Mass seed extraction and drying

[surf4grrl]

OK, I save seeds and know how to process them. However, I'm doing this by hand - this year I'm going to be doing it on a fairly sizable scale in terms of variety. Included is a link on how to do it that I found last night. (Among tons of links on how to do it on a cammerical scale)

The caveat is that they dry them on cardboard, I usually dry them on screens, but the variety will make screens and space impossible.

Has anyone dried them on cardboard? I don't want them to stick to anything too unreasonably to wreck the seed.

www.plantanswers.com/ParsonsPreferredSeed/TomatoSeedExtraction.htm

EDIT - for ridiculous grammar

[grunt]

I use tulle bags =put the seeds in the tulle bags, squeeze out what moisture you can, and hang on a line in a warm dry place with a fan for air movement. I usually let them dry several days, although they almost always feel dry enough after the first day. They do clump a bit initially, but it's easy to break up the clumps just by rolling the bags between your hands, if you have the gel off the seeds. I do fermentation, so that's no problem.
Actually i don't even have bags, just squares of tulle that get folded to make a sort of bag, with the tape that has the varietal name over the fold, and a clothes peg to hold it on the line.
For the tulle, buy some used curtains at your local Value Village or equivalent.

[bunkie]

i've used cardbord before and it worked fine.

[jbosmith]

High Mowing does this. I showed up there last year and there was a girl standing in a trash can, moving her legs up and down and giggling. I thought she'd lost it..

[PVP]

Mar 8, 2011 10:19:29 GMT -5 surf4grrl said:

OK, I save seeds and know how to process them. However, I'm doing this by hand - this year I'm going to be doing it on a fairly sizable scale in terms of variety.

What do you mean by "sizable scale" and "in terms of variety?"

I guess my question is how many varieties and how many seed or fruit per variety will you process?

[hillbillypie]

This is a great link for processing seed.

www.avrdc.org/LC/tomato/hybrid/13extman.html

It has been my experience that getting the seed dry as quickly as possible is critical to good germination rates. This is in my opinion more important than the fermentation process. I would go with some kind of screen and even consider fans so air can move around the seed.

[oneoftheearls]

if you ever use that acid method

0.7% hydrochloric acid (HCl)....just do the math right .7% =.oo7....that is a very SMALL amount, anything stronger and you will have killed them

[sunflowers]

It has been my experience that getting the seed dry as quickly as possible is critical to good germination rates. This is in my opinion more important than the fermentation process. I would go with some kind of screen and even consider fans so air can move around the seed.


That's been my experience too.

I make a screen "plate" out of a circle of calking filler foam and a square of plastic replacement screening you can get at any Menards type store. I lay that filled plate on a wire shelf type shelf so any water drips off and I do have a fan blowing in the small room too.

When I first tried bulk seeds I used a paper or plastic plate and the water that was still on the seeds had seeds germinating instead of drying.

The screening doesn't work well only with some of the REALLY tiny seeds of current types or tomatillos / ground cherries. For those I use 2 layers of screen turned at an angle to each other. But if I could get some of the "no see um" screening that should work better. shear curtain material might work too.

I also don't do a fermentation. I find that using a drill "paint mixer" meant for 5 gal buckets of paint works well at cleaning the pulp and gell off the seeds.

Carol

[swampr]

Mar 10, 2011 22:25:25 GMT -5 jbosmith said:

High Mowing does this. I showed up there last year and there was a girl standing in a trash can, moving her legs up and down and giggling. I thought she'd lost it..

She definitely had lost it, but too long winters and the threat of frost in June will do that.