How Old is too old for saving seeds

[epiphanista]

Craig, didja soak em or anything? Can I ask your prep of the seeds?

(You know, singing, reciting Walt Whitman, stretching exercises for the seed cases... )

I'm interested to hear how they do!

~Thalia

[nctomatoman]

Thalia, I wanted to do this as the lowest - tech check of all - just use my typical seed starting technique (see the dense planting thread) on old seeds - so no treatment, pretreatment, just shallow planting in metromix 360, loosely covered with saran wrap and kept in a warm area.

If I strike out, the next experiment would be to do a presoak or a microwave treatment....just to see if a few can be teased awake. But, doing it the way I did will be a better judge of inherent ease of germination for most home gardeners, for which presoaking would be an extra step.

My tomatoes typically germinate in 3-5 days - with these oldies, I would expect to see something happening within 2 weeks if it were to happen at all.

Anyone care to toss out their thoughts on what I may see in this experiment!

[carolyn137]

Thalia, I see no sense in working with very old seeds unless the variety is so rare that it's worth it to try and revive it.

In the early 90's Craig and I received lots of non-viable seed from varieties requested from the USDA and at that time we both tried all sorts of ways to wake up those seeds.

We tried the most common method recommended then, which was a presoak in K nitrate, we tried Microwave, we tried gibberellic acid alone and in combo with the Knitrate.

The nitrate ion is known to be involved in seed germination, thus its addition to soaked seeds.

Over the years I've settled on the method that you'll find posted in the thread in the General Discussion area by Brazos Valley on his seed germination of some of my seeds, and that's an o/n soak in water with a pinch of MG or Shultz for added nitrate ion or a few drops of fish or seaweed for the organic folks.

For some old seed I've had to wait several months for maybe one seed to germinate and Craig will remember well the one Magnus seedling I got after a two months wait. As far as I know, almost all Magnus seed out there now came from that one plant.

In terms of enhancement of germination, not waking up supposed dead seeds, I'll sow anything less than 5 yo as I would normally. From maybe 5 to 12 years old I might double sow, for seed over 12 years old I'll do the hydration routine described above.

And different varieties appear to have different seed viability traits, that is, heart shaped varieties seem to not last as long as others.

Two times I asked for feedback on seeds I distributed and the results were very interesting indeed.

Cutting to the chase, there was a huge variability amongst those folks who got the exact same samples. And that's b'c no two people sow seed in the same mix, use domes or not, bottom heat or not, sow at the same depth and all the other factors.

Most illuminating was the time I offered about 20 varieties that were fresh seed. Actually grown in the summer of 2004 and offered that Fall.

For any one of those the reports back showed rates form zero, yes zero, up to 90-100%.

I have hundreds upon hundreds of vials of old seed here at home dating back mainly to 1988 and forward. I won't bother with them unless someone is looking for a variety no longer listed at SSE or if someone contacts me and asks if I have it b/c they can't find it elsewhere after a documented search, and if I do it's up to them to try to wake it up, not me. LOL

So, I see no sense in fooling around with old seed unless the variety is no longer available, or, for some of us who have lots of old seed doing it just b'c we're curious.

Above I mentioned finding some seed that was sent to me by Don Podolia that I didn't know I had and yesterday I looked and there are two of them, one from 1991, the other from 1992 that I would like to see. Maybe this year, maybe not b'c I no longer can raise my own plants and I've received so many new ones this year, I mean not mentioned anywhere's, that those have first priority for the few plants that gardenmama raises for me.

Finally, if you do a search here at Tville, top of the page, and enter something like germinate old seed you'll see that others have posted several other methods, like using wet towels, soaking in cold tea, etc.

But there's a difference between trying to enhance germination as opposed to working with almosty non-viable seeds . For instance, that USDA seed that I mentioned bove had several varieties where maybe 1/50-100 seeds ever germinated.

[kktwahoo]

Carolyn,

I know you will think I am crazy, but I have a good friend who is a naturalpathic doctor in Arizona. He makes cards with frequencies on them that I use daily, for the past several years.

I can send you one, then set the seeds on it for a few hours, or a day or two, and see if it helps with germination. I am enough of a scientist to be interested in knowing if it helps, rather than using it on all of the seeds.

But, let me know, I will send you one, if you will use it.

[epiphanista]

Thanks for all the great info. In general I have not had a hard time starting seed - my method is seed starting mix over heat and a dome till they germinate. (And I believe I'll start doing an overnight soak, after my seed case issue this time around.) The oldest tomato seed I have is nine years old, and since I buy seed from the SSE yearbook each year whether I need it or not , this is all pretty much a non-issue for me.

