On Jul 5, 2:42*am, Kay Lancaster wrote:
On Wed, 4 Jul 2012 16:03:09 -0700 (PDT), Higgs Boson wrote:
On Jul 2, 2:42*pm, Kay Lancaster wrote:
On Sun, 1 Jul 2012 22:33:26 -0700 (PDT), Higgs Boson wrote:
Finally neatening up my messy seeds. *How to save the "winter" seeds
for next year? *Radish, bokchoy,
spinach, lettuce, sugar peas, carrots, etc.

Is there any REAL evidence -- not anecdotal -- that storing in the
freezer will preserve viability better than refrigerator or just shelf

I was asking, per your +10, -10 rule, whether keeping jar in the
freezer would be even better than frig. *Can't remember what else I
wrote, but could you
speak to that point?

Freezing temp is where it starts getting tricky. *Harrington's rule for
orthodox seeds is that if the sum of the temperature and relative humidity
is below 100, then you've got adequate storage. *But consider a freezer
running at 20 degrees F and a seed with a relative humidity of 80% --
that's wet enough that if the freezer goes through a few freeze-thaw
cycles (like most modern freezers), you're in the range that you could
get ice crystals disrupting embryos. *If you're willing to chuck several good
sized packets of just out of the drying oven silica gel in with the seeds,
chances are you'll be fine, and probably better off (by several year's
storage) than standard refrigerator storage -- except maybe with large
seeded beans, like kidney beans or limas. *Those tend to go hard-seeded
or sometimes the bean will crack internally if they get too dry, killing
the embryo if you're unlucky.

Most of us don't need to store seed for 20+ years. *If we do, we're probably
going to invest in an old fashioned freezer that doesn't do auto-defrost
and we're going to spend some time with relative humidity measurements
before the seed goes into storage. *There's just not enough seed in a
standard packet to last most of us more than about 5 planting seasons...
which means refrigerator storage in a sealed jar is fine. *Grass seeds
won't do well under those conditions, but bean seeds will probably be fine
in a refrigerator in 20 or 30 years.

Every species has specific storage conditions that the seeds do well in, and
those conditions vary from species to species, and sometimes cultivar to
cultivar within species. *If you want to put your seeds in the freezer,
they'll probably do just fine -- better than in the refrigerator --
with the exceptions of beans, with no other preparation than chucking them
into a container and chucking the container into the freezer. *But they'll
last long enough in the refrigerator.

BTW, there have been a number of experiments on germinating seeds after
long term storage. *One of the oddments that have come out of this is
that old seeds seem to germinate better if they get a 5 minute soak in
skim milk before planting. *At least the last time I bothered to look,
no one had a real idea of "why?" figured out except for carrots -- there's
a seedcoat-borne virus of carrots and the skim milk inactivates the virus..

Then there's the Beale experiment on weed seed -- the guy who buried
jars full of weed seeds in a hole in the ground, and went and
dug one up and tried to germinate the seeds -- one jar every X years.http://news.msu.edu/story/1901/*Which I guess proves you can't beat weeds.
g

Kay

THEY FOUND MY PARTICLE!!!! *(they think...)

And Steven Hawking lost $100 on it. *g

Kay, I'm in AWE of your know-how!

As to my seeds, I'll opt for the jar in the frig.with the silica, as
neither the seeds nor I have a 20-year timeline g.

Thanks for all the technical info.

HB