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[Radium]

I need to keep a lot of species's seeds at least for two years, to gem the room for growing them.
What's the easiest way to keep them viable?

Is putting them inside a plastic bag filled with table salt, and placed into the refrigerator a good idea?

They are various edible and entheogen species, the common stuff almost all Seedians grow.

[Auxin]

I keep nearly all my seeds in glass jars in the refrigerator, it works great and many germinate with high percentage after a decade.
If you dont have clean glass jars, next best would probably be thick plastic jars/containers. Plastic bags wouldnt work so well in my opinion.
I wouldnt use table salt unless your sure the salt dust wouldnt get into the seeds. Salt keeps the humidity down to 30.5%, according to the CRC HCP, thats a quite high humidity for seed storage but it at least would act as a insurance against catastrophe.
Another tactic is dry uncooked grain. Say you have 20 grams of ethno seed in there, and add 80 grams of barley or rice... those are seeds too and so 80% of any moisture that gets in would be absorbed into them.

1 Like fairdinkumseeds likes this.

[fairdinkumseeds]

If your electric supply is reliable fridge is a great option, if not cool, dry, dark is generally good enough.
If you lose power a few times in the 2 years of storage you may accidentally, slightly, decrease the germ rate as the seeds wake up early and start to use the stores of energy then are forced back to sleep, or condensation becomes an issue.
Our power goes off all the time here so it's not really an option for me. Cool dark shed, jars, draws, baggies, and large sealed chests (army ammo boxes) baggies of dried herbs to minimize insect issues.
Does the job.

[Radium]

So tell me:


If I get access to a fridge that:
- only shuts-down for 5 continuous hours yearly
- keeps everything at 1 degree centigrade


Then place all my seed bags inside one of those big empty PET whey protein tubs,
and fill the rest of it with pipe-tobacco and barley, and put it in the said fridge.


How many years [I know this depends on the species too, but generally speaking...] are my seeds expected to remain viable?


You can also answer in relation to if I keep them inside the said tub in room temperature.
Like 2x, 2.2x, or 5x the time they would last in room temp in the tub.

[LIBERTYNY]

 In general the larger the seed the longer it will remain viable.

As long as they are stored in just ok conditions, like dry, room temp, out of direct light most seeds should remain viable for at least 5 years without much of a germination percentage drop.

  Ever find a old seed pack (50+ years) and try germination. A few years back I tryed a pack of tobacco seed from the 40's that was found in a book in a abandoned  burnt out house in the humid NE US, Germ. rate was better than 40%

 for long term storage, I would worry more about temp. stability then keeping the temp.  artificialy low, A sealed container (such as a masson jar) in a basement should be fine for a long time

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