Best way to store seed!

On the recommendation from a lot of folks, I have been storing my seed collection in a one gallon zip lock bag in the freezer. Each variety of seed is also still in the original paper packets the seed shipped in from the vendors.

I have ordered and received about twenty heirloom tomato varieties that really interest me for their traits of production, size, taste, and appearance. I purchased a supply of the little miniature zip lock type bags yesterday to both store (makes it easy to count the seeds) and mail seed to folks who may want to trade in the future. Has anyone had any bad experiences using the little self sealing bags. I guess my biggest concern is chemicals used in the manufacturing process of the plastic to keep it flexible and keep it slick enough to pass through the machinery which makes the bags. Has anyone had any negative effect on their seeds from those chemicals?

Ted

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by tedln

On the recommendation from a lot of folks, I have been storing my seed collection in a one gallon zip lock bag in the freezer. Each variety of seed is also still in the original paper packets the seed shipped in from the vendors.

I have ordered and received about twenty heirloom tomato varieties that really interest me for their traits of production, size, taste, and appearance. I purchased a supply of the little miniature zip lock type bags yesterday to both store (makes it easy to count the seeds) and mail seed to folks who may want to trade in the future. Has anyone had any bad experiences using the little self sealing bags. I guess my biggest concern is chemicals used in the manufacturing process of the plastic to keep it flexible and keep it slick enough to pass through the machinery which makes the bags. Has anyone had any negative effect on their seeds from those chemicals?

Ted

TEd, if you're talking about those small zip-lok bags, I hate them, pure and simple. When trying to shake out seeds they get caught up on the lok mechanism.

I have many many hundreds of saved seeds, I don't order seeds but when I did it's the saved seeds I stored for listing in the SSE YEarbook as well as making seed offers, not the original packs. I'm not one who trades seeds for a variety of reasons, the only exception being if someone sends me a new family heirloom not yet distributed, then I offer several varieties of that person's choosing, in return.

Some of my stored seeds are in plastic screw cap vials but most of them are in simple white envelopes. And they are stored at ambient temps and seed viability is greater than 50%, usually much greater than that, with 5 yo seed.

Freezing is fine for long term storage and by that I mean maybe 20 years plus, but you have to dry down the seeds to a moisture content of about 6-8 % or freezing the seeds can lead to their destruction via ice crystal formation.

When I send out seeds I use only #1 coin envelopes. Never anything else. I can easily scoop up seeds on the table top, seal with a bit of tape and the recipient can easily open them and gently jiggle out the seeds they need.

I'm just sharing my experience in terms of seed storage and what I use to send out seeds and I've been saving seed and storing it since the late 1980's. I'm almost embarrassed to say it, but I've never thrown out ONE of my saved seeds.

Carolyn,

Yes the miniature zip lock bags is what I was referencing. Thanks for your input. I just want to use what is easiest and most reliable.

When you say you store your saved seed at ambient temps, do you mean in the home, air conditioned, ambient temps or outside in the heat ambient temps. While I am new at heirloom tomato propagation and growing, I am not new at gardening. Last year I tossed most of my excess vegetable seed into one of those orange Home Depot five gallon buckets I keep in the garden to store stuff. Our ambient summer temps approached 110 degrees F. I have no idea what the temps in that bucket reached, but when fall came; all my vegetable seed was cooked. While many folks recommend freezing the seed for season to season storage, I'm not comfortable with it. I know a lot of genetically living material is stored in liquid nitrogen successfully, but somehow a seed seems different. Maybe a seed just seems more fragile to me.

Ted

[Gobig_or_Gohome_toms]

I store my seeds either in the paper packs they came in or in the small zip lock bags and then place them in sealed quart mason jars in my basment that is dry and about 60-70 degrees all year. If I have silicon desicates I toss those into the quart jars as well.

Craig

[nctomatoman]

The issue with storing seeds in the freezer is, if you don't let them come to room temperature before opening them, you can draw moisture into the bags or containers when you open them, which can then defeat the purpose.

I store my seeds in snap cap plastic or screw cap glass vials in my house at whatever temp and humidity the room happens to be at....and have no troubles with germination up to 12 years.

[carolyn137]

Ted, my seeds are stored at ambient temperature inside the house, as Craig said above, at whatever the temperature and humidity might be. No airconditioners here, so sometimes the temp can get up to the 90's in the summer, but not for long.

Seed banks do store tomato seeds at low temps, -20F and -80F are common, but ALWAYS those seeds are dried down to less that about 6% moisture level with silica gel. And if you were going to freeze your seeds at normal fridge temps of about 0 to +5 F I suggest you do the same or the ice xstals can destroy the seeds.

Craig mentioned something else above when speaking about rehydration of previously frozen seeds after they are taken out for use, which is also important to know.

For my purposes and where I live, just keeping the seeds at normal home ambient temps works fine for me and has for over 20 years.

I know about those upstate NY temps. I spent a lot of time around Painted Post, Olean, and Wellsville. Some of the most beautiful gardens I've ever seen. I was originally surprised that no one had central air conditioning. Always seemed to have two feet of snow on the ground or the temp was 95 degrees when I was there.

Ted

[Aphid]

I vacuume bag(glad or ziploc vac bags) in their original packets than store them in the fridge.

my results so far have been around 70-90% germination with up to 5 year old seeds, The refridgerator is a very low humidity environment so it seems to work great.

[b54red]

I've stored seed both in the refrigerator and at room temperature and have seen little difference. The one problem with storing in the refrigerator is when you take them out you have to allow the container storing the seed to reach the ambient temp. or moisture will condense on the contents when you open it. This is a real problem in our hot & humid summers, of course if I was without air conditioning I'm afraid I would have problems storing them anywhere else.
I also agree with Carolyn about those little plastic bags. I hate them, they are very difficult to get seeds out of and I end up spilling them half the time.
I store mine in little coin envelopes then put them inside small white envelopes which fit into index card file boxes. It is very easy to find them because I label them in alphabetical order and just open the box and pull out the appropriate envelope.