ALERT; MY 2010 Seed Offer

[GunnarSK]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

Gunnar, I just looked at the first page of my seed offer and saw that for the first time ever I left out the instructions for soaking old seeds. I did say to double sow old seeds but forgot to say to soak them as well.

And all on your list are older seeds except for the GDF, as you know.

I was about to PM you with a question but I'll just ask here anyway. Do you know of a Polish tomato variety called Oles'ka?

I recalled seeing your comments/opinion on seed soaking recently though I didn't remember if it was here or at Idig, but a quick search brought this up:


When I have seed that I don't know what the germination percentage is, usually older of my saved seeds, if the seeds are 5-7 years old I just double sow, if about 8-15 years old I soak in water o'n with a pinch of blue stuff or a few drops of liquid seedweed emulsion or fish emulsion and over about 15 yo I do something special. My record is waking up 22 yo seeds. And the known documented record is waking up 50 yo tomato seeds.

But for general purposes if the seeds of a particular variety don't come up within at most two weeks, and others are up, then I'd just soak the seeds in water o'n and sow again.
http://www.idigmygarden.com/forums/s...highlight=soak

Seeds from 2003 are borderline and probably shouldn't be pre-soaked according to your advice, and I was mainly concerned about seeds with the coats remaining after sprouting, but if soaking speeds up and enhances germination, that is an additional benefit.

I don't know of any Polish tomato variety called oles'kma or oleszka and a search didn't bring it up either, but Ola is common short for Aleksandra and Olga, and is also the name of a commercially available cherry tomato (yellow or golden/orange).

Next (and maybe last) time I'll check the germination of my seeds is now during the weekend 3 weeks after the sowing. Although there isn't really a sprouting issue, as every variety has produced at least one seedling, I might try any leftovers with soaking (not sure about Red Barn, but there are probably some of all the other "old" varieties).

Best
Gunnar

[clara]

Sorry, Carolyn, for being so late with my germination report, but due to 3 operations in March, I was much later than normally and only started when I was back from hospital.

Green Doctors Frosted: 3/3 = 100%
Medovaya Kaplya: 4/4 = 100%
Green Zebra Cherry: 2/3 = 66%
Big Sungold Select: 1/4 = 25%
Pozhar: 0/5

2 Pozhar seeds germinated, but didn't shed their cover. I'll give all the seeds that did not germinate yet a bit more time, maybe there will be more.

Thanks again, Carolyn, I'm looking forward to a wonderful tomato summer! And thanks to all the other tomatovillians who shared their seeds with me!

clara

[Granite26]

Originally Posted by Granite26

OK My first report:

Planted March 20
62-64 degrees at night and 70+ during the day

Green Doctors Frosted: Very excited to have 3/3 come up!!! First one at 6 days.
Bawole Cerce 5/6
Rouge d'Amago 0/6
Rose d' Eauze 0/6
Medovaya Kaplya 1/6

I will report back as I would think more would come up as we approach 14-16 days.

Thank-You Carolyn!!!

Well one more Medovaya Kaplya came up. I have had really good germination from my tom seeds this year so not sure what happened to the Rouge and Rose. I see others have had good germination with some of the ones I did not so I have no idea whats up. Figures...I was really excited for these. I am very happy to have the ones up that did germinate.
Thanks Again!

[eddie46]

Hi Carylon,

If these are available.

Aunt Gertie's Gold
Chapman
Green Doctors Frosted
Indian Stripe
Neves Azorean Red

Regards,

Ed

[GunnarSK]

I just found more of Carolyn's advice in an old thread at Idig from last summer, when I practically didn't grow any tomatoes:
http://idigmygarden.com/forums/showt...ghlight=saliva
In fact I "found" it by following a link in a recent thread on removing seed coats after germination:
http://www.idigmygarden.com/forums/s...ad.php?t=27076

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by eddie46

Hi Carylon,

If these are available.

Aunt Gertie's Gold
Chapman
Green Doctors Frosted
Indian Stripe
Neves Azorean Red

Regards,

Ed

Ed, you first postred in the NCSU thread in the seed exchange, asked if you were #8 and was the offer still open, I said yes it was and asked you to e-mail me, per the instructions on the first page of that seed offer for those 3 hybrids and tell me which varieties you wanted and your home address.

And you also sent me a PM about the same and I PMed you back.

The NCSU offer is still open, but now you went to a seed offer I did back in January and are asking for the above.

