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Post by richardw on Jan 31, 2013 14:59:46 GMT -5
Does any one know a lot about freezing seed for long term storage ,like- does some seed freeze better than others , how long can they remain frozen , is there a certain temp they need to be stored at?? etc etc.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 31, 2013 15:32:47 GMT -5
From a purely chemical viewpoint... As a general rule in biological systems lowering the temperature by 10 C cuts the rate of reaction (decomposition) in half. So seeds that could be expected to last a year at 20 C would last 4 years at 0 C and 16 years at -20 C. I chose those temperatures because they approximate room temperature, refrigerator temperatures, and home freezer temperatures.
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Post by richardw on Feb 1, 2013 3:55:27 GMT -5
Ok ,so with most freezers set at about -18C that would mean a seed that lasts 5 years at 20C may last about 70 years+ at -18Cdeg??,would that be about right ??
The reason i'm asking this is Koanga who ive grown for for many years have been ripping me and a number other growers off,we get payed 20 cents per packet of seed sold,they sell each packet for $3.80,all the seed we grow is sent to them and if after a few years if they don't sell all the seed and gets thrown out,its the seed grower who takes the lose,a stink system hey. So us growers are getting together and setting up a seed growers cooperative with a central administrator who runs the website takes the orders and payments,the order then goes out to the grower who grew and stores that given line of seed,its then that the grower sends out that seed to the customer in cooperatives pre-printed packets,once a month the grower invoices the administrator for all the seed sent out that month. So where freezing comes in is that its in the best interest to the grower to produce as much seed of a given variety as he/she can while still maintaining a good germination rate and maintaining good genetic diversity,freezing would also allow extra varieties to be growing in the years in between.
Note- my signature has now been removed,i as of today i am no longer a Koanga grower.
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Post by oxbowfarm on Feb 1, 2013 4:20:38 GMT -5
Hey Richard, that's a drag that you guys couldn't make it work with Koanga. I don't know what kind of seed storage repository NZ has, but if you can't get some tips from them you might consider contacting the US National Seed Storage Laboratory, just looking at that page, they are saying that a lot of seed kept in their conventional vault at -18C is expected to last 20-50 years. I've been in there personally on a tour (the NSSL is on the CSU campus where I went to college) its basically just a GIANT walk-in freezer filled with rolling rack library shelves with bags and bags of seed. They also have a bunch of liquid nitrogen cryo units where seed is supposed to last indefinitely but those are relatively tiny samples so they can get as much as possible into those tanks.
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Post by MikeH on Feb 1, 2013 5:01:44 GMT -5
The reason i'm asking this is Koanga who ive grown for for many years have been ripping me and a number other growers off,we get payed 20 cents per packet of seed sold,they sell each packet for $3.80,all the seed we grow is sent to them and if after a few years if they don't sell all the seed and gets thrown out,its the seed grower who takes the lose,a stink system hey. Wow, And Kay Baxter is a party to this? Wow again. Maybe this will help - docs.google.com/folder/d/0B4z8GE1bbsDjaHhyaDN6TXhoNm8/edit?usp=sharing
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Post by steev on Feb 1, 2013 11:55:19 GMT -5
That's sad, Richard; sounds like basic corporate strategy: profits to the corporation; losses to the people. Very encouraging that you're banding together to take control.
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Post by richardw on Feb 1, 2013 12:00:07 GMT -5
Thanks guys,some very useful information there,i've bookmark them and read them later along with needing to do an email to Kay Baxter,got the second to last round of the New Zealand blade sheep shearing champs today,so gota go....
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Post by richardw on Feb 1, 2013 12:02:24 GMT -5
That's sad, Richard; sounds like basic corporate strategy: profits to the corporation; losses to the people. Very encouraging that you're banding together to take control. yes the fact that i had had no control over my seed
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