Don't count on there being any seedlings from those frozen pepper seeds!
Tom

Like the dehydrated peppers, I also tried frozen peppers. In that case I got zero germination.

John

I have stored pepper seeds in a freezer for 6 years and still had >80% germination.
I store all my seeds this way.
So I think it is worth trying.
However, Tom and John have apparently done some actual tests suggesting freezing pepper seeds can dramatically lower viability, so I guess it may be specific to what variety you're dealing with.

-CC

CC,

I think John is referring to trying to germinate seeds from a cut open pepper in the freezer as opposed to saving seed when fresh, drying properly, and then storing in the freezer. Quite a different scenario.

Chris

Sorry, I didn't catch that part.
My bad.

-CC

Right--my zero germination came from seeds of frozen peppers- not dried seeds stored in the freezer.

John

Dohhhhh thats what i thought. I thought id at least as the question just in case. John im suprised you have zero germination from dried pepper seeds though. Isn't that one of the way people keep their pepper seeds...dry the peppers first and then remove the seeds.

ncage

In order to freeze seeds, the moisture content of the seed must be less than 8%, otherwise the frozen moisture causes the seed to crack.

Dried seeds, Iff you try to use seeds from a smoked chile or from a drying operation over 125F odds are the heat will kill the seeds.

Byron

ncage

The zero germination of some of the dried pepper seeds was probably due to too high a temperature in the drying process-- as I said I didn't pay attention to temps because I wasn't going to save the seeds-others germinated at 100%.

I have gone out of my way to have my seed orders delivered to my PO Box rather than my roural route mail box to try and minimize the chance that they would get frozen. Any bets on whether exposure to single digit temps in my mail box would have decreased viability from my seed orders and trades?

-J

Ayuh

Unclejohn, I had that happen last year with a thousand dollar seed order. I was upset with UPS to just drop the box off in front of my garage with nobody around in 10F temperatures. Now the seed Co at my request makes me sign off on the delivery. But I couldn't see any affect on germination. I would be more concerned with repeated frezing, thawing cycles.

I would have thought that crushed pepper seeds would not germinate because all spices are usually irradiated. However many spices will germinate. I found out the hard way trying to use food grade mustard seed as a "Diluter" for direst seeding broccoli, cabbage and other cole crops. I had mustard growing everywhere.You never know until you try them.

bmoser- Have you tried cornmeal to dilute your seeds? I have used it with good results in very fine seeds.

Thanks for the tip, Nefer. I tend to think that cornmeal would lodge behind the planter plate on my Planet Jr. planter. I use heat-treated poppyseed as a diluter for basil and every once in a while it gets behind the plate. I should mention that I haven't given up on the mustard seed either, I just bake it now to prevent germination.

This thread is drifting off the subject but I find that one can save lots on certain seeds by buying them in the bulk food sections of grocery stores. I was more pleased with soybean crop from the bulk food grade beans than expensive mail order seeds. There are a few other seeds that I prefer to not spill out of the bag here.