Seed saving - what can go wrong

[Tania]

Reading 'Not Creole' thread by Carol inspired me to start this thread.

I have been actively saving tomato seeds since 2003, and recently I have been doing that for many varieties and offering the seeds via SSE and Tatiana's TOMATObase, so I thought I'd share both my thoughts and my experience on 'what can go wrong' with seed saving and lead to mixups. Most of this is more applicable to situations when many tomato varieties are processed at the same time, and will not apply to folks saving a few, but I am sure this will be an interesting read for many folks.

I am not going to cover the most obvious reason - seed crossing, and will only address the possibilities for other seed mixups.

So here you go - some of the reasons for off-types are (some 'examples' may be exaggerated a bit, just to make a point):

1. Wrong seed planted - could be 1 plant out of many, or all plants. It get's tricky when the varieties were similar enough, so even 1 wrong plant may not 'stand out' enough to spot the problem. Once I have seen myself accidentally dropping a seed into a wrong cell and not being able to find it. I had to discard half of the tray. What if I did not notice that happened?
2. Plants accidentally mislabelled or labels switched. Imagine your father-in-law helping to bring the plants outside each morning and accidentally dropping a tray or pulling out a few labels and then sticking them back in, as he is *sure* he is putting them right back where they were. He usually does not tell you about the accident, as he knows how much you love your tomatoes and does not want to upset you.
3. Wrong plants transplanted - imagine yourself digging holes and getting a tray of tomato seedlings ready to transplant, pulling the labels just before putting plants into the holes... then someone distracts you...
4. Someone helping you around the garden accidentally pulls labels while weeding around tomato plants. Or little kids do it because they want to help you. This usually not a problem when you grow many plants of the same variety, but still, weird things happen...
5. Harvest mixups: You are hauling the harvest by buckets and boxes, carefully labeling each fruit or putting each variety into its designated container. Well... lots of things can happen here, both at the beginning of the harvest and towards the end:
   • With few ripe fruits, we may put them into the same box. Well, sometimes you cannot read your own scribbling later - or, it got erased or smudged accidentally when you put the fruit into the box.
   • Accidentally putting a wrong fruit into a wrong bucket or box when you are picking multiple varieties - just because that box was closer to you, or you were distracted by someone. Easy to do with similar-looking fruits!
   • Someone is helping you to bring the boxes back home, dropping one accidentally on the way and not reporting the incident. Anything can happen here, depending on how you label the fruits when picking.
   • If you grow different (but similar) varieties too close to each other and are lucky to get a 'tomato jungle' - there is always an opportunity to pick a fruit from a wrong plant, thinking it is a right one!
   • At the end of the season, while picking fruits that are not fully ripe, it gets even easier to mix them up, as they look very similar...
   • Hey, I even had a few episodes of 'false memories' - when all of the sudden I'd stop and ask myself whether I put the last fruit into the right box or bucket! What do I do with the fruit in question? Discard is the only safe option, if you question yourself.
6. Mixups while extracting seeds:
   • if you are poking seeds from the best fruits with a knife and want to eat the fruit, and do that with many varieties in one shot - a wrong seed may stick to a knife and get into a wrong fermentation cup. It may stick to your hand, or the cutting board
   • Some folks stir the fermenting seeds periodically - if you use the same stirring stick, a seed may stick to it and find its way into the next cup.
   • Hey, I even seen a seed 'jumping' into a different seed plate when I was carefully spreading wet seeds on another plate! Same can happen when you are getting the dried seeds off the plates - these jump around even better than wet ones.
7. Mixups while packing seeds:
   • a stray seed left on the packing table gets mixed with the next variety you pack
   • a stray seed sticks to your hand, gets under nails, or gets caught in your sleeves... and gets carries into the next batch

What's the conclusion?

• If one is not careful during all these stages, seed mixups may be much more likely reason for off-types than crossed seed.
  
• It is good to always keep in mind where mixups can potentially occur, so you can watch these steps more carefully and minimize the errors. Or, you can change the way you do things to reduce probability of the errors.
  
• it is probably unreasonable to expect that no mixups would happen, even if you are very very careful - there could be still some human error happening occasionally - especially when you have helpers that are less experienced. Therefore, it is important for folks to always check each variety they grow for 'correctness' - and if it is not correct, do not pass it around, at least not under the same name!

Please share your observations/thought/suggestions to improve!

Tania

[Idahowoman]

Great Post. I learned alot. I have had a few of these things happen to me this year. I am certainly going to check varieties for correctness . I plant close together so next year I am going to bag blossoms.

[Tom C zone 4/5]

Much as I am fond of Carolyn, I put a full descriptor of what I've grown on seed packet. To both let next grower know what I grew.

The usual abreiviations might as well be greek to new growers--so no RL's Or PL's thanks. Sorry Carolyn, handy tech-talk here or IDig does not fly on main street.

[Wi-sunflower]

Yup, some of those things HAVE happened to me.

