That should make masses of color! What fun!
Starting dahlia seeds
10 days later
This is my first year starting seeds I saved where I:
*planted like forms together and in color order
*kept track of seed parent
*culled all open center dahlias long before each one saved had been pollinated.
Next year I'll work on actually setting a goal. For now though I'm excited to see what I get!
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MissyWeitzel
You are so ahead of the game! I still am roughly dividing my saved seeds into 3 divisions of : smaller all sorts /larger all sorts and singles
I did save out in particular Waltzing Matilda and Rae-Ann’s Teacher and Veronne’s Obsidian - I really like those forms and Mathilda had the black foliage I love!
This year I also bought seed and I decided on an approach I am calling “standing on the shoulders of giants (with the help of bees)”. I bought seeds from Lobaughs,Rivers, Bloomquist and Swan’s. (I also bought seed from Floret and Plant world). I will plant all those seedlings in a patch and see what genetic marvels comes up from all those fine dahlia hybridisers!
"I bought seeds. " Many years ago, Margaret bought some seeds from Sea Tac Dahlias(Lou Eckoff) and Hollyhill Lou was the only seedling in that 30 or so seedlings that was any good. It went on to score well in the trial gardens and even won some blue ribbons in the shows. We decided not to continue to grow it as we had not really bred it.
5 days later
I read that someone was using an anti-fungal spray for roses on the their paper towels along with a spritz of water when seed starting. Has anyone tried that? I always get some mold & funky smells going on. Some of mine turn to mush if you push on them gently, although that probably would just be a dud I suppose. Wondering if it would help that?
Hmmm...Not sure why my post is showing as I'm deleted? 
I did from my phone on an airplane, maybe that's why. Any how...it was me wondering about the fungal spray & if anyone had tried it. 
Nothing, one or two, a few, 40, five, nothing. This is how seed sprouting works. You want everything really good to sprout. However, hard to get seeds from these varieties often fail to sprout and part of the reason they do not make seeds is that if they do make seeds , they are crap(nonsensical statement). But the 40 seedlings are from a really good one.
I have a seedling that has popped up that is completely white - will it green up eventually or is the seedling just weird and doomed?
White is a death sentence for a seedling. It will not thrive and will die.
Keep good records of the seedlings you keep. Typical conversation between Ted and Margaret: Ted: That seedling 21 -33 was really nice wasn't it? I am taking extra cuttings. because you liked it so much. Margaret; Tell me which one is 21-33 and I do not memorize the numbers of the seedlings. Ted: You know, the watermelon red one that is almost a waterlily. Margaret: I still don't remember, show me a picture. Ted: OK, I will try to find the picture.
Margaret: Oh, why didn't you just say the coral red almost waterlily?
Margaret always covers up with an organza bag (or tulle cloth, the poor man's organza bag) the recipient of the pollen a week before it is ripe. The pollen flowers are harvested and kept indoors. About 50% of our waterlily seedlings were hand pollinated. This one is an open pollinated seedling of HH Wicked Witch and the bee had the audacity to cross it with something other than a waterlily and it has too many rows of florets.
Off to the races. Started 35 varieties 4 days ago. Yesterday they started popping roots so I started potting them up. Next year will follow Teds advice and stagger them. Drew are you here? Look at Netherton Zalah showing off as a quick sprouter. And, HH Cotton Candy every single seed sprouted at day 3 except 2. I need to finish potting them up today. 
We are potting up mostly waterlily seedlings. Margaret gets a bit focused on what she wants to breed and many of the other types are not on her agenda.
What numbering system do you use to ID your seedlings? I have over 300 seedlings coming along and I do need to give them ID's. I assume you use the year but what comes after that? Do you have a code for the seed mother? Do you assign a number when you set them out or only when you decide to keep one?
Seedlings each have their own plant tag with the parentage written on it. Note that hand crosses take up twice as much writing and Margaret likes to add even more writing so she does those tags. Numbering only applies to those that are selected to be grown again. We use the two digit year, and our best seedling last year was 22-02, the second seedling we marked to keep. HH Lilibet was seedling 20-134 and for some reason we liked 133 other seedlings before we decided to save our Lilibet. Most years have many fewer than 100 kept. to grow again. We record the classification of the seedling onto a paper log and usually add some stupid comments like Margaret likes and Ted Hates. Supposedly, we take a picture of all the kept seedlings but for some reason many go without pictures. We use flagging tape with writing on it to mark the good seedlings. When we are in hurry, often there is no writing on the flagging tape and we find it wrapped around the seedling when we dig it. It is amazing how such a simple system can get screwed up every year. Seedling 22-88 classification unknown, picture not taken or worse picture taken but no info on what one it was. Why are always in hurry when we mark a nice seedling? Sometimes we have found three pieces of flagging tape on a seedling, all with nothing written on them. Three times liked but not well enough to record the necessary information. The paper log kept in the garden is always getting wet and I take a picture of it with the cell phone just in case it gets destroyed(it was partially eaten by something one year and the pictures saved the information)
Seedling 20-40, fate to be determined.
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My father used the same numbering system Ted describes. My father and I often trialed each other's seedlings so I labeled mine with the opposite so we would not confuse the seedlings (e.g. "1 -23" will be the first seedling i save this year.) The trick is to not mark any seedlings to save unless I am also carrying my "seedling notebook" to describe the seedling. Once I have an entry in my notebook I will flag the seedling with surveyor's tape. I tie the tape around the stalk at the base of the seedling, I also place a label on each side of the seedling with the seedling number facing the seedling. If a seedling looks especially promising I will cut it back to about 18" and dig and repot it into a 1 gal. nursery pot ao start taking cuttings immediately.
This system works pretty well until I forget where my assistant "hid" my seedling notebook.
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I haven't grown enough seedlings previously to keep a seedling notebook, however I do keep a lot of detailed info on each named variety I grow in a big spreadsheet on Google Drive. Because it's "in the cloud" I can access it from any device and record things like date of first bloom right out in the dahlia patch super easily and the updated data is there the next time I look at it on my computer. When I start a new year on my spreadsheet I log date of first bloom for each year I've grown that cultivar so just at a glance I can see a lot of information about everything I grow.
This year I'll have to add a seedling spreadsheet!
I log ADS class numbers when applicable for each variety too, which comes in handy for filling out my tags at dahlia shows. I don't have to keep looking everything up in my classification handbook. All this logging is a decent amount of work upfront but it sure is nice to just be able to pull my phone out and update something in 1 minute.