Seed starting.

Yesterday I had to leave work due to an amazingly painful back spasm. I couldn't believe how bad it was. I literally couldn't move from my chair - not even a couple of inches. Today it's about 80% better. Since it's my 'day off' anyway, instead of doing homework I mostly rested, but also planted a few seeds. You can't lay in bed all day (it's not recommended, even), and starting seeds in 3 oz. paper cups is not exactly heavy lifting.

Tomates and peppers. I planted the new seeds that I bought by mail order in december (Hybrid tomatoes including Supersweet 100, Lemon Boy, Better Boy, and Heirloom tomatoes including Ponderosa Red, Black Krim. Also some older seeds, Supersweet-100 about 1-year old, and 1-year old seeds of Black from Tula and Cherokee Purple. There were also peppers, including mail order Bulgarian Carrot and Portugal Hot, and older seeds including some old peppers that Ning had in the kitchen. Ning's peppers were brought from China about 8 years ago, and I grew some about 2 years ago but did not save seeds from those. So this is starting over again. The peppers were in a kitchen cabinet in an old zip-lock bag. Will they grow? Also a 3-year old packet of Tabasco peppers.

The paper cups were left over from last year, as was the seed starting medium (looks like about 3/4 peat moss and 1/4 perlite). The cups have holes drilled in the bottoms.

Here they are planted in the windowsill, south window. These little paper cups last about long enough for the plants to outgrow them, then basically fall apart. That's fine, they can be composted.

I thought that I was showing some self-discipline by waiting until today to plant them. Then I looked at last year's entry - they were planted March 25th. So about the same time.

Here is a gardenweb thread on old seeds. Some writers had seeds much older than these, in worse storage conditions, and they apparently germinated and grew. Here is someone who used 5-year old tomato seeds, with 35 of 40 varieties germinating. Here are some 120 year old seeds at Michigan State - fine, if you want Verbascum (but also hopeful for other types of seeds). They were placed in sand in bottles and buried - not exactly optimum storage for seeds, but who would have known, 120 years ago? Of course, there is the famous Judean Date that was sprouted after 2000 years in desert-dry storage. I did a search on the resultant palm, and 3 years later, it is still growing, and is 14 inches tall. According to the article, if it is female and if its DNA hasnt been damaged in it's 2000 year storage, it is expected to bear in about 2010. Maybe. Oh - here's another article about the Methusaleh palm. according to National Geographic, it was 3 feet tall in 05. I'm not sure about the discrepancy. Then there are these 500-year old canna seeds that germinated. They had been used to make a rattle, by native peoples of Argentina in about 1420. Here is the wikipedia artical on the oldest viable seed.

Seed Germination. Garden Log.

Most of the tomato seeds have sprouted.
Once cucumber has germinated.
Still a few squash and a small number of tomato seedlings to go.

Tulips are in bloom. Daffodils are declining. Grapes are beginning to bloom. Lilacs are beginning to bloom.

Ginkgo trees have tiny clusters of leaves.

Old and ancient seeds.

Not much energy today. Looking around on the internet, found some articles about old seeds - such as,

The Judean Date Palm, sprouted from 2,000 year old seeds found at Herod's palace in Israel. The seeds must have been 'stored' at about the time of the trees' extinction, since they are said to have been extinct since about the year 1 CE. Since palms are either male or female, and only one seed sprouted, this once extinct variety might remain extinct (or might it hybridize with existing varieties to form a new variety, both ancient and new?). Apparently palms are usually not difficult to grow from seeds, although these ancient seeds required special methods and plant hormones to revive. I've been sticking date seeds in plants around the house. I don't know what I will do with them if they grow, since this is hardly the ideal climate.

The famous ancient Lotus seeds, Nelumbo nucifera, preserved in dried pond mud, about 1,228 years old (article here ). These apparently were cultivated in ancient times. The seeds were found near Xipaozi village, northeastern China. The dried pond mud helped preserve them, but also caused some genetic damage due to residual gamma radiation in the mud. However, the oldest viable lotus seeds, as verified by carbon dating, were "only" about 466 years old. Other lotus seeds, thought to be 2,000 years old, were germinated in the 1950's and are the parents for the Ohga lotus, still grown in Japan's Chiba Prefecture today.

An Argentinian canna, which was preserved due to its use in a toy. The seeds were somehow inserted into a green walnut, and the walnut hull grew around the canna seed, resulting in an impervious container. The purpose was to use as a rattle. This seed was about 530 years old (from about the year 1420).

Various South African seeds (legumes and Protea) were found in a Dutch merchant Jan Teerlink diaries from 1803, which had been stored in the British museum, and recently a few were germinated.

Botany professor Dr. William James Beal buried a number of seed varieties in jars, in 1879, in an experiment to see how long they would survive. A few Verbascum seeds made it 120 years, stored in moist, well aerated sand in East Lansing, Michigan. Presumable Dr. Beal is buried somewhere as well, but I doubt that he would germinate now.

Apparently, the ability of seeds to survive extended periods of time depends on a combination of traits of the plant, the ability to grow a hard shell (or, in the case of the canna, a hard shell and then be encased in a harder shell), storage conditions, especially dry, and the skills of the person trying to germinate them.

Of course, there are the ordinary garden vegetables. Tomato seeds can last 5-10 years. Onions, only 1 year.

(The photo above is from an antique postcard, found on webshots - they did not have photos of the Judean Palm, 2,000 years ago).