TZ -OH6
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Tutorial: How to Save Tomato Seeds

There are three basic ways to save tomato seeds

1) Dry the seeds and goo
2) Ferment off the gel
3) Chemically remove the gel and sterilize the seeds

The first method works fine if you are in a far away place and just want to save a few seeds to plant next year, just spit some seeds into a napkin and you are good to go.

The second two methods are necessary if you want clean seeds for long term storage and trading.

At its most basic, fermenting is simply letting the seeds sit in their juice for a few days (about 4 days) until microbes (bacteria and yeasts) break down the gel, but like every simple thing, everyone has their own little way to complicate it. I complicate it a bit by rubbing the seeds in a sieve at the beginning simply to make the clean up a little less messy at the end.

Here I go through simple fermentation, and again with my little complication added.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/51251503@N03/sets/72157624494344495/

1) Cut fruit in half.
2) Squish out seeds and/or dig them out as best you can.
3) Place into a wire sieve and rub the gel juice and solids through into a container.
4) Add seeds to container of juice (lidded deli container, ziplock bag etc.).
5) Add a bit of water (double the total volume or more). This give you the option to shake it up later to speed things up.
6)Wait until the gel is dissolved and the seeds clump/pack together (about 4 days at room temp, sometimes ready in 3 days).

https://www.flickr.com/photos/51251503@N03/4845195278

7) To clean up the seeds add more water and pour off to float out solids (bad seeds will float out with the rest so just let them go), place seeds into seive and run water over them to rinse.
8)Optional: 1-2 minutes in 10-20% bleach solution to kill diseases followed by another good rinse.
9) Blot dry and let sit to dry for several days. I use paper plates, some use coffee filters. One guy who wrapped them up in coffee filters had mice chew them up when he wasn't looking so be aware of the security of your drying environment. Thick piles of seeds dry more slowly which is why I like to spread them out on paper plates.

Dry clean seeds will be fluffy and tan/gray. Black seeds may or may not be good so if that is all you have keep them. Sometimes you will get a batch of extra small seeds. They are usually good if they didn't float out. somtimes a few seeds wil sprout in the ferment water. This is due to a fruit that took an extra long time to ripen, and does not happen to most seeds even when they are left in the fermentation liquid for over a week.

You can save seeds from tomatoes that have been scalded to remove skins. The temps don't get high enough to cause substantial damage. You cannot use seeds from frozen tomatoes, freezing them in the tomato usually kills a lot if not all of the seeds.


Seeds last longer if they are very dry, and if they have not dried out enough they can mold and go bad. Properly dried tomato seeds stored at room temperature will be good (high to medium germination rate) for at at least 5-10 years. If you store them in the freezer they can last even longer, but they need to have a low moisture content for this type of long term storage so you would want to put them in with some silica gel dessicant etc before freezing.

You can store seeds in paper or plastic envelopes, plastic pill vials etc, but again, be carefull to keep them safe from bugs (pantry moths etc) and rodents.


The chemical treatment is better for killing off any diseases, and is useful if you don't have room/time for letting fermention containers sit around, but hands-on time is longer.

Chemicals needed: Trisodium Phosphate powder (TSP from the hardware store) and bleach. TSP is a caustic substance used to strip oils off of surfaces before painting. It is the cleaning agent that used to be in laundry detergent etc before hundreds of millions of people using it every day overloaded the environment with phosphate. It is strong stuff so wear gloves or be very careful.

Follow steps 1-3 above and place the seeds into a container with a 10% solution of TSP in water. This concentration is very flexible. I usually eyeball a teasopoon of TSP in about a quarter cup of water for the seeds of one tomato.

Let the seeds soak in the TSP for 15 minutes to strip off the gel and kill diseases.

Rinse and place into a 10-20% solution of bleach for 1-2 minutes. Rinse in hot water (up to 120F) to kill even more virus.

Dry etc.

If you have been given dirty diseaed dry seeds you can do this process before planting with a soak in 10% bleach up to 15 minutes.

You can also use Oxyclean powder (or probably something like Comet cleanser) to scrub/dissolve off the gel. It cleans the gel off but does not have the proven action of TSP. Effect on long term storage is unknown, but I wouldn't worry about it if you will be using the seeds within five years.

LindsayArthurRTR
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Just did the Fermentation technique last week with great results. I put them in red plastic cups and penned the type of tomato onto the cup. After I added my water, I just put an open sammich baggie over them. The instructions I read said plastic wrap with holes punched in the top held in place with rubber bands over the cups. I didn't have rubber bands so I used plastic baggies and just left them open. This allowed air to pass through and yeasts also. I swirled them in their cups everyday for 4 days.

