*Vegetable Seed Storage Test Results*
Back in the good ‘ol days of Y2K prepping I purchased a couple of sealed #10 cans of non-hybred seeds from Nitro Pak. After Y2K and a couple of moves I completely forgot about them and they languished in closets and garages for 11 years. Temperature in the house is usually around 75 but in the garage it probably got well into the 90’s or even 100s. Doom on me and the seeds.
I recently stumbled across them this spring and opened one can to plant the seeds to see what happened. A very disappointing experience. On a RubiQ Chat about gardening, I was told about LabLover’s article on germination testing (http://www.alpharubicon.com/warlord/primitive/seedgermlablover.htm). I located and printed it out and carefully followed the instructions. I attempted to germinate 25 seeds from each of the 16 varieties of vegetables. Ten days later I have the following results:
As you can see, the seeds had had enough abuse. I threw out all the seeds except for the Radish, Swiss chard, Peas, Beets, and Corn. They now are in the freezer until next Spring. Being a stubborn ‘ol cuss, I plan to attempt to start them in my sunroom in the spring and transplant those that germinate.
Time to purchase more seeds and this time take better care of them.
Tengu
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