Last September,I started to collect some lettuce seed and separate the
seed from the chaff by using sieves.It did not work very well after
several separations,but then remembered that I had read that one
method is to put the seed into a glass of water-the good seed falls to
the bottom,whereas the rubbish floats on the top.It seemed to
work,although the amount of good seed was probably only 20% of the
total.However I removed the rubbish from the liquid surface,and
recovered the 'good' seeds from the bottom.I put them on a plate and
dried them as quickly as possibly-probably took till the following
day.I worried of course whether the dampness over a period of a twelve
hours would affect their subsequent germination.

I have now sown two varieties of lettuce seed last month and can
report that I have achieved 100% (or as near as I can judge)
germination.So sorting seed using flotation works!
Cheers,Michael

michael wrote:

I have now sown two varieties of lettuce seed last month and can
report that I have achieved 100% (or as near as I can judge)
germination.So sorting seed using flotation works!

I do this with brassica and onion/leek seeds and it works well. I dry them
by spreading out in a kitchen sieve suspended in one of those plastic
crate storage boxes with a small fan blowing on it; gets the seeds dry much
faster.
A set of screens with various mesh sizes is also a big help.


Gary Woods AKA K2AHC- PGP key on request, or at home.earthlink.net/~garygarlic
Zone 5/6 in upstate New York, 1420' elevation. NY WO G