I'm sorry, but that offer was closed several months ago as it says at the top of the very first page of that offer, in red:

SEED OFFER IS CLOSED; please don't e-mail me for my address. There was an ASAP response of about 70 folks so let me deal with those requests, then let me see where I am with seeds and check back in a few weeks to see when and if I might be able to repopen this offer. Thanks

*********

And I never reopened it b'c I had about 80 recipients and far too many seed packs to fill, like close to 400.

So I'm not sure why you switched from the NCSU offer to the closed one, but I'm sorry b/c the January seed offer has been closed now for almost three months.

Maybe next year if I do another seed offer b'c I never know from year to year if I'll be able to.

[rsg2001]

Carolyn,

Here is my germination report. I planted the seeds 4/3 - just 10 days ago. ** i UPDATED since I have a little improvement today.

Green Doctors Frosted - 3/3
Burning Spear - 2/6 (one of the two met its demise with unsuccessful 'surgery' to remove a stuck seed cover on the cotyledon). NOW 3/6
RoUGE d'Amagu - 4/7
Big Sungold Select - 5/7 NOW 6/7
Green Zebra Cherry - sigh - nada so far, 0/7 ONE CAME UP WITH STUCK SEED COVER...COULDN'T SAVE IT.

I still have hope I could get a couple of more stragglers up and will update the report should more appear.

On another note, I had a few leftover Pozhar from the 2008 offer and got 3/5.

I also had saved seeds from Marovski Div last year (I may not have the spelling right), and got 3/8. UP TO 4/8

I use the APS system from Gardeners Supply Company , with its germination mix. They go under the light sight-up after the first couple of seeds come up on the tray (because if I wait longer I get scrawny tall seedlings).

[Douglas14]

I didn't count the number of seed I sowed of each variety(I likely would have, if I had read this thread first).
I received the following varieties from Carolyn:

Danko
Jean's Prize
Ludmilla's Red Plum
Green Zebra
Vodar
Moravski Div
Orange Minsk
Rouge d' Amagu

All had fair to very good germination in my estimation.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Douglas14

I didn't count the number of seed I sowed of each variety(I likely would have, if I had read this thread first).
I received the following varieties from Carolyn:

Danko
Jean's Prize
Ludmilla's Red Plum
Green Zebra
Vodar
Moravski Div
Orange Minsk
Rouge d' Amagu

All had fair to very good germination in my estimation.

Doug, you must mean Green Zebra Cherry b/c I didn't offer Green Zebra. And the spelling for you and rsg is Moravsky ( not ki) Div, before Andrey says something. I really like that Moravsky Div and Glenn Drowns noted in his description of it at Sandhill Preservation that he had ripe fruit in 40 days from 4 inch transplants. Maybe there's some kind of atomic granules mixed in with his sandy soil b'c mine didn't produce that fast, but then maybe mine would have been faster if the temps that summer stayed above freezing and the crik didn't rise.

And while I'm here I did get feedback, not from someone here, that Jean's Prize was showing some PL seedlings and they should be RL. As I said in the initial seed offer most of the seeds were from bagged blossoms and some weren't and for some I had both bagged and non-bagged derived seed and Jean's Prize was one of them and I probably used the non-bagged seeds for this seed offer at Tville.

rsg, I sure hope that you get some germination with those Green Zebra Cherry seeds b'c I just was looking back and others were getting pretty darn good germination. Fingers crossed.

And I'm still hoping for more feedback. There were about 80 participants and only a small fraction of those recipients have posted results so far. I expect to see huge variations on germination of fresh seeds, there always is, some will get 100% germination with variety X and another person will get zero with the same exact seeds and you can even see that in the results posted to date.

But I'm especially interested in the germination of the older varieties I listed b'c if germination is not good then if I decide to do another seed offer I won't list them .

[Douglas14]

Thanks for the corrections Carolyn. You are right....I meant Green Zebra Cherry. I see I mispelled Miravsky Div on the cup that I planted the seeds in....but checked on your seed packet to see you spelled it correctly there.
It's a little early to tell if all the Jean's Prize seedlings I have are RL, but I can see a couple of the more developed seedlings are RL.

[fredwes]

REVISED 4/29
Hi Carolyn,
Here's my germination report. I've been in and out of the state for more than an month but got the seeds planted 12 days ago. (now 22 days ago)
Year: all 2009, except Indian Stripe 2003. All seeds were planted.
Green Doctors Frosted: 3/3 100 %
Giannini: 4/6 66% (one seed took 20 days to germinate)
Big Sungold Select: 5/5 100 % (one helmeted)
Indian Stripe 1/9 11 % (It took this seed 20 days to germinate, it's cotyledons are a little contorted but I expect it
to be OK. I'm very happy to have at least one Indian Stripe.)
Burning Spear 2/4 50 %
I am not giving up on the Indian Stripe. I expect to get one or two more seedlings out of the nine seeds. I have not done anything special to get the seeds to germinate. I used Miracle Gro starting mix. The mix has been kept moist.

