longevity of seeds

[Hellmanns]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

Sorry but there is no 1/2 life for tomato seed.

The oldest tomato seeds that were ever germinated and documented, which is important, were 50 years old and that happened when the precursor to the USDA station in Ames, IA opened and the Cheyenne, WY place had to send all their seeds to Ames, IA where germination testing was done.

And the seeds in Cheyenne were stored in regular filing cabinets at ambient temps. Nothing special,

The oldest tomato seed I ever was able to wake up were seeds of September Dawn which were 22 yo, but then I had to use special methods to wake up seed even younger than that since seeds of heart varieties, for instance, do not have the same longevity as non hearts do.

Hope that helps,

Carolyn

Respectfully, Carolyn,
I do know that heat and moisture destroy germination rates but, I did read exactly what I said, "Somewhere" over the years that tomato seed have a half-life and that was 100 years. It was not read on the internet, it was in a garden magazine, book, seed catalog, or publication many years ago. Now that I am thinking about it, it could have been a publication on preparing seed for long term storage, or, that seed have a half-life when properly stored? Did Jeff McCormack write such an article?

The seed I germinated were properly stored by ME in 1989. If my math is right, that makes them 26 years old. They were the last of 4 varieties to germinate this spring by 3 days, but when they started they were all up within 24 hours with no helmet heads, or weak seedlings! They were fermented, then dried to very low moisture via color indicating silica gel and sealed in heat-seal foil packets, and were stored in the freezer.