Do you soak seed that is three years old

[Goldie]

I recieved seed that is three years old. I usually have good germination with seeds only three years old, but I really want high germination from these special seeds. Is there a general "rule of thumb" of when to soak seeds based on age?

[nangisha]

I usually just soak it in warm water for one hours and its seem worked for seed thats I had but I don't now for old seed....

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Goldie

I recieved seed that is three years old. I usually have good germination with seeds only three years old, but I really want high germination from these special seeds. Is there a general "rule of thumb" of when to soak seeds based on age?

I can only share with you what I do.

For seeds 5 yo I do nothing and just sow straight out.

For seeds from about 5- 12 years I just sow double if I have enough seeds which I usually do. That is, you want 4 plants, you sow 8-10 seeds.

Only if the seeds are over about 12 yrs old do I personally soak the seeds the way I described in my seed offer, and then sometimes double sow those soaked seeds.

if these special seeds you refer to are so special that there's no other seed source and you have less than maybe 12 seeds, and you're really concerned, then I would soak them first as I explained in my recent seed offer.

And my comments above relate to actually knowing the precise seed age which is not true for most commercial places where there is often no date on the pack and if there is and if it's a packed by date, that's meaningless b'c it only says when the seeds were packed, not produced.

But many places do their own seed germinations before they sell the seeds and a few that I know of are Sandhill, TGS, Glecklers, Knapps, SSE Public catalog, and probably some others where I don't know what they do simply b/c I never asked or knew otherwise.

[Goldie]

Thank you! you just saved me some extra work. I'm sure I could get more seeds, but if these are slow to germinate, or poor results, I'll be behind by the time I get more seeds. I also don't need to spend any more money on seeds.

[nctomatoman]

Good timing - here is some of the data from this year's seedling germination (25-40 seeds per cell)

Oldest seed I planted is from 2002 (9 year old seed) - 4 varieties - took 4, 6, 6, and 6 days to germinate with no presoak.

From 2003 (8 year old seed) - 4 varieties - took 4, 7, 7, and 7 days.

2004 seed (7 years old) - 6 varieties - took 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, and 7 days

All of those above that took 6 or 7 days were because they were in line to get the heat mat - they had 3 days off the mat before I could make room to get them on.

I just planted some 10 and 11 year old seed - will update.

So no need to presoak (for me, anyway - my germination method is in the Dense Planting thread)

[carolyn137]

Craig, I get about the same germination with a non-dense method used to start seeds so I don't think that's the key.

And of course using a heating mat can hasten germination times as well, but I also know, as you do, that two folks using the same method with the same seeds can get different results b'c of intangibles that just can't be put into words, I think length of experience in germinating seeds might well be one of them, and/or the mix, whatever.

[Wi-sunflower]

I did something a bit different from Carolyn's pre soak this year when I wanted to germinate some rather old hot pepper seeds. Most of the seeds were from 2002 - 2006. But hot peppers don't usually last as well as tomatoes do.

I wanted to soak the seeds, but wet seeds are hard to work with to seed the way I wanted. So I planted the way I normally do -- in 1801 pots with about 1/3 full of potting soil tamped down. I seeded heavy and then covered with fine grade vermiculite.

Then I usually just put the pots in a tub of water til thoroughly wet and put in my hot germination rack. But this time I used a large flat keeper box with enough water with weak fertilizer that the flats were nearly floating. The box was on one of the shelves of the rack. I left them that way over nite, for about 15 hours +-. Then I put them just on the rack as usual.

So they were soaked but already in the soil.

This morning I noticed a few seedlings just about to poke up. This is day 5 or 6. As old as the seeds are, I expect most of the varieties will take at least a few more days to be able to know if this worked or not.

Just an option that may or may not be something to consider.

Carol

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Wi-sunflower

I did something a bit different from Carolyn's pre soak this year when I wanted to germinate some rather old hot pepper seeds. Most of the seeds were from 2002 - 2006. But hot peppers don't usually last as well as tomatoes do.

I wanted to soak the seeds, but wet seeds are hard to work with to seed the way I wanted. So I planted the way I normally do -- in 1801 pots with about 1/3 full of potting soil tamped down. I seeded heavy and then covered with fine grade vermiculite.

Then I usually just put the pots in a tub of water til thoroughly wet and put in my hot germination rack. But this time I used a large flat keeper box with enough water with weak fertilizer that the flats were nearly floating. The box was on one of the shelves of the rack. I left them that way over nite, for about 15 hours +-. Then I put them just on the rack as usual.

So they were soaked but already in the soil.

This morning I noticed a few seedlings just about to poke up. This is day 5 or 6. As old as the seeds are, I expect most of the varieties will take at least a few more days to be able to know if this worked or not.

Just an option that may or may not be something to consider.

Carol

Carol, you've just reminded me that when working with VERY old tomato seeds, maybe 12 plus years, I'll soak, double sow if I have enough seeds and then after sowing the seeds water with what I put in the soaking mix.

I honestly never took the time to do controls to see if watering the sown seeds with that same mix worked better, but in a few cases I was delighted to get up what to me at the time were some very rare seeds.

There was a post here from Mark McCaslin , Frogs Leap Farm, user name asking if anyone had any varieties that had either the rin or nor genes and I ASAP spoke up and offered my Dourne de Hiver seeds, which do. So I offered them and then came the search mission to find them and they were 1993 seeds. He has his own way of waking up old seeds and I was delighted when he e-mailed me and said he had some of them up already.

That's 17 yo seed. My own personal record was waking up seeds of a variety called September Dawn that were 22 yo and the documented record is waking up tomato seeds 50 yo.