Cindy I'm not sure if you're asking do tomato fruits exposed to heat have poorer seeds due to the heat or how you processed the seeds, such as fermentation, make a difference and does heat play a factor.

No, fruits exposed to high heat do not have less viable seeds, but seeds processed by fermentation certainly can give seeds that are of low to no viability and that's b'c the seeds were cooked, as in destroyed.

I know three folks to whom this has happened when processing seeds via fermentation.

Other than above, that is if you didn't process your seeds by fermentation, then it's something that happened as to how you sowed the seeds, what you sowed them in for germination, etc.

HOw did you process the seeds after removing them from the fruits?

Carolyn

Carolyn-

I did ferment the seeds which I did outside on a screened porch and so they were exposed to the excessive heat of the summer for that also.

All of my seeds were started in ProMix BX and the problem only occurred with seeds that were fermented last summer. Other older seeds did fine with no germination problems at all.

Cindy

Any harvested seeds exposed to any excessive heat over a period of time will have much lower germination factor.

If the freshly harvested seeds are also exposed to bright hot sunshine during drying it also ruins the batch too.

There was a big issues over here in the UK a couple of years ago where all seeds sold in a garden centre that were placed on seed racks displays and left for a month or two also had very low germination rates-in fact some of them had zero germination, because most of them were on the display racks under the greenhouse type roofing of the garden centres.

Seeds are always kept at their best if kept in a airtight plastic salad box in the fridge- where they will keep viable for up to ten years or more- lots of people also keep them at normal room temp in a cool part of the house for quite some time in dry packets. so it's your choice ?

The seeds were actually dried indoors in air conditioning and remained indoors until planting time.

I have never had this happen before with any saved seeds. The problem must have been the hot fermentation that was done outside. (in the heat)

Cindy