-3 days in a dry place at room temperature without exposure to sunlight. Then you can send it to storage for ripening.

Seed storage

Collected and prepared seeds are poured into paper bags or envelopes, each of which is signed, indicating the name of the variety, color, and other characteristics of a particular plant.

Store seeds at room temperature in a dry and dark place. It is better to place it away from heating devices, otherwise it will negatively affect germination.

Reference. Planting material is stored for up to 4 years without loss of properties and germination.

Petunia seeds are sown for seedlings in early February and March. Thanks to compliance with such deadlines, the plant will delight you with flowering in May - early June.

Conclusion

Petunia is a popular summer plant, loved by gardeners for its unpretentiousness, fast growth, beautiful and lush flowering. Often gardeners want to preserve their favorite variety, so many resort to collecting seeds themselves and growing seedlings.

For collecting seeds, simple, monochromatic varieties of petunia are best suited, since in this case all the characteristics of the plant are well conveyed. It is also possible to take seed material from hybrids, but the seedlings will not retain the decorative properties of the mother plant. Ampelous and double petunias are bred only vegetatively.