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Member discussion regarding the methods, varieties and merits of growing tomatoes.

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Old January 31, 2006   #1
Mischka
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Default De-fuzz tomato seeds for long-term storage?

This is a new one on me.

On the top of each page in the 06 Abundant Life Seed catalog, they placed clever little tips for the home gardener. Very thoughtful.

Page 36 reads "De-fuzz tomato seeds for long-term storage."

I know commercial seed producers have a way to de-fuzz their seeds, but I was always under the impression they did this so that the seeds would pass through their counting and packaging machines without sticking to one another.

So, does leaving the fuzz on our home saved seeds shorten their viability timespan?

How would a home gardener remove the fuzz?

I read a recent GW post where someone asked what varieties have fuzzy seeds...no mention of losing viability over time in the followup posts.

I've been saving seed for 7 years now; I heat seal them in foil-barrier packets after adding a desiccant capsule in with them.

Perhaps someone here might know more about this?

- Mischka
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Old January 31, 2006   #2
carolyn137
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Mischka,

I've still got seeds that I produced in 1990 and I've never defuzzed a seed and viability holds up quite well.

One way a home gardener could defuzz them, although I can't see the need, is to treat with TSP ( trisodium phosphate) It tends to turn the seeds a darker color and TSP treatment is routinely used by large commercial seed producers, often after fermentation, but I never recommend its use by home gardeners b'c of the caustic nature of TSP.

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Old January 31, 2006   #3
nctomatoman
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I like fuzzy seeds! For whatever reason, those sad little shiny nuggets that Stokes tends to send are kind of pathetic looking! My fuzzy seeds keep very well.
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Old January 31, 2006   #4
bully
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Hmmm.. I wonder what they do with all that fuzz.

make a great pillow, don't you think?

sweet tomato dreams
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Old February 2, 2006   #5
barkeater
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Oops . I thought I put in some of those emoticon things. I was trying to use them to make a joke out of the evils of fuzzy seeds

Sure didn't work without them.

Hope they are there in this post.
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Old February 2, 2006   #6
Tomstrees
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I would think the better you store them - the longer they would last - Out of all my trades in the off season ( sounds like sports, lol ) I only got 2 apcks of seeds that were "de-fuzzed" ~ I guess we'll see in spring ... oh and also ... that Groundhog needs to relax, hang out, and stop being so darn afraid !! lol , we need spring !!! ~ Tom
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Old February 2, 2006   #7
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Gee, you two - was just about to use my POWER as one of the honchos for the first time and make some posts go poof....now you go and play nice.....

go on, make my day....
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Old February 2, 2006   #8
Mischka
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Default Just a typo

Barkeater was trying to be funny using the smilie emoticons and meant no offense. It looked way off from the humor that was intended (he didn't know that smilies show up as ascii characters and not images in the compose post window) and he didn't know that he could edit posts here rather than have to post a follow-up.

So....after seeing his original post and the followup, I removed the original one and PM'ed him to teach him how to edit posts after you post them.

group hug...big misunderstanding. Blame the learning curve of how to use BBCode and emoticons :wink:
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