Saving Vegetable seeds

[sandbar]

tomc said:

I am also fussy when it come to the blossom scar of the tomatoes I save seed from.

It is my beleif that the larger compound blossom scars make for easy entry by polinators. I eat or sell those. I only save seed from fruit with tiny (or) single blossom scars.

I am not sure I understand the correlation between blossom scars and "easy entry by pollinators."

Are you saying that the seed contained within a fruit with a large blossom scar tends to produce plants with blossoms that are more susceptible to cross-pollination?

As usual, I am very confused.

[tomc]

Single blooms don't provide easy entry (in tomatoes anyway) for pollinators. Compound blooms do. Can. Have. An' probably will ever. Eat those tomatoes and save seed from the tight single blossoms.

[sandbar]

Ok, gotcha ... I understand compound blossoms ... was wondering how a blossom scar affected pollination.

Thanks for the clarification.

[bunkie]

Feb 24, 2007 18:23:59 GMT -5 Alan said:

www.victoryseeds.com/information/save_seeds.html

Check out this link with great info on saving all sorts of vegetable seed.

great link alan. i was reading about bean and pea seed and how one can freeze it for 72 hours and it will kill any bugs in the seed. does that also mean for bugs like pea weevils? in 20 years we've never had a problem with these bugs till 3 years ago. i bought some new seeds and planted them and dried seed from them for the next year. as i was shelling the seed, these bugs started emerging from the seed and there were tiny holes in the seed. never had any experience ever with these bugs. would freezing have killed these bugs? and, would this seed be edible after being frozen (with the dead bugs in it...ewww)?

since then i got pea seed from a different source and plant in another of ur gardens and haven't had any problems. i figure the bugs must have come in the seeds.

[grunt]

Bunkie: What I do, if there is a question of bugs or eggs in any of the seeds, is to give them about 3 weeks conditioning in the refrigerator then cycle through the freeze thaw routine two or three times = Put the properly dried and conditioned seeds in the freezer for a couple of days, bring them out and let them get to room temperature for a couple of days, then back in the freezer again, and maybe repeat a couple of times. This stimulates the eggs or larva to try and start to do what they were designed to do. What you don't catch on the first freeze thaw cycle, you get in one or other of the next ones. The other alternative is to just leave them in the freezer after you have conditioned them. The conditioning cycle is to slow down the respiration in the seed, and to get the moisture level down a little farther, so there is no possibility of cell damage when frozen. If the seeds are thoroughly dried, there's probably no need to do the conditioning, but it's nice to make sure.
The seeds would have been edible after freezing. In nature, almost every seed that is grown for food in North America goes through several freeze thaw cycles, and suffers no harm from it.

Cheers
Dan

[Rebsie]

Dan, the fridge conditioning idea is very useful, I hadn't thought of that.

I find the presence of pea moth grubs varies from year to year, and that some varieties are more susceptible than others. They usually hatch out while the peas are still fresh so I generally find them while I'm shelling out. Maggoty pods, bleurgh! On the whole though I find the damage they do is quite minor so I don't worry about them too much. Bean weevils are much more of a pest because they hatch out of dried seeds while in storage and do a lot of damage. I've used the 3-days-in-the-freezer method and it seems to take care of them. But I do check my stored beans regularly just in case!

As for the dead bugs/eggs inside the seeds ... *ahem* ... probably best not to think about it.

[ottawagardener]

Extra protein Rebsie...

As for the freezer method. That's interesting. I haven't used it but I haven't yet had a probelm with weavils or storage. It's good to keep in mind though cause every year I'm introduced to another member of the insect world.

[Rebsie]

Dec 3, 2008 8:48:15 GMT -5 ottawagardener said:

Extra protein Rebsie...

Yeah, but I'm vegetarian.

[bunkie]

thanks dan, rebsie! great info.

[sphinxeyes]

I'm a little confused on the cross pollination thing. I have several varieties of tomato plants, all currently growing in the same small space. From what I understand this means that the fruit they produce will be true to type, but I can't save seed from them because the seed won't be true to type for the next generation of plants. If I bag the blossoms (I think I have some that are compound and some that are single...some have buds, but no blossoms yet), what do I do then to pollinate them?

Does the same apply to peppers?

I also planted three different kinds of beans in the same area, all bush varieties. Will I be able to save seed from these? If not, is there anyway to bag their flowers like I would the tomato flowers? Generally speaking what kind of isolation distance is necessary for beans?

