Bernd-sommers. You are correct about how different crosses can behave differently in response to our efforts to get them to germinate. I gather my bags of seeds together, and subject them all to exactly the same conditions, and…some crosses germinate at much higher percentages than other crosses do, even if they have the same pod parent. Within the same cross, some seeds seem to need two seasons to germinate, while some geminate quite quickly after the temperature drop, so the differences can be quite individual. I use the same method you do, as far as temperatures are concerned – a long warm period, followed by a moderate drop in temperature which initiates root germination, and then a cold period once I decide that the roots have made some growth. These days I plant my seeds in their pots just as soon as I see the very shortest root. I’ll leave them at room temperature for a few weeks, before taking them out to my root cellar. Sometimes the temperatures will drop below freezing in the root cellar, but this does not seem to harm anything. It has been my experience that standard big peony divisions will actively make new roots when stored at temperatures which are one degree F. above freezing, and I believe that seeds will continue to elongate their roots at any temperature above freezing as well. The question of course is if there is some way that we can “do a better job” with the temperatures we use to get the seeds to germinate. If we gave them a longer warm period, would we get higher germination rates ? Or perhaps if the temperature was warmer ? And how much should we drop the temperature by, to initiate root germination ? After many years of wondering about this, I’ve come to the conclusion that these parameters may not make as much of a difference as we think that they might, and that following “general guidelines” is probably OK. Perhaps if we gave our seeds a longer warm period to begin with, that might make a difference, but for myself, I need to time things so my seeds get a long enough cold period, before temperatures begin to warm up in the spring, so I’ve arranged my temperature regime to take the cold period at my location into account. Right now, I am waiting to take the very latest of my geminated seeds out for their cold period – I got the first of them into the cold about…3 weeks ago. The very last seeds to go out…sometimes they don’t come up as well as they could, apparently because they did not get enough cold ? In any case, I believe that if we follow a reasonable routine, it will be as Don Hollingsworth once told me : “Some seeds will come up, and some seeds won’t.” Which has always seemed like a good rule to me. ;-)