New to growing your own tomatoes? This is the forum to learn the successful techniques used by seasoned tomato growers. Questions are welcome, too.
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
October 18, 2006 | #1 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Northern Minnesota - zone 3
Posts: 3,225
|
Ever wondered about those dark seeds?
It seems like they turn up occasionally in all tomatoes, but more so toward the end of the growing season when temps are cooler. I had not seen any discussion about their viability. I have wondered if they were duds or had some kind of infection, although the tomatoes they were in were perfectly clean and healthy. I posted a question about them on the GW board last year, but did not get a response, maybe because it was buried in another thread.
Anyway, I was doing a last late mass seed drying a few weeks ago and decided to remove all the dark and partially colored "pinto' seeds from the paper plates and fold them all into a wet paper towel and plastic bag to see if any would germinate. It wasn't very scientific, since I didn't keep track of the varieties, or how many all dark vs pinto seeds I had. I then promptly forgot where I had the plastic bag stashed, and only found it by accident yesterday. Don't know how many weeks they were in the bag. Here are the results: I'm guessing that I had between 70-100 fresh seeds, and I counted about 20 sprouts. So I suppose that means you have only a 20-30% chance of sprouting the dark seeds. If anyone else wants to do this again, I suggest separating the parti-colored pintos from the all dark seeds into two different groups. |
|
|