Seeds DO like to jump around when drying or planting. Having a mouse in the house or greenhouse can further complicate things when they dig around in the planting pots.

The worker thing has been frustrating for me at times too. No matter how much you stress that they need to be careful and not mix stuff up, it happens. And you can't be following them around ALL the time to check on everything or you don't get anything done yourself.

What's even more frustrating is that high school kids that work part time in the spring transplanting stuff sometimes think it's funny to purposly mix up the labels on stuff.

The mixing labels happens when pulling plants for transplanting. We usually plant out 1/2 flat or 1 flat depending on how much we need that variety. Some times the workers only 1/2 listen and keep pulling and go on to the next flat which probably isn't the same as the flat they did previously.

Yes lots of things that can go wrong no matter how hard you try to keep things straight.

Carol

[ContainerTed]

Things I do to "minimize" errors.

I have only one rule and it is absolute. ANY SEED THAT IS OUT OF PLACE AT ANY POINT IN THE PROCESS CANNOT BE 100% IDENTIFIED AND THEREFORE IS NOT USABLE. I expect seeds to be either in the tomato or in the strainer as I remove them from the tomato. If not in those two places, then they are history.

Here's some things I do.

1. Take a sharpie and a towel (old one) to the garden and label each tomato harvested for seed as it is picked. (i.e... Sib = Sibirsky Skorospelyi, BW SUD = Brandywine Sudduths, AFR Q = African Queen etc). The towel dries off a place on the tomato to put your marking.

2. Clean up the space where I intend to process seeds before starting. Wipe down enough space to do the work and make yourself become blind to anything outside of that space.

3. When processing the seeds out of the fruit, work with only one variety at a time until that variety is done. Then everything is rinsed and/or wiped clean, including knives, strainers, and any other utensils. I am OCD about rinsing the knife I use and then giving it a close inspection.

4. As each variety is finished, the seeds are moved to another location to either ferment or dry (away from the original area). That way, no seeds can be mishandled in such a way that it contaminates another variety.

5. The same "one at a time" rule applies during all stages of processing.

Over time, I have had some incidents of the wrong variety growing, but so far, that has been only with seeds received in trades. In 2009, what was supposed to be Isis Candy turned out to be more like a large version of Black Cherry, and one of the trades I received for Tiny Tim was actually a plum shaped cherry on a large indeterminate vine. Both were tasty, but not the real deal.

I can't imagine doing the extra careful things I do in a commercial situation. My hat is off to anyone who is able to do this without a large dedicated staff of helpers who are well trained and highly motivated.

My methods allowed me to save about 150,000 seeds from tomatoes and some 50,000 pepper seeds in 2009. This year with a larger garden, I could have done as well, but the workload for this one-person garden staff would have taken all the fun out of it.

The primary things are mark toms in the garden, do only one variety at a time, and throw away any seed that is "out of place" in your process.

Hope someone finds something helpful here.

Ted

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Tom C zone 4/5

Much as I am fond of Carolyn, I put a full descriptor of what I've grown on seed packet. To both let next grower know what I grew.

The usual abreiviations might as well be greek to new growers--so no RL's Or PL's thanks. Sorry Carolyn, handy tech-talk here or IDig does not fly on main street.

More information about the varieties I list, with few exceptions, can be found at various popular seed sites, and also by Googling and for SSE members in the Yearbooks

Tom, the above comment is made at the end of my list of varieties offered in my last seed offer. And I should have added Tania's site as well for those varieties that aren't new.

I also listed PL next to the ones that were PL, the rest are RL.

This last seed offer I packed up about 400 packs for my general free seed offer and a heck of a lot more for the NCSU varieties as well as the seed offer for PRS-37.

As long as folks have a way to find out about the varieties, as I noted above, and as long as I indicated which were PL, and as long as I wrote at the bottom of the seed offer that folks could ask ANY questions they wanted to, I think I had myself covered.

PL, RL, indet and det I don't see as technical talk and many others use the same abbreviations. And there's a thread here at Tville with lots of those abbreviations as well. In my experience if someone doesn't understand an abbreviation they ask and folks are only too happy to answer them, me included.

I simply do not have the time to write much more on a seed pack other than the variety name and the year the seeds were produced, and still get the seeds out in a timely manner.

I'm sorry I've disappointed you but I did address your questions in the first post of my last seed offer, as I indicated above.

If I were commecial, which I'm not, I might have done things differently, and if I had a website where I could list the varieties that might have helped as well.

And when I look at other folks offer lists I don't see anything written after a variety name at all, for most of them. Just take a look to convince yourself of that.

But I don't have a website and won't be putting one up.

So, with the information and suggestions I do write on the first page of my seed offer folks can either participate, or not; it's their choice.