One problem I had...Well, I wouldn't exactly call it a problem, it just grossed me out a little...was fruit flies. Actually, it wasn't the actual adult fly that bothered me as much as straining out their babies... :shock: Not all of the cups had maggots, just a couple. Ewwwwww :roll: :D None of mine sprouted.

When they were done fermenting, I did as you stated above and rinsed them, which was really a LOT easier than I had planned. I really thought, they would swirl right out of the cups, but they didn't. They sunk strait down to the bottom of the cup. I strained them out into a small mesh strainer and then dumped them onto labeled papertowels. They are still drying on th ecountertop. I haven't found the envelopes that I like yet.

I thought this was an extremely easy way to save tomato seeds. It was my first time saving seeds from tomatoes and I easily did 6 varieties at the same time. I didn't bag any of my flowers, so I'm not exactly sure what I'ma get, but I'm still excited about it :()

Thanks for the method explanations!

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Ozark Lady
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I just saved tomato seeds tonight. Before I saw this post.

I brought in some wonderful tomatoes, and as we ate, we put seeds on a milk strainer, similar to coffee strainer but heavier. I also had one tomato get damaged, grandchilds fingernail, and it attacted fruit flies, so I squeezed out the seeds and pulp into a bowl, and put the rest in for compost and I cut a hunk of the damaged area out to discard.

I then covered the bowl with a ziplock bag, sorry, don't want maggots!

Oddly enough tomatoes from the same package of seeds had totally different size and taste on different plants. Both were good, but one was over the top good. So, I am even separating seeds by the plant, not just by the type!

TZ -OH6
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Its not uncommon to get stray seeds in commercial packs because the minimum wage part time workers are not always worried about quality control. Sometimes you can even identity what you get. Some of my favorite tomatoes came as stray seeds.

You can make a fruit fly trap by making a funnel out of foil and putting it over top of a jar with some cider vinegr in it. A small hand held vacuum cleaner works well for swarms. Because I use the lidded containers and ziplock bags the flies mostly stay around the fruit rather than the fermenting seeds.

TZ -OH6
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A comment on seed sprouting and length of time fermenting...

They are not related.

I just found a set of seeds with nearly 100% of them sprouting, which had only been fermenting for three days. I have left many sets of seeds to ferment for up to 10 days (procrastination) with no sprouting. I have seen many sets of seeds sprout in fermentation (usually at the standard 4-5 days) and what they all had in common is that the fruits were old. They sat on the plant green longer than usual, and in the last case the fruit sat around on the counter for a while as well.

Tomato seeds are viable in the green fruits as soon as substantial amount of gel forms, so if you can squish the seeds out they will grow, however fermentation proceeds better from ripe fruits so it is best to take seeds from newly ripe fruits rather than on-the-verge-of-rotting ripe fruits.

Sometimes you run across sprouted seeds inside store bought tomatoes. That would indicate that the fruits were in storage a long time.

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Ozark Lady
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I have 7 tagged dishes of seeds from last night sitting on the counter.
Fruit flies haven't found them yet. But, I keep adding water, swirling and pouring off all the sediment that I can.
Hubby is suppose to bring home some tsp tonight. I honestly just don't want to deal with fermentation of anything.
I have alot of yogurt, homemade, I considered putting the seeds in it, and let the yogurt culture eat all the yucky stuff off, wonder if that would work?

You know, I see how seeds could get mixed up. I did all of one kind, then moved to the next kind, all it would take would be one little seed under my fingernails, dropping into the next batch! I did wash my hands, but still, unless you use a nail brush or do them on different days, how would you know if a tiny seed was under your ring, or fingernail?

TZ -OH6
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I'm really confused. It sounds lke you are pouring off the rotting juice and goop before the 4-5 day waiting period is up.

If you pour off anything and add more water before fermentation is finished then you stop the whole process. The microbes need nutrients from the original juice to live/grow so that they can produce the enzymes that dissolve the gel membranes and placental attachements.

I needed to free up some containers so this morning I took seeds that had been fermenting for only 2 days, drained them and added TSP to finish dissolving the membranes. It took me an hour to do six containers of seeds (although I wasn't working very efficiently because of space) whereas I could have rinsed five times that many fully fermented seeds in the same amount of time.... pour, rinse, pour, rinse, rinse in strainer, flop seeds onto paper plate, blot, set out to dry.



BTW be careful with the TSP, it will strip your skin the way it stips seed goop.

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Ozark Lady
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You are right, I am preventing fermentation. That is my goal!

I am cleaning them without fermenting at all.

