At what stage of fruit maturity are seeds viable ?

[Wi-sunflower]

I've seen all kinds of comments about other factors of the fruit when picking for seed saving but I haven't seen anything about how mature the fruit should be before the seed will be viable.

I ask because some of my varieties this year didn't produce much if any "ripe" fruit due to our cold "summer". We are going thru the patch picking a bucket of fruit of the varieties I need seeds for. I've told my crew that I only want "ripe" tomatoes, but they have picked a lot of greenies for a few varieties since there were so few ripe ones.

Is it going to be worth my time to process those greenies for seeds ??

Last nite I did do 1 variety that was more green than ripe and I was surprised that more of the seed didn't float as immature/bad seeds usually do. I wonder if I will get decent germination on them.

Carol

[matereater]

I'm certainly no expert, but if it were me I'd just let them sit on the counter for a few days to ripen more if still a bit green.

[Marko]

Tomato seed is viable at mature green stage. Few years ago we had a very wet and cold summer and a lot of rotten green tomatoes fell to the ground. One month later there was a carpet of seedlings

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Marko

Tomato seed is viable at mature green stage. Few years ago we had a very wet and cold summer and a lot of rotten green tomatoes fell to the ground. One month later there was a carpet of seedlings

True, but for those of us growing new varieties and for those of us who have different sized fruits on the same plant that will mature to different sizes, it can be a problem telling at what point one has a mature green fruit.

For that reason I will use for seed only those fruits that have a bit of a blush at the blossom end, called breaker stage 2 in US lingo. And I let most of them ripen up a bit more before using them for seed.

When a fruit is mostly green I find it hard to process for seeds b'c it isn't juicy enough inside.

There are those who do use completely green fruits and use TSP or similar, Tom Wagner is one, but I've never been really successful in getting a mostly unripe fruit to give me many seeds and I have no idea if they were using mature greens or not.

Just my experience.

[Wi-sunflower]

Well, I'm going to try to stay away from the greenies unless there just isn't anything else available. For the most part I should be able to get a reasonably decent amount of seeds from whatever is out there and has some color.

Thanks for the info tho,
Carol

[Vince]

A good ripe fruit is the best. However, contrary to popular belief you can harvest fruit that is EXTREMELY imature and collect plenty of viable seed(I have done this several times now out of desperation). For example, I made a cross for the Dwarf project last fall with Brad's black heart. The Plant with the crossed fruit suddenly became very ill and died off. The Crossed fruit was probably only 2.5ozs(over 1 month from ripening in the cool winter weather). Brad's can easily get over 1lb. I keep the fruit on my book shelf for over a month and eventually it began to ripen. Seeds were very viable. I don't know the exact germination rate(although I think it took a little longer than normal), but it was definately above 65%. This is were all the Dwarf Porky F3 seed I have right now are derived from.

Vince

[Wi-sunflower]

I'm glad to hear that at least someof the seeds have a chance.

I know in the past I've collected seeds from mature green hot peppers and have gotten good germination rates, but tomatoes are somewhat different from hot peppers so i wasn't too sure about them.

Unfortunately this year has been quite cruddy weather wise and we've had several hard freezes already. Down to 25* and 27* the last 2 Sunday mornings with frosts most of the mornings in between. The fruit out in the field yet is mostly mush so there isn't any chance to "let it sit and ripen". But it will take me quite a while before I get to all the buckets of fruit in the barn waiting to get processed.

I do a crude paper towel germination test before I use or sell or trade any of my seeds so I will know later this winter how the greenies do work out. I don't sell anything that is less than 80% or better.

Carol