I planted two green beans and a greasy bean. Does this mean I could get beans that would lead to a plant that has some fuzzy beans and some greasy ones? Also, I grew Sultan's Golden Crescent beans last year. If I planted them this year and they cross pollinated with the green beans, could I get greasy beans that are crescent shaped, or golden beans that are greasy? I've never entered into the world of veggie breeding before, so I'm a newbie at this, but the prospects are intriguing.

[mnjrutherford]

Good questions Sphinx. I've been wondering the same things about tomatoes, peppers, and now corn as well.

You might get the tomato and pepper answers on the "Selfing with Glue" thread. But that wouldn't quite work with corn, would it?

[PatrickW]

If you're going to start saving seeds, it's not a bad idea to get a book like Seed to Seed by Suzanne Ashworth, or Carol Deppe's fantastic book on the subject. It's not that you can't find much of the same information on the Internet, but having a reference book that really explains it in depth is useful too. There are both simple and complex issues to deal with when saving seeds.

To give you a quick answer to the questions here, it goes something like this. Peppers grown close to one another will probably cross. You need to provide isolation to prevent this, which I'm not going to go into, but maybe someone else will.

Normal tomatoes (not potato leaved or wild) will usually have about a 2% rate of crossing even when grown fairly close to one another. Potato leaved varieties have a slightly higher crossing rate. I've heard conflicting reports about wild or current tomatoes crossing, but my understanding is these are best kept away from other tomatoes you want to save seeds from. In my experience about half of all gardeners accept 2% as a low enough rate of crossing, and don't provide additional isolation. Keep this in mind when you get self saved tomato seeds from someone else, it is possible to find the occasional cross!

Most 'normal' bush and pole beans are the same species and will not cross, but gardeners in Europe report higher rates of crossing than the US, probably because of different insect populations. I have grown these all side by side for a number of years and never encountered a cross. Again, crossing here is possible. Favas, lima, runner and some other beans will cross, but not between species. Look up the Latin name to find out the species. Many books I've read call for a 1/4 or 1/2 mile isolation distance to be sure, it just all depends on what your standards are.

As a very rough guide, if you aren't sure if two plants will cross, look up the Latin name. USUALLY, if the Latin names are different, they won't cross, but there are many exceptions.

Corn will cross pollinate for sure! To isolate corn varieties, you need to use a technique called bagging. Corn pollen travels very long distances in the wind, and it's hard to isolate by distance. If you live next to a field of transgenic corn, you are kind of screwed.

Different people have different experiences with cross pollination, and it's worth hearing from a few people to compare and contrast their ideas. There are frequently disagreements between even experienced gardeners. It also just really depends on what your standards are and how important it is to you to keep your varieties pure.

If anyone thinks I'm wrong with anything here, I'd like to hear it (as long as you're nice about it!).

[mnjrutherford]

REally... So bagging will allow me to save corn seed? hmm... well, we have a lot of corn planted but 3 varieties side by side. I was hoping that bagging would allow me to save at least one ear of each variety for next year. That's good news. The farmer hasn't planted his field yet so we might not have to worry about crossing with him. Half our corn is about a foot up at the moment and tomorrow we are filling in the gaps where there was no germination. May 15th is the drop dead corn planting date so we may not have to worry about it? That may be over optimistic.

[PatrickW]

With corn you have another issue, and that is with gene pool size. Again, some people may disagree with me on this, and it depends on your expectations of quality, but you generally need about 200 plants of each variety you save seeds from in order to maintain the gene pool.

You and I were talking about this before, and that you got small packets of seeds from Baker Creek that are not sufficient for properly saving seeds.

If you are just saving seeds for yourself, not to share with others, and just for one or two years of replanting, the gene pool size is less important.

With plants that don't cross pollinate, you have less of a problem with gene pool size. For plants that require isolation, you need to also worry about the gene pool size. Real seeds of the UK puts this a nice way, they ask the question "Do your plants breed in groups?", then go on to explain that you then need to isolate groups and make sure groups are large enough.

[mostlypurple]

Pollinating corn is a somewhat involved process, more than just simple bagging, and timing apparently is everything. I found a book online which explains the process. I intend to use this method myself as I am growing small amounts several varieties in my backyard garden and want to save pure seed this fall.

www.chaseiowa.com/webfiles/Instructions.pdf