I was looking into saving some dock seed to grind into flour and read that it stayed viable for 21 years. 21 years! So why are my onion seeds only viable for one year?
When I listened to Joseph’s advice on seed preservation, from drying in heated rice to freezing onion seeds, my heart sank, as this seemed like a lot of work. And when I thought about it, I wondered what happened to the no coddling rule? Aren’t we selecting for fussy seeds if we do it that way?
I don’t treat my seeds very well; they are left drying on the hearth, in ceramic bowls in our boiler room, in bits of paper in my bedroom, in jars on the sitting room table. Our house is cool and damp and then the heating goes on and it is warm and damp. I guess I am inadvertently selecting for seeds that can cope with my neglect.
If dock seeds are viable for 21 years, then why aren’t onion seeds? Maybe I should try only grow from older onion seeds to encourage them to be viable longer, because being viable for only one year makes me really vulnerable. I would be only one season away from no onions. If all our seeds are viable for 21 years that would seem to me to be a good thing,
There’s no intrinsic difference. I consistently plant my oldest seeds and they do just fine. Germination often exceeds my expectations. The only exceptions seem to be seeds that must be sown fresh (few) and those that have been cultivated by humans on a first year basis for thousands of years, such as parsnips.
I have onion seeds well over five years old (I really don’t keep track) and lettuce seeds even older that have a high germination rate.
The problem with this is specifically with landracing. If I am selecting for specific traits in a wide population l don’t want to wait 5 years or more to use those seeds.
On the other hand, if it’s a maintenance population that I am always selecting for the same traits, selecting by default for seed longevity makes a great deal of sense.
I agree with Lauren that many seeds stay viable much longer than commonly assumed. Additionally, I would say that crop seeds and weed seeds are looked at quite differently. Dock, which is widely considered a weed, is said to have seeds that are very long-living, not because all of them stay viable for this time, but also to emphasise that letting Dock set seed may mean you have to fight them for the next decade or longer. Said differently, we expect a high viability from crop seeds, while even low germination rates of “weeds” are too much for the taste of most people.
Have you taken the course “How Microbes Help Local Adaptation”? How Microbes Help Local Adaptation – Going To Seed
It’s fascinating and very relevant to landracing. Dr. White says (somewhere in there) that vegetable seeds appear to lose their viability because commercial processing deprives them of the endophytic bacteria they need to germinate, but that they may stay viable for much longer if they are kept in conditions more closely resembling natural conditions.
Crops are also selected for uniform germination, which tends to select for thinner seed coats and lower levels of germination inhibitors. Weed seeds on the other hand are usually selected for sporadic germination, so if bad conditions wipe out one year’s seedlings then there will be plenty more dormant seed waiting in the soil for another opportunity. Thinner seed coats is also a desirable trait for species with edible seeds.
Some plant families have seeds that contain volatile protective chemicals (like the carrot/parsnip family) and this is a structural reason why they tend to have low viability. Likewise some seeds like chestnuts that are large and starchy have a high metabolic rate and are only for a few months. Heck, many seeds like citrus cannot go dormant at all and die if dried out.
Also on my wishlist:
-Less finicky carrot seed
-Sunchokes that produce full seed heads every year
-Potatoes, cukes, and more that go to seed from tossed fruits.
-Green onions that bend over and reseed like nodding onions.
Seed viability follows a fuzzy bell curve, just like everything else in living beings. If old carrot seed germinates at 10% for me after 5 years, that more than meets my needs as a home gardener. I always plant too much carrot seed anyway. However, a mega seed company can’t sell seed with a low germination rate.
The big problem with producing sunroot seed, involves goldfinches eating the seeds as soon as they form.
If you want to select for seeds that have long shelf life, while also having quick adaptation for your landrace, it may work to make half the seeds you plant every year from last year’s crops, and half from seeds that are as old as you can find.
That may dovetail nicely with introducing new varieties into your landrace each year, actually. You could probably get “old seeds that nobody wants anymore” for free from friends, family, neighbors, and so forth.
I don’t believe it matters much if your seedsaving techniques are less than perfect. You’ll have a lower germination rate. Meaningless when you safe enough seed, i’d say.
The majority of farmers worldwide are ill positioned to be perfect seed savers. No electricity, no nice jars, probably no time either and much more to do.
Not even considering people’s living conditions in the middle ages and before.
I firmly believe the only thing matters in the end is keeping the varieties going.
Josephs comment about feeding finches by breeding viable sunchokeseeds triggered a thought line i’d like to share.
I’ve planted loads of Hazel trees or shrubs or whatever. People told me it’s useless because squirrels will come.
I just plant more then, i thought. I doubt hazelnuts are the only thing a squirrel eats. There are other limiting factors to squirrel pressure… They defend their territory as well. So not all the world’s squirrels will come and raid my hazels.
It’s basicly sharing with the wildlife which is in decline anyway.
Hedgerows here used to be full of fruit and nuts feeding wildlife which was abundant. Now the hunters feed the boars industrial crap in the forest to keep them alive. Fighting amongst themselves whose bore it was they shot…
Farmers taking pride in having low hedges if they don’t rip them out given the chance.
Sorry for going off topic but needed to get that off my chest onto yours.
Following on from Shane’s post, seeds can have a couple of germination inhibition strategies - chemical and physical.
Crop growers have been selecting for low inhibition characteristics since agriculture began, no point in sowing seed and waiting 2,3,4,5 years for it to sprout - you would have died of starvation! In some ways these germination inhibiting characteristics also contribute to long term storage. So you actually want long term storage, plus the ability to break the dormancy when the grower wants it - which is a bit more sophisticated than just long term storage.
