15 year old seed

[KarenO]

3 out of 4 up and growing normally. The 4th seed did not germinate. 75%, I call this a success.

KarenO.
There will be More pics of my growout on my Northern Gardener FB, but that's it for this thread from me.

[Starlight]

Originally Posted by KarenO

3 out of 4 up and growing normally. The 4th seed did not germinate. 75%, I call this a success.

KarenO.
There will be More pics of my growout on my Northern Gardener FB, but that's it for this thread from me.

Karen... If it not too much trouble, I hope you will post pic on here on and off as I have dial up and can't get to facebook. Not sure if others like me have dial up.

Always interesting to see what you growing and how.

[KarenO]

Ok starlight, I hadn't considered that it's not always easy to access my photos. Thank you for your interest.
3 out of four seeds germinated. One was stuck in its seed coat leaving 2 healthy ones now growing. Here is a pic before I removed the stunted one.
The seed coats were stubborn on all 3 but the first 2 got out alright.
KarenO

[Starlight]

Cool and Thanks Karen. I sure don't know much about the genetics of tomato seeds, so I have kinda dumb question. With you growing and saving your seed and knowing your plants, are older seed more genetically true/pure ( not sure if that right term) than say those of same cultivar being sold today?

I know you do alot of breeding and kinda wondered as seed now a days gets traded and sent all over the place and grown in so many spots and different conditions, or does it not matter and older seed same as today's. Thought maybe you could answer my crazy question.

[KarenO]

For known stable varieties, Older seed has had less opportunity to be accodentally crossed. Certainly growing conditions, collection timing and techniques differ from person to person.
What I do know is I have not seen an accidental cross in seed I personally have saved but I have seen quite a few in traded seeds but I don't worry about it much. I eat the tomatoes which are generally good but I do not save any seed from those plants that do not grow out to match the expected form including plant habit. I think most suddenly different tomatoes are from crossed (or mixed up) seeds with only fairly unusual mutations making up the remainder.
I would not send out seed labelled as a known variety unless that tomato grew true to form.
KarenO

[Tormato]

Originally Posted by Worth1

Nothing spectacular about 15 year old seeds.
I have came to the conclusion due to the complaints about Burpees seed germination that they sell 15 year old seeds all of the time.
The expiration date really is the expiration date NOT one year old seeds.
I think my oldest is 25 years old from a Texas mountain laurel seed.
It is now growing in my yard I collected the seed in 1987 from the wild.

Worth

Up here, if you clear some trees and brush in the right place, old blackberry seeds will germinate. I've read that some of the seeds may be 150 - 200 years old.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Starlight

Cool and Thanks Karen. I sure don't know much about the genetics of tomato seeds, so I have kinda dumb question. With you growing and saving your seed and knowing your plants, are older seed more genetically true/pure ( not sure if that right term) than say those of same cultivar being sold today?

I know you do alot of breeding and kinda wondered as seed now a days gets traded and sent all over the place and grown in so many spots and different conditions, or does it not matter and older seed same as today's. Thought maybe you could answer my crazy question.

Karen I'm not,just speaking to my experience. And I'll answer Karen next.

First, I'm not sure what you mean by older seed, that could be seed age or it could be varieties that have been known for a long time, and I'm pretty sure you meant he latter.

Quick answer is that there are quite a few varieties that are known to be pre1800 and they are still the same as they were back then based on descriptions given at the time..

First,I almost never deal in traded seeds, did that several decades ago and too darn many wrong ones.I do trade with folks in several countries from whom I get seeds for seed offers,but those seeds these days are produced by my now 7 seed producers and they know what they should be,all are experienced tomato growers, and I use some of the seeds produced to send to various seed vendors I've known well for a long time for trial,and to friends, to see what they think of them.

Usually I send to Glenn Drowns at Sandhill,Linda Sapp at TG, Mike Dunton at Victory Seeds and Jeff Casey in Canada if he has room.

And Tania has pick of the litter,if you will,to select any varieties she wants off the seed offers.

Finally,it wasn't a crazy question at all.

Carolyn

[KarenO]

Did I ask a question? I didn't actually but here's one:so there has Never been a crossed seed from your group of seed producers?
That's commendable. They must carefully bag blooms. What do they use?
KarenO

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by KarenO

For known stable varieties, Older seed has had less opportunity to be accodentally crossed. Certainly growing conditions, collection timing and techniques differ from person to person.
What I do know is I have not seen an accidental cross in seed I personally have saved but I have seen quite a few in traded seeds but I don't worry about it much. I eat the tomatoes which are generally good but I do not save any seed from those plants that do not grow out to match the expected form including plant habit. I think most suddenly different tomatoes are from crossed (or mixed up) seeds with only fairly unusual mutations making up the remainder.
I would not send out seed labelled as a known variety unless that tomato grew true to form.
KarenO

Karen we agree on the traded seed issue for sure, and not sending out seeds that are not true to form.And that's one reason in my seed offers in the past I've put up a germination thread, so that if a variety shows up RL and not PL,it's known to be wrong.I also ask folks to not share seeds with others until they know the variety is correct and that's why I ask for a Fall feedback report. Many of the seeds offered in my seed offers my seed producers did,but also seeds from others already processed and ready to go.

