They are Goners. With good luck you might get one or two to germinate. With bad luck NONE will germinate.

Tomato seeds must be very very low moisture to survive the freezer. However, we all get a few outdoors to germinate in the spring from the tomatoes that sat on the ground over winter. I would guess the sprout percentage at less than one in a thousand.

You will put a lot of work into getting seeds from them now with little results. Best to do it correctly this coming year.

My recommendation is to use good seeds again this year and then save up the seeds at harvest time. It is easy to do.

Judging from the large number of volunteers coming up in the spring every year even after repeated (sometimes every other day) freeze/thaw, I say no big problem.

dcarch

Judging from the large number of volunteers coming up in the spring every year even after repeated (sometimes every other day) freeze/thaw, I say no big problem.
dcarch

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Fine dcarch, whom I know, wink, this summer I'll freeze some tomatoes and keep them in the fridge for a few months and then send them on to you. LOL

There's a big difference between seeds that fall to the ground in the fall and some give rise to volunteers in the Spring b'c they aren't totally encased in water as are seeds in locules inside a fruit in the freezer. ( smile)

Carolyn

I saved Rostova/Sunset Red Horizon seeds in the freezer. I saved some by simply washing and drying and some by fermenting. I recently tested 10 seeds each from the freezer. The Washed and dried seeds gave me 100% germination and the fermented gave me 70% germination.
Jim

I saved Rostova/Sunset Red Horizon seeds in the freezer. I saved some by simply washing and drying and some by fermenting. I recently tested 10 seeds each from the freezer. The Washed and dried seeds gave me 100% germination and the fermented gave me 70% germination.
Jim

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Jim, one can do that b'c you were working with dried seeds that must have had a low moisture content, but pepper is asking about the viability of seeds that are inside frozen whole fruits, and that's quite a different issue.

Carolyn

Carolyn,your right of course. I find as I get older I read over messages rather than reading them. I did not initially see that she was referring to tomatoes in the freezer. It must be my age is catching up with me and I need to be more careful. A couple of nights ago I was brushing my teeth in the Dark prior to going to bed. Problem was I got the tube of Desitin instead of tooth paste. The Mrs mistakenly left it on my side of the sink. At least she got a laugh out of it as she always tells me I need to turn the light on.

Jim

Just as a matter of interest-when talking about frozen seeds etc, I have always found that if you happen to have those fridge/freezer units, that are self-de icing where no actual ice forms on the inside of the freezer box unit and surrounding area, they are much better for the job-regarding seeds etc, as they maintain a sort of freeze dried situation, where all surplus water is evaporated away as fast as it forms-it seems to suit seeds and stuff very well, as I have kept seeds for over ten years in near perfect condition, in a large plastic snap on lid box, in paper envelopes etc, just immeadiately under the freezer box-almost touching it, and I have never found any moisture on any of the seeds or envelopes- the seeds were as dry as the day I placed them in there.

I can't see any harm in trying, even if the odds are very remote you will get anything in the effort. Sounds like a nice experiment, at the least. I imagine if it were the last specimen of a very good tomato (which it doesn't souhd like) then it would be worth it just to get one lone sprout, if that.

I'm not an expert on tomato or plant biology, but I've been surprised before by strange things that can survive freezing. For instance, mosquitos. I had an argument with a friend was a college biology teacher about that one. He didn't believe me at first. I used to grow and freeze mosquito larvae for my fish to eat. (It was supposed to be Daphnia, but it got contaminated. The fish preferred it, so...) Anyway, one of my frozen little ice cubes produced a bunch of little baby skeeters in my bedroom, much to my (and especially my wife's) dismay. The mosquitos lay their eggs in small raft-like structures, and apparently one or more of those survived freezing and made its way into the external filter where they thrived and avoided becoming lunch.

You can also freeze some fish and frogs. Goldfish and koi, for instance, although their survival rate is very low. Nature sometimes provides a very low but existant survival mechanism for these things.

If a hard, fast freeze was going to kill all plant nuclei, we would have a very limited eco-system in our temperate climate. Seeds are very miraculous things.

I've had watermelon seeds thaw for several days before planting (after being frozen for who knows how long) and I had no germination issues, granted, I only planted one (but it grew). To be cautious, you might try putting some food grade diatomaceous earth in with your seeds when you freeze them to keep them dry. I've never tried that in the freezer, but it does keep seeds dry, and it keeps insects from destroying them if you happen to get some that hatch on your seeds.

