I have had eight year old tomato seeds sprout, and I just stored them at room temperature in their original paper envelopes. Old seeds do usually take longer to germinate, and usually have a lower germination rate.
Nowadays I soak all seeds in a potassium nitrate solution for a few minutes before I plant them, and have been getting a lot of 100% germination rates on seed just a year or two old.

I've had some 10+ year old seeds germinate without any problem. I store my seeds in the refrigerator (mostly in paper envelopes in plastic containers). I think the most important things are to make sure your seeds are completely dry before you put them into any container, store them in a cool, dry place and to never allow them to get damp or leave them in direct sun light. I take out only the seeds that I can plant in 30-40 minutes at a time. I think sometimes it helps if you put your seeds in the refrigerator (to chill) for a week or so before planting them. (If you don't store them there.)

Good gardening, Mary

Hi Gary,

The container type we use to store seed is important. But even more so, as it relates to germinating seed, is the method for germinating seed. You should check out Craig's method for germinating seed as he has been quite successful at bringing very old seed back to life. If I find the link to it I'll post it later.

Jay

When I first read the title to this thread, I thought it was questioning the method used to prepare the seed for saving, i.e. fermentation or baggie method, etc., but I see it is more about storage methods.

Gary, do you live where the humidity is high? It is important that the humidity for storing seeds is low, 8% or less is ideal, especially if you plan to freeze them to extend their life. (If the moisture content is over 8% and a seed is frozen, ice crystals form in it and damage the endosperm so that it is unlikely to sprout.)

I store all of my small seeds in airtight 1/2 ounce bottles and the bottles are stored in boxes so they are protected from light. I have some seeds that are 7 to 10 years old and I am still getting 80% germination (better on most varieties) from the oldest seeds. I have germinated seeds as old as 12 years successfully. If I get seeds that I am not sure of, I include a little dessicant gel in the bottle to prevent them from moulding.

{{gwi:1308315}}

I have some seeds that were sent to me that had been saved in 1994, that I am going to try this year. If seed are really old, or have been stored under less than ideal conditions, it sometimes helps to soak them overnight in a weak solution of a high nitrogen fertilizer ("blue stuff") for an extra boost. It's also very important that the temperatures are between 75 and 80 degrees to germinate older seeds. Then one has to be patient since they may take a very long time to germinate.

Betsy

Gary, I also thought that you were referring to the method used to save seed rather than the way seeds are stored.

Craig called me this AM as he often does, he's now retired as you know and is having a heck of a good time doing all those germinations on older seeds and we talked about it at length b'c he's also raising my plants for me to ship up here and a few of the seeds I sent him that were sent to me are older seeds.

As to processing seed, we both will only use fermentation.

As for storing seed most of mine are are plastic screw cap vials in 100 place boxes b'c they are actually scintillation vials that I "liberated" from the place where I last worked b'c they moved to a different system.

When I ran out of vials I started storing my saved seed just in regular business envelopes stored at ambient room temp. Craig does use mostly glass vials, just different stroke for different folks.

I think how one stores seeds depends on how many they need or want to store and where they live as to humidity, temps, etc.

Craig was relating this AM how he woke up seeds of Cherokee Purple from 1992 which was the first year he listed it in the SSE Yearbook, OK that's 19 years and I countered that I was still ahead of him in that I woke up 22 yo seeds of Septmeber Dawn. LOL

The documented record is waking up seeds 50 yo that were stored at the Cheyenne Station, a precursor of the USDA stations and those seeds were just stored in a file cabinet in envelopes and germinated tested after they were moved to the new USDA station at Ames, IA.

There are quite a few of us who have also found that seeds of heart varieties lose viability quicker than others.

We also talked this AM about how each of us try to encourage increased viability of older seeds, or try to wake up seeds that have shown no viability, at first, when tried.

Back in the mid-90's we got a lot of seeds out of the USDA when it was still possible to do that and the germination on most of them was weak to nil so we had a lot of seeds to work with and tried many methods we knew about to wake them up.

I won't go into that here, but suffice it to say that when Craig is trying to wake up old seeds , and he does it in those cells as you've read elsewhere, he puts saran wrap over the cells with recalcitrant seeds.

I do something a little different and that's to soak those seeds in water for about 24 hours with a pinch or two of blue stuff, MG or Peters or whatever, or a few drops of liquid fish or seaweed prep. The reason for that is to up the nitrate concentration whch has been shown to participate in seed germnination. Befoe that I was using 0.2% K nitrate, but really, the problem with older seeds is one of dehydration.

So, whether you meant to ask about seed storage, which I've spoken to or the method used to save seeds, I've spoken to that as well, and actually for both Craig and myself and yes, we've been the best of friends now for over 20 years.

Carolyn, who notes that she recently sent a rare rin/nor mutant variety ( means they never get ripe) to a hybridizer, those seeds were from 1993 and he got them up quite easily. I really don't think it makes a huge difference whether seeds are stored in glass, plastic, paper envelopes or whatever, when it comes to seed viability, as I hoped to illustrate above.

Thanks, everyone, for your helpful responses here. Yes, of course I meant "store" rather than "save" seeds. What I got from your replies is that my current failure to germinate older seeds probably has to do with how I've been storing them: in relatively porous envelopes, in a basement that is very dry in winter and gets very humid in summer. The key, for these circumstances, would seem to be this: store reasonably dry seeds in sealed glass vials (like Bets and Craig do) and keep them in the relatively cool basement Then add a dose of patience. Sound right?

Carolyn wrote: "The documented record is waking up seeds 50 yo that were stored at the Cheyenne Station, a precursor of the USDA stations..."

I was myself accepted into the USDA system a long time ago and have made small requests over the years. Back in 2000 or so, I requested Johnny Jumpup, which was another Cheyenne Wyoming Field Station contribution from 1963.

I tried various methods each year, and it took seven consecutive seasons of trying, but I finally got some to sprout and actually make it to mature fruit a few years back and now grow it every year. I roughly guessed the seed's age at 47 years old.

I had also read of Cheyenne's method of letter envelopes stored in metal file cabinets for storing their seed. It's pretty dry up in these parts, which must be why that worked as well as it did.

I noted that the USDA website removed Johnny Jumpup from distribution after I received my sample, so I presume I have the last available batch. I have some saved seed I planted for this season, and hope to donate it back to USDA if I get enough of a crop that seems true. I've written them about it in the past, but never got a reply.

For my own storage "plan," following Cheyenne's logic, I keep my own seed in small ziplocks (of the cheap variety, that always leak a little air), and/or in small manilla envelopes as USDA provides or the original store-bought packet. The ziplock is more to keep seeds from leaking out and mixing than for an air-tight seal.

I'm still active in the USDA system, generally submitting one small order per year, but I'm branching out into other varieties of late. Grapes are the latest experiment.

-Ed

After my Dad died last summer, I was cleaning out his freezer and found a Ziploc bag labeled Rutgers tomato seed. I recognized the writing on the label, it was Mom's! She died in 1998.

It had a neatly folded paper towel inside with tomato seed and dried up pulp, it seems pretty obvious that she just put the seed on the towel along with the pulp and dried them. I put them in my freezer until about 6 weeks ago. I soaked the paper towel overnight and put the seed in pots. I had almost 100% germination only 3 didn't come up!