One of the Joys of Maturity |
Custom Search
|
Saving Tomato Seed Lots of folks wonder whether they can save viable seed from their tomato plants. The answer to such questions is a qualified "Yes." I have to add here at the beginning of this feature that you only want to save tomato seed from open pollinated varieties of tomatoes.
If you're unsure whether the tomato variety you wish to save seed from is open pollinated or a hybrid, try Googling its name with the word "tomato" (i.e., moira tomato). In your search results, you may find your answer. If you see hybrid or F1, it's a hybrid. You can also go to one of the many garden sites that carry lists and evaluations of various tomato varieties. I currently use Dave's Garden for such things. And you may already have the information at your fingertips in an old garden catalog. In selecting tomatoes for saving seed, you want to choose your very best fruit from your very best plants. The tomatoes need to be ripe and disease free from a plant with a good growth habit. Here at the Senior Garden, that presents a bit of a challenge, as we've picked up a few tomato diseases over the years. Our tomatoes for seed saving this year were planted in an area where we haven't previously grown tomatoes to avoid carrying over any soil borne tomato diseases. The area was also about a hundred yards away from our other tomato varieties, which should prevent any chance of cross-pollination with our other tomato varieties. If you're just saving seed for yourself, such isolation really isn't necessary. And of course, work with saving just one variety of tomato at a time. How you get your seed out of your tomatoes is a matter of personal preference. Since I only do a few tomatoes at a time, I first wash and core the tomatoes. I expose the tomato's seed cavities by slicing off the top and bottom of the tomato. Then I slice out the outer side from each seed cavity of the tomato and scrape the seeds and the surrounding gel into a plastic container. Plastic or glass is preferred for processing the tomato seed, as tomatoes are an acid fruit and may react with a metal container. Also note that you want to keep your slurry of tomato seed in a container with a tightly fitting lid.
You could actually just collect the solid material coming out of the waste end of a Squeezo Strainer if you wanted to save thousands of tomato seeds! Just remember to get the seed and the surrounding gel.
Stir your fermenting tomato seed mixture daily, if not several times a day. Since I keep our fermenting seed in a covered plastic container, I just shake the container sideways several times a day over the fermentation period.
After three or four days of fermentation, you should have a really nasty smelling solution such as the one pictured above. At this point I add water to the seed and float off light seeds (which usually aren't viable) and plant material. I do this rinse four or five times, sometimes letting the seed sit for a few hours in between rinses. The fermentation step should separate all the plant material from the seeds. If it hasn't, gently use your fingers to tease off the plant material from the seed before washing it off. Hot Water Treatment (optional) Since I offer our Moira tomato seed to other gardeners via the Seed Savers Exchange annual yearbook, I chose in 2010 to begin using a hot water treatment for all our tomato seed. Our seed tomatoes were all picked from uninfected plants, but we also had some diseased plants on our property. So just to be sure, I added this step.
I then add water from a teapot on the stove until I get the water temperature to 122o F. Holding the seed at that temperature for the recommended 25 minutes isn't too hard, as I just keep adding a bit of hot water to the cup whenever the temperature begins to dip. Note that the type thermometer I use is most accurate between 68-80o F, but I've tested this one with a mercury thermometer and found it pretty close at higher temperatures. Also note that we use hot water from a teapot, as our hot water tap is soft water that contains salt residue. Our cold water at the kitchen sink, which I fill the teapot with, bypasses our water softener. After the 25 minute treatment period, I begin adding cooler water to the cup, draining it down, and adding more cool water until I get it down to room temperature. I'm not sure if one can thermal shock tomato seed, but I've sure cracked a lot of warm, grape tomatoes from the garden with a cold water rinse! If you think you need to hot water treat your tomato or other garden seed, I've added a couple of excellent sources of information on the subject in the links section at the end of this feature. Drying
At this point, your seed is probably ready to store. I've added one more step to my process, as I tend to store seed in the freezer for long periods of time. Commercial seed houses dry their seed far below normal household humidity to improve seed vitality in storage. While most of us don't have the equipment for such drying, one can further dry their seed by just putting the "dried" seed in a jar with some powdered milk for a day or two! The powdered milk should absorb a bit more moisture from the seed. I goofed and didn't get a shot of tomato seed in the jar with powdered milk held in the top with a scrap of an old t-shirt. But I did have a shot of some pepper seed getting the drying treatment. Storing Your Seed I've used a variety of packages for saving tomato and other seeds over the years. I think the key to preserving viable seed is to get the seed really dry, get the air out of your package, and to freeze it.
I used homemade aluminum foil packets for our saved tomato seed this year. I made a new, separate packet for each batch of seed I saved and then placed them in a small freezer bag with the air squeezed out. That freezer bag went into a larger freezer bag that holds all of my tomato seed. And it all will eventually go out to our chest type, non-self-defrosting freezer in our garage for the winter. Foil packets, small brown envelopes, and glassine envelopes all work well for storing saved seed. I used foil, as I had plenty of it on hand. The Stokes seed packet shown above carries a date of January, 1987 and still has a few seeds in it. I'm not really sure if my tomato plants for seed saving this year came from it or one of my past batches of saved seed from 1984 or 1992. The point here is that freezing tomato seed retains its viability for a long, long time. But also note that I put around a hundred seeds from the various packets into a six inch pot and only got about fourteen tomato seedlings from the planting. I almost lost my start of Moira tomatoes because I didn't grow them out and save seed from them for over 20 years. Duh!
That's about all there is to it. Saving tomato seed is an easy process.
The Seed Savers Exchange I became a member of the Seed Savers Exchange (SSE) in the late '70's. I first saved and offered several varieties of tomato seed. I later worked to help preserve the old, open pollinated Reid's Yellow Dent field corn when we had a farm. I let my membership in the excellent organization lapse after giving up farming in 1989, but rejoined last year. We'll be offering the Moira tomato seed shown in this feature and my favorite pickling cucumber, Japanese Long Pickling, through the Seed Savers annual yearbook next year. Access to the yearbook is restricted to SSE members, although non-members may order from the SSE site offerings (which do not include member offerings). Membership runs $40 per year. (Reduced income memberships are also available.) Below are some links I found interesting about saving tomato seed and tomato plant diseases.
Hot Water Treatment of Tomato (and other) Seed
From the at Senior Gardening Ads shown on this site do not represent an endorsement or warranty of any kind of products or companies shown. |
, the process "requires about 4 days at around 60o F, about 2 days at 80o F." He recommends cooler temperatures (60-70o F) "to prolong fermentation for over 3 days so that the bacteria which could cause canker disease in the following crop are destroyed." 
with my trusty, 30+ year-old 
to hot water treat our tomato seed. I begin with some warm water in the measuring cup and add the rinsed tomato seed right from the plastic fermentation tub. 
updated 8/31/2010
©2009 Senior-Gardening.com