Shule, as Carolyn has already explained , saving dried seed and seeds inside the whole fruit are two different things. The frozen water molecules/ gel around the seeds is what causes the seeds not to be viable anymore NOT the temperature itself.

One way to find out is just do a little experiment:

--Freeze a whole tomato for several weeks.

-- Take it out and let it thaw.

--- fish some seeds out and do a germination test.

That is all there is to it to settle the issue. If you get some to germinate the you have beate the experts all the way to the bank. hehe

Sey

Seysonn, I already know what was said earlier in this thread. I did, indeed, read it before I posted (which is not a strict requirement, in my opinion).

I never mentioned anything about seeds inside the whole fruit. What are you talking about? I was talking about moisture (hence the diatomaceous earth to keep the seeds dry). True, the seeds I referenced did not have gel around them and hence were probably not in danger of being damaged by the gel fluid. Is that what you meant? I'm not clear on your purpose.

(Although that's a valid thought, I should note that the seeds were potentially in danger of being damaged by freezer moisture, according to some people—though not particularly me—which was also mentioned earlier in this thread, depending on the kind of freezer and the packaging in use: so, my comment is still perfectly valid there.)

Really, though, the OP didn't specify anything about gel (whether it was there or not), and I was just sharing my experience (which also made no mention of gel), whether you think good things of it or not. I'm not trying to argue with anything anyone else has already said: it's in plain view.

Anyway, I don't mean to be argumentative. Sorry about that, if it seemed that way. That might be a fun experiment, though (planting seeds from a frozen tomato). :)

Shule, we are here to express our views. That is not being argumentative to me at all.

Yeah, I might try a little experiment myself sometime.

Sey

Yes, I still get notices sent home whenever someone posts in a thread I've posted in, and this thread goes back to 2007 and I read through the whole darn thread. I'm not sure what the problem is now after I read the posts in this thread.

You put whole fruits in the freezer as many do since they want to use them for canning or whatever. Fruits freeze, ice xstals form inside the fruits, the seeds are destroyed, fractured, as in kaput.

You process seeds from unfrozen fruits, however you want to, dry those seeds down to a moisture content of from 6-8 % using the indicator strips that are available, then you place the seeds in vials, whatever, with tight fitting caps and store them in the freezer and when you take them out you let them warm up before removing seeds so there's no moisture build up. No problem.

I never stored my saved seeds in the freezer since they were perfectly fine, germination great, up to about 5 yo and after that just double sow and if maybe 10-12 plus years then there are ways one can use to wake them up. My best save was seeds of September Dawn that were 22 yo. and the record for waking up tomato seeds was 50 yo seeds when the precursor to the Ames. IA USDA station was in Cheyenne, WY where they were stored in filing cabinets at ambient temps, and the folks at Ames were able to germinate 50 yo seeds from several varieties.

I've never thrown out ONE processed seed, over 4,000 varieties grown to date ,and that goes back to the late 80's and mine are stored in scinitillation vials that I librated when Iwas working and more recently in just plain envelopes.

As I said above, I get these notices all thetime, almost never comeback here and GW was once a great place in the Tomato Forum, but most of us moved elsewhere and have no intention ofcoming back since it['s become quite contentious, again, in many threads.

And onward we go and I hope the above helps someone somewhere.

Carolyn

I don't freeze my seeds, personally (and never have). Freezing sounds risky to me (especially since freezers can thaw sometimes, if the power goes out or something, and that doesn't sound great for longevity). I got my previously frozen watermelon seeds from someone else, and decided not to refreeze them (and I harvested new seeds from this year's fruit for next year). I recently heard about viable tomato seeds that were 12 years old, but not 50. That's awesome. :)

Sey, I was on the defensive, though. Sorry about that.

Carolyn, same for your post on the tomato site. I was on the defensive there, too (partly why I was on the defense here). I was just irritated that you two both didn't seem to know what I was saying and were lecturing me on other stuff that didn't seem to me to relate to my post as I intended it. It's not your faults, I'm sure. It was just a weird coincidence. You probably weren't lecturing as much as I imagined, either.