Starting 25+ year old 'Walter' Seed

[tam91]

Maybe start a new thread as a sticky, how to awaken old seeds? And copy DarJones post over? Then anyone else who has a method could add it...

Just a thought from me, since there's a lot of extra stuff on this one.

[amideutch]

Thinking the same thing tam. Maybe I'll copy and paste the info to a new thread per your suggested topic title. Ami

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by tam91

Maybe start a new thread as a sticky, how to awaken old seeds? And copy DarJones post over? Then anyone else who has a method could add it...

Just a thought from me, since there's a lot of extra stuff on this one.

YEs, there is some extra "stuff" in this thread, and I suppose I was part of it when trying to answer the questions about seed age and known ages of some that have borne results, methods, and then answering the question re my living near Albany, etc. that I was asked about.

I think I'd prefer to see this thread stand in case there are other volunteers who want to help with the old seed and giving them an opporutnity to ask questions as well.

I don't think there are two people into trying to wake up old seed, and there are quite a few of them here including Craig and Frogsleap farm who was just able to wake up some old ones of mine, as has Tania, who do it the same way.

Right now I can't even remember if it's the admins/global mods who are the only ones who can designate a thread a sticky, or not, but I think it would fine to start a thread devoted entirely to folks posting ONLY about their way of trying to wake up old seeds, and go from there, keeping this thread for possible new participants, questions and the like.

The new thread title should reflect ONLY methods to be posted and I think it would be best to also link to THIS thread in the first post for background information, and a lot of it is important as I see it.

I never got around to posting about my method b/c others got to it before I even saw this thread but Fusion and Travis did, so those methods can be cut and pasted into the new thread by whomever wants to start it and ami has already volunteeered to do so.


How does that sound to the rest of you before ami goes ahead? I'm just offering some suggestions, etc., for this thread and the new one ami will start.

[Jeannine Anne]

A sticky about waking up would be great, hopefully wll cover all seeds as I have some very precious old beans I want to try.

XX vJeannine

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Jeannine Anne

A sticky about waking up would be great, hopefully wll cover all seeds as I have some very precious old beans I want to try.

XX vJeannine

Jeannine, I wonder about a sticky for ALL kinds of seeds b'c not all have the same physiology, some having to be stratified, others not, some having very short viability lives such as the alliums, and even within the tomatoes there are differences in viability as some of us have noticed and posted here in the past.

Let's see if others think it would be possible to do a sticky for ALL kinds of seeds. As for myself I think I'd like to see it kept to tomatoes, not flowers, annuals or perennials, not herbs, not other veggies and fruits, etc., b'c I think to attempt to do all of that in one Sticky would become possibly quite confusing to readers of that presumed Sticky, trying to find what is relevant to a specific kind of seed within one Sticky.?

Would it be reasonable to do stickies in the various other Forums, as in, are there folks here at Tville who have expertise in waking up old seeds of beans, or squash, or all the other general kinds of seeds I mentioned above?

I don't know the answer to that.

[Fusion_power]

The bean process is similar to tomatoes, soak for a day in nitrate soaked paper towel in ziploc but don't refrigerate, then tuck the seed just into the top of very moist seed start mix so the tip of the bean still shows and keep them warm, around 80 degrees is best. The seed must NOT be covered completely up, as soon as a sprout starts, it has to have light. Also, beans become leggy very very fast so you have to be prepared to set them either into larger containers outdoors in full sun or plant them in prepared soil. I was able to successfully start some very old beans from Glenn a few years ago and produced a huge crop. The same seed planted outdoors gave less than 1% germination but with treatment was over 50%. I got similar results with some seed from Bill Best that germinated less than 5% in the garden but gave near 80% with some help.

DarJones

[tam91]

Carolyn, I didn't in the slightest mean to complain about the extra stuff in this thread, or suggest this thread should go away - quite the contrary, it's very interesting.

I just thought as a sticky, perhaps just a "how to" thread might be good. But I'll happily defer to all you more experienced folks.

[Jeannine Anne]

Ok no probs if it would confuse things..re my beans, they are huge..more than an inch and a quarter accross and I have lost germination this year and cannot replace them.My fault I should have saved seed 2 years ago when stocks got low..but..

I never direct seed my beans, I always start inside in three inch pots so that is no problem but these guys may simple have had it.

They are genuine Greek Gigantes, the biggest graded size, picked up in Greece about 10 years ago and have always grown and kept seeds but slipped up last year. I have had so called Gigantes seeds from other sources but they are not the size.I have even tried ones from the Greek food stores but they rarely germinate.

XX Jeannine

[sirtanon]

I just started 11 of these seeds lastnight, soaking them for about 40 minutes in a weak MG solution before sowing into jiffy peat pellets that had been expanded using a weaker MG solution. They're on heat now and I'll update if/when I see any sprouts.

[travis]

If for some reason very old Walter seeds do not sprout, and you cannot find new Walter seeds, and you want something very similar to Walter, there always is Cherokee (Red) which is (Walter x Ace 55) F2 x Walter. I assume the breeder selected a determinate F2 to back cross to Walter because Cherokee is determinate (and also is a parent to Mountain Pride).

[sirtanon]

That's good to know. I have quite a few of the seed and I suspect that given enough time, I can probably get one to sprout.

But.. that Cherokee(Red) does sound like an interesting combination. Might have to check it out.

[Wi-sunflower]

I have seed for a selection of Walter called Walter Villmare (sp ?).

I don't know how that differs from the original Walter. I've been re-growing seeds for it every few years and do have good seed.

I originally got the seed by mistake instead of a hot pepper I had ordered when someone added a 0 to an item number . It sounded good so I grew it out. While we usually don't have the kind of weather it was bred for, it did OK here in Wisconsin.

Carol

[dice]

I think Victory Seed carries the Cherokee Red:
http://www.victoryseeds.com/tomato_cherokee-red.html

[carolyn137]

Sandhill has been listing both Cherokee Red and the PL version, but I don't have my catalog yet, so don't know if they're there for 2012.

And Marianna's has also been listing Cherokee Red as well, but I didn't check Marianne's website and I know she's working on updating it now.

Carol, it's Walter Villemaire and I Googled it quite a bit and don't understand the Villemaire part but it "seems" to be the same as Walter. Here's just one link but if you Google it you'll find others as well

http://ventmarin.free.fr/passion_tom.../tomates_w.htm

[Wi-sunflower]

From what I read when I first got it about 15 years ago --

Walter is a U of Florida variety and was "reselected" at a field station named Villemaire. I think in Florida. At least that has been my understanding all these years.

Now what or why a "reselection" I have no idea.

Which may bring us back to why the OP wants to revive "original" seed. Walter seed may have varied over the years.

If he can get some going I'll gladly send some of my seed for him to compare it with.

carol