Don't ask me how it will turn out, I am clueless, but they will be less sticky on my paper. And I will add bleach to the final wash.

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bajabeautiful
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When I lived on the Washington Coast, we'd scatter our withering tomato plants (whole w/blighted fruit) onto the compost/manure heap and cover them with a 5" layer of horse manure to rest over the snowy Winter.

Come Spring, they would sprout up and thrive. They grew better and faster than any new Tomato Plant I could buy from the local Nursery.

We'd just transplant them to our garden and enjoy them.

This may not be a preferred method...but the manure was free AND organic.

Maybe tomatoes really DO like hot feet and a cold head :D

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Runningtrails
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I usually do the fermenting method as described and have great success but I also occasionally clean them with Comet or Ajax cleanser instead and that works well too. The Comet or Ajax cleaner method saves time and trouble, as the seeds are read to dry immediately.

I put them into a tiny strainer, sprinkle with cleaner and lightly scrub with my fingers under cool running water until they are clean and well rinsed, then spread to dry.

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PunkRotten
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Would it be ok to use a strainer to do this that you would use later to cook with? Or would it be advisable to get a separate strainer just for seeds?

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gixxerific
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PunkRotten wrote:Would it be ok to use a strainer to do this that you would use later to cook with? Or would it be advisable to get a separate strainer just for seeds?
It would be okay, if you are worried bleach is a wonderful thing.

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PunkRotten
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I ahve been saving seeds in sandwich baggies. I add the water and let sit to ferment. The first batch of seeds I did I waited longer than 4 days. It was more like 2 weeks and one of the seed batches still had a little gel around the seeds but rubbed off easy. Now I have a few more seeds fermenting and I been getting leaks. Does fermenting or can the acid from the tomatoes eat through the plastic?

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gixxerific
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P-rotten I hVe been using juice glasses and lately Tupperware or even buttertubs. They do good they have a lid to keep off the bugs and are easily washed or even recycled.

3 Pound Tomato
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I slice the tomato from the top to the bottom for saving the seeds, this opens up the seeds a little better than slicing side to side.

Collect the seeds with the gel and place in a jar with water, screw the lid on and shake it up a little. I then strain and put this on a dinner plate. Pick out the pieces of pith and let dry. When dry, I scrape the plate with a spatula and store the seeds in a plastic baggie.

valley
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We had a several month stay in Armenia a couple years ago. I used a strip of bathroom tissue, I placed tomato seeds,of tomatoes I thought special, on the tissue with a knife, they stick and become part of the paper. I'm able to tear off bits with seeds as I need to plant.

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IF you use water when fermenting, don't use tap water. Most tap waters have chlorine and chloramine in them which will kill bacteria trying to ferment the seeds.

You can check your tap water report online usually, or always by calling the office (at least in US) to confirm if you have chlorine.

With that said, I don't use water. I just scoop out the seeds, gel, and whatever juice. It ferments faster, the less water you use otherwise you just water it all down.

When taking the seeds out, I add water so they sink and all the gunk floats and I can pour, rinse, pour rinse, until they are clean :)

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gixxerific
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Schnazleberry tap water is fine to use. Trust me, I saved thousands of seed a year with no problems. They still ferment, the stank is the proof in the pudding. :wink:

I do agree with less water is better, or at least faster. In the heat of summer I was getting them done in 3 sometimes 2 day's, with a good coating of scum on top.

valley
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I'm not sure what the reason for fermenting, is it to stop mold? Is it done mostly where the climate is moist?

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rainbowgardener
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It's a way of separating the seeds from all the gel coating.

Juliuskitty
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It removes most if not all seed coat pathogens too but probably not good for removing viral or bacterial pathogens that are in the endosperm. So good for removing some pathogens.

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Ozark Lady
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I think that the fermenting also triggers something within the seed which tells it that it is ready to sprout. In nature, usually the seeds would ferment or be cycled through an animals digestive tract.
But, I have gotten plants from fresh seeds that were dumped outside for my geese (melon).
If the gel is not removed, it is gooey, and sticky makes it difficult to plant just one or two. The gunk also holds moisture and could lead to mold which would kill the seed.
The time to ferment is dependent on the temperature when the seeds are fermented.
It seems like a lot of work, and not always pleasant at the time, but later on, when you have plants grown from the seeds you saved and they are wonderful, it all becomes worth the effort.

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kayjay
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Last year, I used the OxiClean method and it worked nicely. Very high germination rate. The product I used is actually called 'Resolve' here in Canada, though.

This year, I used the fermentation method by mistake. Procrastination. ;) I kept forgetting to bring the Resolve up from the basement, and the seeds fermented in the meantime. LOL. They're drying on a plate now.

