Quote:
Originally Posted by SueCT
No, I didn't use a surfactant, and no where has anyone up until now mentioned that they do or I should. You know I am not a commercial seed grower, right? I have no idea what that surfactant is or where I would get it. This seems to be getting way beyond what the average home gardener is going to do. AND then I am supposed to plant 100 seeds and test the germination percentage to find out if I did it correctly and how the seed reacted before I proceed with the rest?!?!? There wouldn't BE many left after that. That is really more than I am willing to do to save some seeds from garden. Assuming I am not going to spend 20.00+ for this wetting agent, it is better not to use bleach? I must say, although the information is appreciated after a week or more of following the advice I received it is a little discouraging to find out I still did it all wrong.
One thing I noticed in the above paper is that they did stir the seed not leave it untouched to develop a stronger fungal mat, but also there is no mention of testing for pathogens on the seed coat after only 1 or 2 or 3 days of fermentation. How much of a fungal mat is likely to develop after 1 day or even 2 days? How much do shorter fermentation times even help to get rid of pathogens? I am starting a new batch from the 3 ML tomatoes as I mentioned and I am still not sure. Should I leave it untouched or stir as they did in the research report?
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I apologize Sue, I did complicate things.My opinion is if your tomato plants are healthy just forget the bleach process or do it without the surfactant .I was just pointing out the correct way to do it.As for the seed test like Cole_Robbie said just do it in a smaller lot.
They stirred every 3 hours because they had follow some kind of uniform protocol for all the tests.Plus they had large batches.
Let's use the common sense approach and ask the question;
What benefit is there to stirring the tomato seed mixture prior to fermentation beginning?
My answer is, there is no benefit.All you are stirring is tomato juice and seeds that are probably still locked in the jell.You also might be delaying fermentation and probably are delaying the formation of the fungal mat.And yes stirring is important, but only after fermentation has begun mainly to make sure that all the seeds are exposed uniformly to the process and that none are stuck together
The main purpose of the link I gave you was to test germination rates in different time periods to find the best length of time to ferment without losing a lot of seed.Without looking I think their recommendation was 3 days.
Sue, if you still don't get a fungal mat with the way I recommended it, and it is possible you may not, as long as you smell the fermentation, you are fine.I still think you will get a fungal coat.
There is one more method that is probably the easiest and may be just as effective.The Oxyclean method I think it is called.Cole_Robbie does it so he would be the one to ask about it. Actually a lot of people use it.