[remy]

Being in the middle of seed saving right now, I can say I do it pretty much as Ted says. I only check the knife once though, no OCD here. I still know for all my perfectionist ways of doing it, strays will happen.
I've never been bothered by the stray seed from companies or trades. It is the entire mismarked packets that are disappointing.
Remy

[Paul R]

Good post Tania. I also do like Ted. But things do happen. Granddaughter once mixed 3 trays of bagged seeds into 1, she was very happy to help, had to toss the seeds.

Paul R

[nutmeg]

Originally Posted by Tania

Reading 'Not Creole' thread by Carol inspired me to start this thread.
...
Plants accidentally mislabelled or labels switched. Imagine your father-in-law helping to bring the plants outside each morning and accidentally dropping a tray or pulling out a few labels and then sticking them back when he is *sure* he put them right back where they were. He usually does not tell you about the accident.

...
Tania

This year I started around 40 or so tomato plants and gave away around half of to friends and family. Change the above quote from father-in-law to children, and you know why I kept getting calls this year about how come I'm getting small orange tomatoes (Sunsugar) instead of red one's (Box Car Willie)! And I certainly had some surprises in my garden as well.

So much for having my kids (and they are older teen's) helping to harden the seedlings.

PJ

[carolyn137]

I've never had any problems with plants being mislabeled ( I do a paper plot plan ASAP after planting a row) and I think in the past 15 years I've bought only one pack of seeds, and I don't trade seeds unless someone has a new family heirloom that hasn't yet been distributed, so here are a some problems I've run into and some that I think are preventable.

1. When packing seeds to send off never have on your seed packing table more than ONE open pack of stock seeds at a time to lessen the probablility of seed mixups, seeds that fly through the air and similar. And after sealing the new pack to go out swipe off the table to get rid of any seeds that might have jumped. Right now I have a semi-shag rug in that room where that table is and so the seeds get into the rug. Yes, they can be vaccumed up and no, I've never spilled what I'm drinking and had them germinate in the rug. LOL

2. Tania mentioned it above but keep your fingernails cut short when setting up seed processing and rinse your hands thoroughly between each set up. Check your fingernails often when packing up lots of seeds to be sent out so that seeds don't get stuck under your fingernails.

3. Be gentle in watering newly sowed seeds so that they don't jump to where they aren't wanted. I used to use those 20 row professional inserts and trust me, it can be a problem and same with the Permanest trays I used to use.

4.If you're going to recycle the fermentation containers, as I do, soak them thoroughly in a pail of water before washing and rinsing them with a hose and then turning them upside down to dry so as to get rid of ALL seeds that might be stuck to the rims and the sides.

5.If you're doing a LOT of seed packing at one time consider taking the phone off the hook so you don't get distracted and forget where you're at when packing up seeds for one person.

6.Label ALL seed packs going to one person before filling them and be sure to put the date when the seeds were produced on the pack. I prefer to use #1 coin envelopes and hate wee zip-lok ones b'c the seeds can get hung up on the lok seams.

7. Never assume that ALL the seeds you process are true unless the blossoms have been bagged. And be gracious when someone points out to you that the seeds they got were not ALL true. I've never sent out a wrong variety in a pack that was labelled as another variety, but it has happened that it often takes sending out hundreds of seeds of a single variety before even ONE seed gives an offtype, and that's usually b'c the cross pollination rate was so very low.

8.Label every single fruit you're going to process seeds from with a good sharpie or otherwise, around the stem end is best, unless you're growing lots of plants of the same variety and get maybe a half a bushel of like fruits and then just label a few on the top. For many years I was growing many hundreds of plants and varieties each season and it wasn't uncommon to have a half bushel of fruits of one variety to process at one time.

9.Myabe this doesn't belong here, but I encourage folks to buy at least half of their seed from the small family businesses that so many of you know already b'c without them we wouldn't have as many varieties as we do being available to the puiblic which also helps with seed preservation of varieties. If you're going to get into the heirloom tomato field in a big way consider joining SSE so you have access to the over 4,000 varieties listed there, preferably after you've grown a lot of the more better known varieties and know how to rogue out bad plants, etc.

10. Never, but never, sow seeds for a variety unless you know all the traits of that variety such as plant habit, leaf form, fruit size and shape and color. If you're growing a variety new to all or most then keep detailed notes for all of those traits. And that's REALLY important for all varieties, not just new to all ones and I know lots of folks who don't do that and as a result wrong varieties can and are traded.

11.If you aren't sure you have the right variety check Tania's site for specs or if an SSE member take a look at ALL the specs given for a simgle variety b'c there WILL be variation especially with regard to DTM's, which are guesstimates anyway. Of it all else fails, ask here at Tville if Googling and the above sources don't have the info for the variety you have and know nada about.

12.When packing seeds keep a smile on you face thinking of the warm days and lucious fruits you've tasted and in the background play the music of your choice, and for me that's at a low level so I don't start singing along with my kind of music, but the truth is, I sing along anyway.

[b54red]

Two things that weren't mentioned is fermenting the seeds for too little time and having difficulty separating and drying them and worse leaving them fermenting too long and having the seeds sprout and no longer be viable.