That said, good seed collection and storage techniques hugely extend seed viability. I have successfully sown my own 8 year old parsnip seed, and have just germinated Mill Creek onion seed I got from Holly Dumont in ~2011, and my own seed of that from 2017. Properly dry, well graded for big seeds, no bugs, in ziplock bags in plastic storage containers in a domestic fridge. no freezing.
I used to panic about my carrot breeding seed getting a bit old, but it comes up fine after 5 or so years if stored properly.
I suppose the lazy landrace gardener can choose between a lengthy breeding program as outlined above, introducing old seed into the gene pool, or exercising good seed collection and storage protocols. Or both. Or neither :).
Lazy gardener? Or clever gardener or poor gardener. I mean we don’t all have cushy high end paying jobs here. We do what we can with what we have. No reason to judge.
I agree with all the technical details beautifully put to words in the posts above.
So, may i conclude that mixing in old seed will keep the landrace diverse, stable and resistant to multiple crop failures as a population?
But… If a grower wants to develop new traits or crosses he or she should not put the older seeds in the mix or just to a lesser extent?
no judgement, lazy is what I aspire to. Everything that makes gardening easier is where i want to be. I work way too hard at seed saving and growing. My point was to highlight the choices that need to be made - each will choose her own approach, dependent on their priorities.
Mixing in old seed will only very slowly shift your population to the desired end - if at all.
For example, lets say you save parsnip seed that crashes after 2 years. and your seed saving techniques do nothing to preserve the few individuals that perhaps would have contributed to the longer seed viability traits we are after. adding that seed to your fresh seed will do nothing to shift the population’s longevity traits, since none of them will germinate. Next year you work hard at preserving seed viability. After 2 years let’s say only 1% of the old seed germinates and contributes 1% to the current season’s gene pool. that’s a very small percentage in the whole seed stock. two years later you get another 1.01%. (1%, plus an extra 1% of 1%) so in 4 years, your two year germination rate has improved from 1 % to 1.02%. I reckon I’m too old to get anywhere near success. My maths is only back of the envelope, but i think the reasoning is sound. The laws of compounding interest will mean the rate will accelerate, but i think it is still a long way off.
Higher germination rates will certainly accelerate the process, but looking for longer viability will delay each generation of the process by the time period you are seeking.
An alternative is to go to the wild relatives, introduce some of their delayed germination genes, then start re-selecting for seed longevity, rapid germination, and other desirable attributes.
I hope someone comes up with an alternative reasoning, since this is a bit depressing
I hope im wrong, I’m struggling with trying to restore Astronomy Domine corn in Australia from very poor germinating very old see stock - perhaps around 5% are viable.
I went through the same process with strawberries - kept planting them and allowing them to spread until there were enough for us AND the squirrels AND the chipmunks. Now we’re all happy. I don’t know if that tactic will work with goldfinches, though, because they are in migratory flocks and so the population is virtually unlimited.
A-ha. So you mean lazy is easy is good? I’m confused but never mind.
How about growing a seperate bed/field of old seed only. In thé case of parsnips i harvest an estimated 200 seeds per plant.
So i’ve got 10.000 old seeds. 1% of those germinate.
That’s a hundred plants providing me 200 seeds each. Equals 20.000 new seeds that will be better positioned to contain genetics providing longer viable seeds.
If i grow these 20.000 out on a seperate plot i’ll have enough to supply the entire Going to Seeds community containing more or less durable seeds.
Or i could choose to add half of these durable seeds to my plantings for a long time.
But even with really old seed this could work if one has a high enough number of seeds. Imagine not 1% but 0,01% emerges of five year old seeds. You’d still have enough to start growing these out to get high numbers over a couple of generations to supply the entire community here.
A-ha. So you mean lazy is easy is good? I’m confused but never mind.
How about growing a seperate bed/field of old seed only. In thé case of parsnips i harvest an estimated 200 seeds per plant.
So i’ve got 10.000 old seeds. 1% of those germinate.
That’s a hundred plants providing me 200 seeds each. Equals 20.000 new seeds that will be better positioned to contain genetics providing longer viable seeds.
If i grow these 20.000 out on a seperate plot i’ll have enough to supply the entire Going to Seeds community containing more or less durable seeds.
Or i could choose to add half of these durable seeds to my plantings for a long time.
But even with really old seed this could work if one has a high enough number of seeds. Imagine not 1% but 0,01% emerges of five year old seeds. You’d still have enough to start growing these out to get high numbers over a couple of generations to supply the entire community here.
Yes, “lazy” is generally a tongue-in-cheek compliment in this community. Programmers often use it in the same way. It’s a compliment in the context of describing any person designing a system that is resilient and efficient and can mostly take care of itself without a lot of micromanagement. It doesn’t really mean the system designer is lazy; that’s just a humorous way of putting it, perhaps because it’s highlighting the fact that it may look like short-term laziness to someone who doesn’t really understand the long-term goals. Highlighting that fact and owning the word removes its sting if someone tries to throw it at you as an insult. What it tends to mean between people who are designing systems is that they are thinking long-term about efficient use of labor, which is highly intelligent and praiseworthy.
And yes, I’m a writer who loves words and finds linguistic nuances interesting; can you tell?
I’d like to add two other words to add to this category (complements in this community): Nerdy and obsessive. If somebody here called me lazy, nerdy, and obsessive that might be the ultimate complement
Believe you me, we’re a bunch of obsessive nerds hère. But not lazy. Saving seeds is a lot of work.
I feel sorry for lazy people often, everybody is hassling them to do more. Must be terrible.
They smoke loads of dope or drink booz a lot.
Or have psychological problems or are ill a lot.
Some naturally have low energy.
I’m probable being overly empathic and should boo along with the choir to shame the lazy people., make them feel worse than the good non lazy citizens.
But i won’t.
You lot rediculizing it is refreshing for sure, but i felt i had this to say about it anyway.