About mutations or crossed seeds that any of us save personally.

I had joined SSE as a listed member in 1989 and was so until two years ago when I asked that all my listings be deleted,my choice For many years I was listing many hundreds of varieties, and growing the plants at the old farm, for primarily seed production and also selling plants and fruits locally.

All that I grew at the farm I did all the seed saving, and yes, there were a few wrong varieties,I kept track and in all those years it was mainly seed DNA mutations where pink (clear epi)would go to red (yellow epi) and for many years I kept the two colors going but never sent out seeds for anything other than original

I had sent seeds to Glenn at Sandhill and one was supposed to be red, but what he got was pink, and he listed it. Again, a spontaneous seed DNA mutation.

I don't yet have my SSE Yearbook, but several of my long time SSE friends do, so I ask them to look up stuff for me and they do.Back then, folks would report back to the person they got the seeds from, but I haven't heard of that happening lately.

What bothers me the most is that they tell me that there's no chain of command any more, as in which hands had the seeds passed through to the current person listing it. As in A got seeds in X year from B, who got seeds from C in X year for,etc. That way if the seeds were wrong it could be traced back.

Right now there is no one at SSE who kn ows much of anything about tomatoes,which is the largest listingin the YEarbook, sad to say, and noting that Torgrimson is leaving and I'm told they are looking for someone with a business /advertising background.

So much for the original mission of Kent and Diane who started the mission back in 1975,rather, it looks like to me its going to become a seed company,and I'm not talking about the Public catalog either.

Last year there were about 700 listed members and for this year only about 400, as I'm told by those who already have their 2017 Yearbooks,and that's a huge drop.

So for me with my own saved seeds, less than 10 over all those years,and most epi changes from seed DNA mutations,but a few somatic mutations as well,which were always welcome surprises.

Carolyn

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by KarenO

Did I ask a question? I didn't actually but here's one:so there has Never been a crossed seed from your group of seed producers?
That's commendable. They must carefully bag blooms. What do they use?
KarenO

I was late getting back to you since I took time to eat supper and you now see my post but I didn't address the question you are asking now.

I can speak only to the 4 original seed producers I've had since the early 90's and two bagged blossoms and 2 didn't. All were listed members and listed them and their seeds were excellent, I don't remember any problems

Two years ago I had to ask for volunteers here at TV to help in that thread I posted since I had so many new varieties that the original 4 couldn't handle them all.

I have their reports back and all got what they were supposed to but a few problems with germination,the same varieties,from seeds sent to me from all over the place, for them to work with.

As for the newest seed producers,that will be known when the seed offer goes up and folks grow them out as is true for almost all who make seed offers.

Carolyn

[KarenO]

aaaand my thread is derailed again... which was why I sometimes just post links to my FB page.

Not sure what any of the SSE issues has to do with this thread which is (was) about germinating my 15 year old seeds of a tomato that is special to me.

Its a great tomato, I'm happy to say my H2O2 method worked and I have 2 plants growing from the 15 year old seed of that actual original "Zena's gift" tomato. If all goes well I will have seed to trial for those who might be interested later on in the year
For what it's worth, I have it listed on the SSE. I am the original source of this tomato. I joined the SSE so I can list my own breeding project tomatoes before somebody else does.
K

[ginger2778]

Originally Posted by KarenO

aaaand my thread is derailed again... which was why I sometimes just post links to my FB page.

Not sure what any of the SSE issues has to do with this thread which is (was) about germinating my 15 year old seeds of a tomato that is special to me.

Its a great tomato, I'm happy to say my H2O2 method worked and I have 2 plants growing from the 15 year old seed of that actual original "Zena's gift" tomato. If all goes well I will have seed to trial for those who might be interested later on in the year
For what it's worth, I have it listed on the SSE. I am the original source of this tomato. I joined the SSE so I can list my own breeding project tomatoes before somebody else does.
K

Like!

[Spartanburg123]

Really happy for you Karen! Glad you got those little babies to sprout after all this time! Looking forward to growing this out next year!!!

[Jimbotomateo]

Sure hope I get to grow Zenas gift sometime KarenO. Glad you're bringing it back. Good job! Jimbo

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by KarenO

Did I ask a question? I didn't actually but here's one:so there has Never been a crossed seed from your group of seed producers?
That's commendable. They must carefully bag blooms. What do they use?
KarenO

No, you didn't at that point since I addressed a question to you as Karen which should have been to Startlight

(Karen I'm not,just speaking to my experience. And I'll answer Karen next.)

Everyone makes a mistake in typing from time to time.

Carolyn