How to Save Your Seeds for Next Year

Seed-grown plants have many advantages over those grown from cloned, mature plants. Because of the natural genetic variability of sexually reproduced plants, those individuals most suited to one's one growing conditions are most likely to survive generation after generation and resistance to local pests and diseases can be passed through the genes.

But modern technology makes saving seed problematical. Among the difficulties are new strains of seed that produce sterile offspring. Certain large seed companies have a vested interest in assuring continued sales by selling seeds that are essentially one-shot deals. This is accomplished through a genetic process called: "polyploidy."

In normal sexual reproduction, the double-stranded genetic material known as DNA unzips like a zipper and a strand from the male parent combines with one from the female. This process reliably shuffles genetic material from generation to generation so that organisms are able to withstand a wide variety of environmental conditions and change over time as conditions change. The DNA is carried in the chromosomes of the germ or sexual cells of the organism and each normal member of that species always has the same number of chromosomes so that the two halves can combine.

But what happens when one parent does not have the normal number of chromosomes? Certain impressively large flowers and fancy vegetables are the descendants of plants with double or triple the normal number of chromosomes. In this case, sexual reproduction cannot occur outside the lab and the seeds are sterile.

What are some other obstacles to saving seed? Well, some seeds are not sterile, but they also don't remotely resemble their parents. These seeds are the offspring of so-called F1 hybrids. When plants are hybridized, parents from different stocks are combined to obtain the best of both worlds. The first generation of these plants is called an F1 hybrid.

All of these F1 hybrids are truly lovely plants with uniformly superior looks, resistance to disease and ample production. But, like the ugly kid whose mom and pop point fingers and say, "he takes after YOUR side of the family, the kids can be all over the map. That is because they may take after their mom, their pop, their maternal grandparents, paternal grandparents or any combination thereof. The offspring of F1 hybrids, known as the F2 generation, are true mutts, adorable mutts sometimes, but mutts nonetheless.

If you do not insist on the beautiful plants you produced with the original generation of hybrid seed, you might like these mutts, and picking through them may produce plants superior to their parents, but there is another solution.

Heirloom varieties of plants are produced from old strains of seed that are somewhat genetically stable from generations of back-crossing among the same parents. Although these plants lack some of the modern improvements of hybrid plants such as resistance to disease and wilt, they have the advantage of being reliably fertile and predictable.

Some of these strains have been grown locally for generations and the best source may be a friendly neighbor rather than a commercial nursery. In fact, the home gardener who makes these the basis of his garden may be striking a blow against corporate control of the food supply and preserving the genetic richness of our agricultural heritage.

Seed banks of societies dedicated to the particular plant you enjoy growing, such as a succulent or gesneriad society may be another place to get such gems. Some seed growers have reached out to sate consumer demand for these oldies and have founded specialty nurseries for them. Such smaller seed growers are often available in the gift shops of your favorite botanical garden.

Now that you know what's worth saving, how do you pull it off? For seed of average size, you will need some clean postage envelopes, and small vials for the dust-sized seeds of an African Violet, gloxinia or other gesneriad.

Seeds are produced by the flowers or fruits of the mature plant. To get seeds, you will have to put up with some loss in appearance as the mature plant re-directs its energy away from growth to the production of offspring. Fruits such as rose hips will turn brighter in color as the seeds are ready for harvest. Other plants will produce shriveled flowers with seed casings containing the precious harvest. The nondescript blue flowers of a coleus plant will eventually reward the gardener, although the parent will look threadbare. Still others, such as the impatiens, will literally explode when the seeds are ready so that their offspring do not land close to each other and choke as they grow.

When you cut open fruits such as rose hips to harvest the seed, check for hard seed coatings. If the seed is still soft, it may need some time to mature. Let the rest of the seed stay in the fruit a while longer.

If you must harvest seed from plants that explode, you may wish to wrap a plastic bag around the plant to catch the seed before it is dispersed. With time and familiarity, this will not be necessary as it is possible to trigger the traps yourself so that they explode into the envelope that you will be saving the seeds in.

For normal seeds, simply cut apart the seed pod or fruit that forms on the mature plant and put the seed into a clean postage envelope or small glass vial. Affix a label with the date of harvest and description of the plant. The saved seeds should be kept dry and at room temperature until they are ready to be sown.

Dust-sized seeds typically must be used at the next growing season since these seeds do not have ample supplies of nutrients and are very delicate. Likewise paper-thin Amaryllis seed. But other seeds, such as cacti, are intentionally provided by nature with a mechanism that assures they all don't come up at once. Expect that you will get new cacti sprouting in soil years after the original planting.

Some plants, such as roses, must experience a period of cold before they will grown. Without several weeks at refrigerator temperatures, flats of fairy rose seedlings will lie forever dormant. Some strains of tropical seeds that are designed by nature to be carried long distances in salt water will actually need to have their coatings filed and be dunked overnight or longer in water to produce sprouting. For best results with all seeds, familiarize yourself with the particular growth conditions that they experience in nature and work with them, not against them.

Sources:
http://www.heirloomseeds.com/
http://www.seedsavers.org/
http://rareseeds.com/
http://www.victoryseeds.com/
http://anthro.palomar.edu/mendel/mendel_1.htm