Starting dahlia seeds
Bessie one of the Instagram accounts I follow is Nettles & Petals and Jamie had a post a few days back about soaking his chili pepper seeds in a weak Chamomile tea for 30 min before sowing as it works as a natural antifungal and antiseptic. This helps break down the germination inhibiting outer layer of the seed but also reduces mold spores and bacteria.
Of course this took me down a bit of a rabbit hole and I saw other gardener sources suggest making an antifungal spray out of Chamomile tea.
I was thinking about trying it myself because I'm starting cuttings and didn't buy any vermiculite yet. Maybe it would work for your seedlings?
MissyWeitzel I think the cinnamon has indeed helped keep fungal growth at a minimum on the Dahlia seed trays. I need a controlled study 
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I was sorting seeds today and discovered a seedling gives me striped seeds! They look like little sunflower husks!
Each year these beautiful plants keep surprising me with details.
I wonder if you will get striped flowers from those?
I really want to start seeds but I keep slapping my hands and telling them to wait until March. By March there is enough solar gain to make the greenhouse work more efficiently.
calico20hill I won't get to find out. I finished packing seeds for my seed sale and these were found in the Beeline seed mix. I did retain 5 plants from the 2023 seedling stock. They were the last of my original seeds sourced from Dr Hammett. Overall, I found 4 really nice plants from previous seasons and the 5 from last year which will continue to be evaluated. Most of the culling has been natural by way of poor tubers.
I'll pay attention at the end of 2024 to see if I kept the striped seed maker.
So far I have resisted the urge to start dahlia seeds but today the clouds went away and it is 85 degrees in the greenhouse. So I started a flat of 4" pots of seedlings, using up the least prescious of the seeds. Some of them were older packages, etc, I will do another sowing when the weather is more settled . I wan't able to save many seeds this past year. THe weather did not let the seeds mature. Here is hoping for a better seed collecting season this next year!
calico20hill I'm trying really hard to resist the urge to start seedlings myself. I know it is way too early in Michigan but I actually have time to do it now and in 4-6 weeks I will be SO much busier with other things! I'm trying to decide if it is worse to start them earlier and have to pot them up and deal with larger plants or risk not starting them at all because I am too busy with other things. Growing out all these seeds I intentionally collected and working on getting better about my focus feels like a really important part of what I want to do for the future but it also feels like a long game and hard to decide right now what percentage of my grow space to dedicate to it. Don't get me wrong - I absolutely love growing named varieties and having a dahlia business and selling cut flowers and I want to do it for as long as I am physically able, but in a way I am a bit jealous of people who have a lot of space to grow dahlias and don't have a dahlia business and can just mainly do seedlings if they want to. I see some growers doing both remarkably well and I hope to also, someday! And then there's like the upper echelon of hybridizer growers who have a successful business selling just their own "dahlia masterpieces" and wow, I know that was a lot of work and dedication. I am off on a tangent now, but yeah, I am a dreamer amd a doer and I have little patience and often I'm not all that practical. It's hard telling myself no! 
I solved my dilemma. LOL. I went through and picked all the oldest seeds and started them. I am sure some will produce pay-back and the others won't be taking up space in my seedbox any more! I am also trying to decrease the list of tubers that I grow so that I will have more room to try out seedlings. I have only 6 raised bed rows. I can crowd them a certain amount but I don't want to crowd out the good ones. Any that I decide to keep has to be worth it!
I would love to be back in the days of growing a thousand plants but with no market and not wanting to do the selling it wouldn't be the fun that I remember. I mean, I could plant my whole acre of hillside above the house with them but the water bill and the digging in clay would be prohibitive.
Update: A few days shy of 4 weeks since starting saved seeds from 2023. Here they're pictured outside getting some sun after beening inside during a few days of rain. They'll be covered with floating row cloth. I haven't done a final tally of germination, but will report back in detail. There's approximately 200 seedlings in the photo below, with about 25 not shown, that are in a separate failure to thrive quarantine area. Three seed lots germinated most prolificly; Hollyhill Daydream, Cafe au Lait, and seedling 23029. Bahama Mama and Ferncliff Copper get Honorable mention for having sprouted some seeds. I've been fertilizing with 1/3 strength Miracle Grow for the past two weeks ever since some of the faster growing seedlings showed magnesium deficiency.
