Worth a try with a germination test of them. Sometimes it works, sometimes it kills them. Just depends on how deep the heat penetrated.

Dave

"anyone successfully saved seed from a tomato after it had been blanched"

I haven't but I do routinely heat treat my seeds. The important step I think is the same. Plunge them into cold water instantly so they don't end up parboiled ... as soon as they are removed from the boil, as that is where you'd most likely lose them.

Cheers

PC

just sacrifice a tomato and don't blanch it? one tomato has hundreds of seeds, doubt you'll need more than one tomato to have enough seeds.

I have not done it but as Dave mentioned, you can do a test germination. I bet it will be fine.

On the blanching to remove skin, all It takes about 15 seconds in boiling water , then immediately immerse in ice water, or just running tp water. The core should be still unaffected.I do that this sometime for tomatoes the go into salad or fresh salsa.

I will do a test and report back.. here.

Sey

I did go ahead and saved seed from Brandy Boy F11, Brandywine Sudduth, Brandywine OTV and Rebel Yell. I blanched just a short time. The centers did not heat up much. I'll do the germination test as soon as the seeds are ready. I'll keep my fingers crossed for the results.

John A

I did the germination test. 2 seeds from each of the tomatoes mentioned above. The result: 100% germination.

John A

... I normally blanch them for just 1 minute...

IMO, it is rather better simply to dedicate one or two ripes to the tom seed-saving gods and be done with it, as opposed to messing with saving seed from a "processed" tom fruit or two. For one Townie Gardener, 2 full-sized tom berries should yield ample seed for the next season, with a decent amount to share/trade/give away. The notion of test-germinating tom seeds from heat treated toms strikes me as largely a waste of time and is not at all necessary if the seeds are saved from a non-processed ripe tom.