I am just a curious person! Understanding what you do in these situations educates me.

~Thalia

[ronbrew]

Thanks for all the great info, I'm amazed at how active these boards are. I guess what I'm hearing is if I can get older seeds to start I will have healthy plants, it just may take a little longer to get them going. And after a long time it's probably worth just buying new seeds. My next project will be to learn if it's possible to save seeds when growing 30 different tomato plants in a smaller garden, and how to do that. Obviously then I can turn my older seeds into newer ones. I've always avoided doing so because I think there will be a cross, but maybe there is a way for me to do so. Anyway I'll look over at the saving seed forum and post over there if I need some questions answered.

Ron

[robin303]

Maybe some feed back about the microwave???

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by epiphanista

Thanks for all the great info. In general I have not had a hard time starting seed - my method is seed starting mix over heat and a dome till they germinate. (And I believe I'll start doing an overnight soak, after my seed case issue this time around.) The oldest tomato seed I have is nine years old, and since I buy seed from the SSE yearbook each year whether I need it or not , this is all pretty much a non-issue for me.

I am just a curious person! Understanding what you do in these situations educates me.

~Thalia

Do keep any dome propped up to allow for good air circulation. I've seen more folks bake their seeds/seedlings to death than I'd like to admit happens/

When you said you buy seed do you mean you're an SSE member and request seeds from the Yearbook or do you mean that you buy seeds from the PUBLIC SSE catalog/also online?

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by kktwahoo

Carolyn,

I know you will think I am crazy, but I have a good friend who is a naturalpathic doctor in Arizona. He makes cards with frequencies on them that I use daily, for the past several years.

I can send you one, then set the seeds on it for a few hours, or a day or two, and see if it helps with germination. I am enough of a scientist to be interested in knowing if it helps, rather than using it on all of the seeds.

But, let me know, I will send you one, if you will use it.

kent if you remember you already offered to use an alternative method to speed the healing from my recent surgeries and I didn't ask for that then.

And although I do have an interest in certain areas of the paranormal, which I consider to be what you're talking about re energy vibrations, I know I wouldn't use the cards.

I'm sorry.

No doubt I will not be the person who is actually waking up Don Podolia's seeds anyway.

But thanks for the offer.

[epiphanista]

Thanks, Carolyn, I do prop the dome.

I am an SSE member and request seeds from the Yearbook. I would like to eventually have enough expertise to offer seeds and be a 'full member' of SSE at some point in the future, but I have enough going on at the moment. I do bag my own blossoms.

The seeds I got from you last year, for instance, I requested from you via the Yearbook. And I'll bag some blossoms, at the very least for practice!

~Thalia

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by robin303

Maybe some feed back about the microwave???

It didn't do anything for the seeds I used but perhaps Craig had better luck.

You've always got to use controls if you can so you know if your treatment is having any affect at all.

[dice]

My tomatoes typically germinate in 3-5 days - with these oldies, I would expect to see something happening within 2 weeks if it were to happen at all.

It can take longer and still sprout. Dr. Carolyn Pink from 2004
(24-hour seed soak in weak tea water with a little hydrogen
peroxide, then into a plastic baggie inside a wet paper towel,
baggie closed for another 24 hours, then opened): 2 for 3 so far,
at 8 days and 18 days.

(I've had some take 6 weeks, in starting mix kept moist.
They were from a commercial packet of hybrids, real age
of the seeds was unknown. Good thing it was an early
tomato.)

[gardenhappy]

Reading thru this thread has been good thanks all for the questions.I have had some seeds take 21/2 months to germinate in fact i had gave up on them but they were in flats with other tomatos so the cells were left - next thing i know here they come ,one was a
"chinese white" tomato seed from a trade from Thailand
another has been seed I'm growing for Craig for 1 variety,I was shocked when after 21/2 months almost up comes 2 more seeds in 1 cell and i think it was 3 in the other,same cell,planted same day,same time,same soil.same heat,for the life of me I can not understand why????
Now I wonder how many seeds thru the years I gave up on that were comming!!!!

[Worth1]

I’ve known people in their 80’s and 90’s that save seeds.8)
That’s the way I see the thread every time I see it, (((How old is too old for saving seeds))).
I don’t think a person ever gets too old to save seeds.

That’s just my opinion on the subject and some folks may think that 50, is too old to save seeds.

Worth

[nctomatoman]

The microwave idea was from Jeff McCormack, founder of the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange- he used it to wake up some old sweet pepper seeds. I've not really pursued controlled experiments using it, but in the past microwaved and soaked (in Gib. acid and pot. nitrate) old tomato seeds - they did germinate (hence survived all of that treatment!).