Sinningia pusilla test sowing

On 2 May 2013, I sowed seed from my own plants of Sinningia pusilla and Sinningia pusilla 'White Sprite'.  I had enough seed that I used two different commercial potting mixes: one that I use for almost everything ("Supersoil") and another from a local nursery.

This photograph was taken 30 August 2013, or 120 days later.



White Sprite       regular pusilla   

Mix
Supersoil








Another
mix

The flowers in the upper right are lavender but bleached out by the flash I had to use to get the camera to behave (it had trouble dealing with all the black soil).

Here is a table showing the germination times for each quadrant.

Mix White Sprite regular pusilla
Supersoil 43 days 25 days
Other mix 66 days! 57 days

We can draw the following conclusions.

The regular Sinningia pusilla germinates faster than the 'White Sprite' form.  Why that should be I do not know.

The slower-germinating seed catches up, in my less than optimal conditions. The two quadrants of regular Sinningia pusilla contain plants that are about the same size and density, although only the plants in Supersoil are blooming. (Just one of the non-supersoil plants shows a flowerbud, while three of the supersoil plants do, in addition to the three already in bloom.)

The 'White Sprite' variety is slower to bloom than the regular variety.  Only one of the 'White Sprite' plants has a flowerbud, even though these plants in Supersoil are less crowded and larger than the regular variety in Supersoil.

For some reason, the 'White Sprite' variety really doesn't like the "other mix".  Germination was really slow.  These plants are runts compared to all the other three quadrants.