AnnaIkona
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How long can you store the seeds from the "dry the seeds and goo" method? Mine have been dried for 3 months now. Are they still okay?

AnnaIkona
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How long can you store the seeds from the "dry the seeds and goo" method? Mine have been dried for 3 months now. Are they still okay?

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KeyWee
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Three months is more than fine ~ I have stored mine for a year with no problem.

AnnaIkona
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Thanks KeyWee! :)
I just planted the seeds...hope they sprout soon!

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digitS'
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I save tomato seeds in the most casual methods. I tell the story that some varieties got into my little collection because I sampled a tomato in someone's garden, came home and scraped the seeds off the front of my shirt ...

Here in my backyard, my tomato seeds go on a paper towel and sit on a table on my covered deck. No, they weren't carried here on my shirt ... maybe my shirt pocket :).

I have a real advantage for seed-saving in that it seldom rains during the summer months, the afternoon humidity usually falls below 20%, and that table invariably catches about 2 hours of sunshine, each day. The paper towels and seed stay out there as long as 3 weeks. Only once, has a house sparrow decided that tomato seed is edible :? .

Once indoors, the folded towels go in Ziploc bags. The system works okay. I have noticed no drop in germination rate after 2 years. At 4 years in the bags, I've gotten into trouble! My casual technique is probably too casual for most gardeners. Remember, this is in a semi-arid climate.

Steve

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Mine are most casual as well, I split the tomato in half and suck out the jelly seeds suck on them a little and spit them out (not with a watery spit but rather blow them out between my lips) on a piece of news paper or a sheet of cardboard I found that the stick less to theese surfaces rather than papertowels.

They store well too, so that fermentation is needed for long term storing aint completely true I think. On the other hands to prevent transfer pathogens might be a good thing, but I don't deal with manures or composting animal waste, wich is were the most harmfull ones usually come from too.
I don't trade that much tho but I usually grow extra plants and give away.

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TOMATO SEED PRODUCTION
An organic seed production manual for seed growers in the Mid-Atlantic and Southern U.S.

Copyright © 2004 by Jeffrey H. McCormack, Ph.D.

https://carteret.ces.ncsu.edu/wp-conten ... -Seeds.pdf

There are basically three methods of seed extraction: (1) juice and seed extraction, (2) acid extraction which is not recommended, and (3) extraction by fermentation, which is the preferred method. Fermentation is the preferred method because it is a natural process that is least harmful to the seed and can destroy bacterial canker and other seed-borne diseases. Fermentation should be a controlled process. Though not difficult to do, it can be done incorrectly, in which case the ferment produces a bad smell and an overgrowth of white fungus which can stain and damage the seed. Details of the proper procedure are described in the section below.

FERMENTATIVE EXTRACTION The preferred method for producing commercial-grade seed

The best quality seed is obtained by fermentative extraction. The process basically consists of breaking or mashing up the fruit into pulp, seeds, and juice, and then pouring the mixture (“mash”) into a large container where it ferments for a period lasting usually three days. After fermentation is complete the seed is separated by washing, and then the seed is dried. Though the process is quite simple there are some important details for performing the process properly.

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Gary350
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Before I save tomato seeds I cut a tomato and taste it first. I want to make sure I have a good tasting tomato before I save seeds from it.

I push the seeds out of the tomato into a 5 gallon bucket of water. I save seeds from several good tasting tomatoes. I don't save seeds from deformed tomatoes or plants that have problems.

Seeds have enzymes on them that keep seeds from germinating inside the wet tomato. I let seeds soak in a 5 gallon bucket of water until the next day or maybe 2 or 3 days this removes the enzymes so seeds germinate very easy. I scoop the seeds out of the water with a 6" diameter screen wire strainer. I push the seeds around the screen wire with my finger most of the gel stuff pushes through the screen wire or sticks to the wire.

I dump the seeds on a paper plate to dry in the kitchen. Usually before bed time the paper plate has soaked up most of the water so I scrap the seeds onto another dry paper plate.

Next morning seeds are looking much dryer but they need to dry for several days before putting them into enveloped with labels and dates.

I took 12 seeds from the tomato seed pack and planted them in plant trays and they all grew. I set the trays under a shade tree when plants were 6" tall I planted them in the garden. Now the tomato plants are knee high and doing fine. It looks like I have a good pack of tomato seeds. I hope to have tomatoes I can taste by November I want to make sure these seeds are worth saving and growing next spring. We love the flavor of all the Beef Steak varieties, Big Beef, Beef Master & Jet Star. I planted all Big Beef tomatoes this year.



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