Ever wondered about those dark seeds?

[ddsack]

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.

[Tomstrees]

Hey ~

Great question as I had a number of tomatoes
this year with black seeds on the inside ...
I was so grossed out by them I didn't even eat them let alone save them ... In trade ... I have gotten "dark" seed - but I alawys select the lighter ones to plant ...

So they are viable ~
Like you said, maybe just try an experiment with only black seeds ...

Good post ~

Whta I've been wondering lately is if a fruit is just a week or so away from being fully mature - will it produce viable seed ?

~ Tom

[carolyn137]

Me confused, which happens.

Dark seeds inside the fruits and dark seeds as a result of overly long fermentation are two different things.

I honestly don't think I've ever seen dark colored seeds inside fruits except when there's a touch of internal BER and if that were the case I wouldn't expect those seeds to be all that viable b'c of local tissue destruction and liberation of enzymes, etc.

Too dark seeds from fermentation I don't have a problem with b'c I've checked germination on them from time to time and so far, since starting to ferment tomato seeds in the late 80's, all has been fine.

Ja, I do prefer the lighter colored seeds, but, I've found nothing wrong with the discolored ones from letting the fermentation go too long.

Your milage may vary, as "they" say.

[montanamato]

I have been noticing lots of discolored seeds inside fruit also...They did not show BER, but were about 95% of the time from fruit picked green and had taken a few weeks to color.
I haven't fermented any, but used many for cooking. I noticed this in several varieties, and usually just about 1/4 to 1/3 of the seeds were dark...

Jeanne

[ddsack]

Carolyn, these were dark before fermentation. Usually I've tried to pick them out before pouring the mass into a cup. I tend to slice my tomatoes on a cutting board and flick out the seeds with a knife so I can re-use most of the flesh, adding some juice to the fermentation cup. I often see just a couple of dark seeds among the good ones in healthy tomatoes with no visible signs of BER. There are certain varieties that are more prone to having more of these dark seeds, but since I did not make a point of keeping track, I don't want to name any in case I guess wrong.

That is one of the things that puzzles me, why how these seeds could have gone "bad" when the flesh does not appear diseased in any way. Unless the blossom or some pollen was infected, and the infection contained itself in the seed as it developed.

Dee

[Tomstrees]

I'm gonna have to agree with the above statements that BEFORE the seeds were extracted, the fruit wasn't "over-ripe" , and there was no BER , the seeds were black ...
I wouldn't eat them ! lol ~
Let alone germinate or send them to someone ~

Tom

[travis]

I think we touched on this in another thread somewhere ...

Anyway, yes I've seen dark or discolored seeds in fresh tomatoes with no apparent exterior blemishes or interior rot. I've seen sprouted seeds inside fresh tomatoes.

And I alway discard the seeds that are black or have black dots that I find after drying fermented seeds if possible ... striving for the best I guess.

PV

[carolyn137]

With internal BER there are NO signs of the typical exterior BER seen at the blossom end.

[michael johnson]

There is only one real way to find out - germinate the dark seeds and grow them to maturity, harvest the fruit and check the seeds inside- they might all be dark seeds from then on, 8)

[ddsack]

Michael, I was wondering that too, if the seeds are just a variant color phase and there is nothing wrong with them. Or maybe they carry some other interesting aberrant characteristic that might show up if they were grown out. I guess that will have wait for another year, since I didn't set aside any extra dark seeds.

Dee

[Tomstrees]

I just thought they were ...
uhmmm ... bad seeds ?
Like the ones that float when you ferment ...
you know ?

~ Tom