It's still early and will report back if more germinate.
Thanks again for the seeds !!
Fred

[GunnarSK]

Hi Carolyn,

I had one more Mortgage Lifter (Estler's) come up recently, so all varieties have at least 25% germination. Two Red Barns have shed their covers, but there is still a helmet on one of the Indian Stripe seedlings. All seedlings (except the recently germinated Mortgage Lifter and the covered Indian Stripe) have true leaves and would be ready for repotting if that were neessary.

Second germination report by 22 April (slightly over a month from sowing):
All tomato seeds were sown March the 20 and haven't been potted up (potting up is probably not necessary, as I have sown one seed in each cell of my tray)
Neves Azorean Red: 8 sown, 2 up 25% germination
Red Barn: 12 sown, 4 up 33% germination
Mortgage Lifter (Estler's): 8 sown, 2 up 25% germination
Indian Stripe: 8 sown , 2 up 25% germination
Green Doctors Frosted: 3 sown, 3 up 100% germination

Best
Gunnar

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by GunnarSK

Hi Carolyn,

I had one more Mortgage Lifter (Estler's) come up recently, so all varieties have at least 25% germination. Two Red Barns have shed their covers, but there is still a helmet on one of the Indian Stripe seedlings. All seedlings (except the recently germinated Mortgage Lifter and the covered Indian Stripe) have true leaves and would be ready for repotting if that were neessary.

Second germination report by 22 April (slightly over a month from sowing):
All tomato seeds were sown March the 20 and haven't been potted up (potting up is probably not necessary, as I have sown one seed in each cell of my tray)
Neves Azorean Red: 8 sown, 2 up 25% germination
Red Barn: 12 sown, 4 up 33% germination
Mortgage Lifter (Estler's): 8 sown, 2 up 25% germination
Indian Stripe: 8 sown , 2 up 25% germination
Green Doctors Frosted: 3 sown, 3 up 100% germination

Best
Gunnar

Gunnar, thanks for that report. other than the Green Doctors Frosted which were 2009 seeds, all of your other ones were from 2003 and 2004, I think, so I'm just glad you'll be getting some plants from all of those.

And once again, looking at the reports, someone will get no germination with a variety and someone else with the same seeds will get 100% germination, and that always happens and always will b'c of all the variables inherent in the several different ways that folks germinate seeds.

But it sure is frustating, not only for those who get no to poor germination for a variety, but also for me in seeing that while some get nothing others get excellent results from the same variety. And that in terms of asking myself what I might list in the future.

But this year has been a difficult one for me b'c the two folks who normally raise my plants and do most of the seed production were unable to help and while I'm deeply indebted to Craig and Lee and Melody and Shoe for taking up the slack I can't expect them to do this another year.

So maybe this season will be the last one in terms of my being able to work with the new to all or most varieties that I decided to concentrate on after I fell in Dec of 2004.

Oh I'll always have some tomatoes here at home and Freda will take care of them for me, but they'll be mostly ones I already know well and just for myself and a few others and saving seed won't be a part of the picture.

Time will tell.

[rxkeith]

here is my germination report

anna marias heart 3 for 4
bawole cerce 1 for 7, and in really rough shape. cotyledons nearly absent, tiny bit of a green growing tip
don camillo 3 for 4
ludmillas yellow giant 4 for 4
pervaya lyubov 2 for 7
green drs frosted either 0 for 2 or 1 for 3. i dropped a seed on the floor. i hope the seed i picked up is the one i dropped because that is the one that sprouted.

seed germination was erratic this year. best germination was from my own saved seeds regardless of age. 7 yr old seeds would have better germination than newer seeds from tgs, sandhill, or any where else in some cases.

thanks once again carolyn for making these available to us.
several varieties, 12 or 13 in all i am growing this year were introduced by you or craig.


keith

[Farmette]

Carolyn:
Here is my germination report. Seeds sown 3/24.

2009 Seed:
Big Sungold Select 4/5 = 80%
Rose D Eauze 4/5 = 80%
Green Doctors Frosted 3/4 = 75%
Ludmilla's Yellow Giant 4/4 = 100%

2003 Seed:
Neves Azorean Red 5/14 = 36%

Thanks again so much for the seed offer. I am REALLY looking forward to this year!
Chris