No shows- Has now risen from 4 to 12 + several 1's & 2's

[michael johnson]

Rather than go into detail again regarding problems with mailed seeds through the post,as I dont want to fuel those that dont believe it exists.

This is my results so far this season- with seeds only from the USA, as all other countries such as Europe, New Zealand, Russia, Australia , Canada ,etc- have been absolutly no problem- ( EXCEPT ) in cases where the supplier has sent me seeds that came to them via the USA connection earlier in the season and decided to share some with me- in amongst seeds of their own saving from that country- all of which germinated.But they will probably discover later when they try to sow some of the imported seeds- that there will be a high percentage of failures.

As an afterthought I have just edited this post, as I feel it is only fair to say that I have also had dozens of seeds from the USA this season that ( DID ) germinate ok, and performed 100 %, the non germinating ones were only a percentage of the total seeds I got from the USA this season. Just to clear up any missunderstandings.


So far this season I had ( 4 ) no shows , which was in march , from early april onwards from later sowings that figure has now risen sharply to ( 12 ) varieties - no show- totaly dead as a Do-Do, ( 8 ) varieties that only produced one or two seedlings after sowing the whole pkt, - but still it was enough for me to grow on and save my own saved seeds from later, but ninety eight percent of them were dead seed, which I left all of them in the pots and continued to try to germinate them to date.

And one of those would you believe was a commercial supply seed house unopened pkt.


Quite Frankly its the worst season I have had in years with non germinating seeds- its a good job I had lots of seeds from other countries to fall back on, which sprang into life within a few days.

Quite apart from this annoying feature that seems to have developed over the past two years- ( and getting worse ) I was wondering if Tomatoville members have noticed this problem with any other seeds recently apart from the very sensative tomato seeds.

For example - Pea and Bean seeds, Flower seeds, veg seeds in general, Pepper seeds, etc. or is the problem just with tomato seeds.

[Sherry_AK]

I have sweet pea seed (commercial) which germinated only 2 of 24. That's my worst failure so far.

[michael johnson]

Thanks sherry, sweet pea seeds can be notoriously hard to germinate at the best of times-owing to their hard coating, some people even go to the bother of chipping away a small portion of the shell in order to aid germination- but I personaly just soak them in lukewarm water overnight and then sow them in wet compost with a heat pad underneath and cover them in a clear polythene sheet, and up they usualy come- no probs.

[Sherry_AK]

Hi, Michael. I always soak mine overnight, but don't chip the seedcoat. In comparison, the other sweet pea seeds I planted had about an 80-85% (just guessing, without actually going downstairs to count!!!) germ rate. So it was definitely this particular pack of seeds that gave me a problem.

Sherry

[michael johnson]

Hi-sherry, whatever you do- dont try to chip the seed coatings, as more often than not it results in personal injury to your hands, I myself- and several of my friends have all stabbed ourselves in the fingers at one time or another using assorted tools for the job, but they have a habit of skidding off the seed coating and going straight into your finger

[Mischka]

An easy and effective way to dislodge some of the seed coat is to use a "Dremel" type rotary tool set to low speed with an small abrasive attachment.

http://www.dremel.com/en-us/tools/to...y.htm?H=188091

This is safer than any sharp object and the tool does all the work - you just hold the seed. Do NOT use a cutoff wheel, though - or you'll lose pieces of your finger!

With some practice, you can process a lot of seeds in short time.

That is how I do it. :wink:

[Woodenzoo]

I have received many seeds this year from the various exchange pages, purchased some locally and mail-order and really haven't had a big problem with germination. Some from the various sources have no or little germination, but for the most part, I have more sprouts than I know what to do with. As for tomato seeds, out of 27 varieties sown, only 2 have not sprouted (probably 5 to 7 seeds of both were sown, and/or the paper towel method). And of those two, the sources themself say they had the same problem with their seeds.
From the trades, some seeds looked moldy or improperly collected and germination rates were low to nil. But I'd say I had about the same germination results with commercial packs also. Most were received in bubble mailers (as were the mail-ordered seeds) and several were received in plain paper envelopes (no padding) and I really couldn't say that either way made much of a difference. That I know, all the seeds are from the US, aside from maybe a few from Canada and one from Aust.
Just my two cents.
Cathy

[Sherry_AK]

A Dremel tool. Now, I never thought of that. I'm afraid I might give myself a manicure at the same time! I actually use the Dremel tool to grind my dog's toenails.

Anyway, what I've done with rose seeds is to use an old fashioned emery board. That seems to do the trick, with little harm to myself.

[michael johnson]

The dremel tool sounds like a good idea, I shall have to remember that, because many is the time in the past when I have had to get the tin of sticking plasters out to stem the flow of blood,- my wife also says that at the time my language was rather more colourfull that she would have liked each time I stabbed my fingers.

Woodenzoo:- I think the main problem seems to be where you actualy live- in the USA , as some of the people seem to avoid it almost completly, whilst others seem to be in an area where it abounds.

If you could criss cross lines on a map of the USA you could probably get it down to about three areas- where the majority of the problems seem to occur, - parts of California being one of them, so it seems that all letters coming through certain mail depots and airport flight paths could be a contributing factor/but not yet proven.


I have just had an e-mail from someone this morning who tells me that he was importing Cactus seed from the USA, which was perfectly alright in previous years but all of a sudden bad germination problems started to occur .


It also may well be a fact- and high contributary factor that this practice of sending out old seed more than five years old that has been shared and re-shared amongst tomato enthusiasts - whatever their original scources may be, - the conditions that prevail that is causing the non germination problem- may be just enough to finish them off prematurely, whereas fresh viable seed less than two seasons old may well have enough vigor in them to escape the problem and slip through the problem conditions and arrive still viable seed, although this is not always the case, as some fresh seed has also been affected.

But I do think that old seed being sent out is making the problem artificialy high, and much higher than it would be if only fresh seed was used less than two seasons old.

I think the number of instances would be dramaticaly reduced if this was the case.

As an example of what I mean, I bought a pkt of tomato seeds from a USA commercial seed house, about six years ago, ( Sweet baby girl ) which germinated fine from first sowing, some ten seeds or so remained in the pkt, from the resulting crop I saved some seeds of my own, these were then sealed inside a plybag zip lock type and put into storage fridge conditions along with all my other seeds, after six years I decided to grow them again, so I put seeds from both pkts into suitable little pots, my own saved seeds came up almost straight away, and not a single seed from the original pkt germinated- even after two months, and yet there was only six months between them being produced originaly,it may well be that the original pkt of seeds was a bit older to start with- but even if it was three or four year more it shouldnt have made all that much difference.