No wonder Luther Burbank moved to that area to breed his plants. We are still expecting many freezing nights here and sprouting seeds is a month away.
Seedling potting up day (I've been too sick with H1N1 flu to do this when I should have a week or two ago). This Cafe au Lait seedling(germination 1/27/24) wins the prize for stockiness and robustness. It's 8" tall and has whorls of leaves that are increasing in number as they move up the stem. I'd guess maybe there's some genetic doubling or tripling going on. No other seedling comes close to the way this thing is growing. It was grown in a 3 ounce paper cup under lights with all the other seedlings.
Top view
It may have the genetic defect of losing the ability to make stems.
- Edited
2024 seedlings are now potted up. I've vowed to be transparent about seed parents and germination, since this is some of the information that's hard to find.
Total 252 seeds sprouted of ~ 3,000 seeds started, which is about 8%. Seed was held around 80-88 degrees F. on moistened paper napkins on Styrofoam trays, covered by plastic wrap. Below is the total germination (root radical emerges) percentage, at the number of days from seed starting:
Day 4 - 8% , Day 5 - 42% , Day 7 - 77% , Day 11 - 94% , Day 18 - 100%
Total plants that thrived to be potted up / Total Seed Sprouted - per Dahlia Variety
29/38 - Cafe au Lait ( strong seedlings)
34/47 - Hollyhill Daydream ( nice seedlings)
14/15 - Bahama Mama
15/18 - Ferncliff Copper ( strong seedlings)
57/70 - Seedling 23029( seed parent was Alloway Candy)
7/7 - Hollyhill Regal (mostly strong seedlings)
5/5 - Hollyhill Serenity ( very weak seedlings and roots)
5/7 - Ginger Snap
6/6 - Hollyhill Creamy ( slow growing seedlings)
4/4 - Hollyhill Black Widow ( weak seedlings, perhaps overwatered)
2/2 - Sweet Nathalie
2/3 - Hollyhill Pinkie
3/3 - Heather Feather
3/4 - Snoho Sonia (very small, weak growing seedlings)
2/3 - Great Silence
1/1 - Alloway Candy
1/1 - Mikayla Miranda
1/1 - Hollyhill Buttermilk
1/1 - Gay Princess
5/11 - NOID ( fell out of pocket or found on floor, seed looked viable)
5/7 - Some seed from assorted 2023 seedlings
Varieties that appeared to produced seed( count was at least ~ 7-15 seeds per variety), but seed was not viable or didn't germinate under conditions given:
Blizzard, Enchantress, Lynn Slight, Hollyhill Pandora, Hollyhill Lilibet, Swan Lake, Crichton Honey, Mount Hood, Parakeet, Kelgai Anne, My Forever, Sandia Joy, Wildwood Marie, Rock Run Ashley, Marionberry Milkshake, Beaucon White, Peaches n' Cream, Pam Howden, Bristol Karma, Hollyhill Black Beauty, Clearview Jonas, eight 2023 seedlings.
I'm happy to answer questions.
Bessie thanks so much for sharing! I'm excited to see your seedling pics this year.
I just started the rest of mine on damp paper towel last night. Probably half of the seeds I saved are too immature, so I'm not going to save germination info this year. Thankfully I saved a lot, so I'm hoping to still get the number I want to plant out. I need to work on patience this fall!
Bessie That is helpful information. Thank you for compiling and sharing!
I’m trying out seeds this year, at a much different scale—last year wasn’t great for seeds, I hear. I tried, but only managed to collect a couple dozen. Between weather and tiny worms, there wasn’t a lot to choose from. Nonetheless, I stored them and laid them out on damp paper towels. Yesterday I realized I’d better make homes for the sprouts! So at dusk I was outside filling up a seed tray for SEVEN whole seeds 
I left room for a dozen, and hope I’ll have at least five more sprouted seeds. It’s actually perfect to start like this. I can learn from mistakes and see how the process works.
This year, I’ll make sure to start tagging blooms early for seed saving. Last year I tried Orange Globe, which gave me nice long fat seeds, along with Snoho Doris, PnC, and HH Miss White. It’s exciting to try it out and I’m grateful for all the generous guidance in this group 
This nice miniature seedling was a flash in the pan. It died of lack of vigor . Pretty flower and one of our first wins at a show.
Margaret ordering flower and vegetable seeds . Need a suggestion for new tomato to try.
