Saving your Own Seeds
A seed may be defined as an embryonic plant in a state of arrested development, supplied with food materials, and protected by one or more seed coats. It is able to remain alive, although dormant, through conditions which may be unfavourable for immediate growth. When suitable conditions occur a seed will begin to germinate.
To get a better understanding of why we save seeds we need to research how plants propagate themselves
METHODS A PLANT USES TO PROPAGATE ITSELF -
- SEEDS eg dandelion “clocks” Acorns (spreading methods/Distribution Strategies - – Wind-blown / Insect (bee / fly / moth etc) / Animal (internal / external)
- ROOT SUCKERS FROM OFF THE ROOTS eg plum suckers / mints
- STEMS / BRANCHES HITTING GROUND eg brambles
- TUBERS – eg Jerusalem artichokes,
- BULBS – eg tree onions, garlic
ANNUALS – plants which need to set seed each year in order to survive – the roots will die back into the soil once the plant has set seed. In a wild (uncultivated) system annuals are the least common plants due to their need for open ground to set seed and germinate. Annuals will be found on the edges of wild plant guilds where there is disturbance in the soil from the habits of other species (humans/animals). Many of our staple food crops are “annuals” - however many are overwintering – that is that they are sown in the autumn to crop through in the spring/ summer. Example – wheat, beans, peas, cabbage.
BIENNIALS – Plants that set seed in the second year from germination. Some plants need a whole year in order to establish a strong root system before going into their seed cycle the following year. In wild systems, biennials are also not common, again due to their need to rebuild root systems every other year. Hence you will find them close to annuals, where the disturbed ground is. Again, many of our staples are biennials. Carrots, beetroot, parsnips, and many other root crops go to seed the in the second year after sowing. However, plants that are considered biennial can become annual if the plant is stressed in the first year causing the plant to go to seed (bolting). Stressing is caused by lack of water, sudden heat or light changes, limited root space to expand.
PERENNIALS – Plants that have a life beyond 2 yrs. Potentially a perennial could be three years life (sometimes called a triennial) or over 2000 yrs old! Perennials form the bulk of all the plants on the planet. They are the base plant of wild systems (woodlands), since they do not depend on re-seeding each year for survival, hence can go straight into flower each spring without having to go through germination from seed. Most of what we see everyday are perennials. Eg oak tree, nettles, wild grasses. However, there is some room for potential confusion in that what are considered annuals can behave like perennials by stem/root propagation. For example, trailing plants like Squash, if not killed off by the cold will simply keep growing, and rooting through the stems hitting the ground and rooting; in a sense, it is making a new plant, but it has also come from the same plant that rooted it and is still connected to it. Potentially the “plant” could continue forever, provided that the conditions for growth were there (warmth, light, water). And on the other end of the spectrum perennials can behave like annuals, reseeding each year and growing new plants in the spring, the difference being that the roots survive in the ground long after annuals have died off.
Some perennial plants develop biennialized (2 yr) - eg.- bramley apples, putting on a big crop once every two years.
Some perennial plants only fruit once every few years (3yrs – 7 yrs) depending on weather conditions, eg beech or oak tree.
Summary; Annuals require yearly propagation which is most common through the practice of saving seed. Biennials behave similar to annuals, yet because they set seed every two years so, if you want to grow them year on year with your own seed, you will need to have plants on both cycles. Perennials, being significantly easier to grow but much slower to produce in the first few years from seed, are more commonly propagated through taking cuttings of stem, bud or root.
BASIC STAGES OF PLANT GROWTH FROM SEED FOR ANNUALS AND BIENNIALS
1 – GERMINATION – the root comes out of the seed
2 – COTYLEDONS - the embryonic first leaves of a seedling.
3 – MAIN LEAVES – these are the character leaves that one can identify the plant with.
4 – SEED STEM – out of the center of the main leaves the Flower stem develops, at this stage the root develops a tough structure to gain strength to hold up the seeds. It is this stage, which is the signal that the plant is now progressing towards flowering.
5 – BUDDING – out of the main stem the plant develops buds. Often the stem and budding phase are occurring at the same time.
6 – FLOWERING – the buds emerge into flowers.
7 – POLLINATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF SEED/FRUIT– this is the main point in the plants growth cycle in which other terrestrial beings (mostly insects) play a part in the plants growth cycle. Many plants would not exist without the necessary pollinators around. As soon as the flower is pollinated the seed starts to develop, often encased within a fruit or hard shell / skin to protect the seed from the damaging influences of the elements. It is at this stage that many nutrients are drawn up from out of the soil to form the seed, it is at this stage that liquid feeding plants will help produce more seed/fruit.
8 – SEED – the finished seed awaits the touch of water or animals to ingest it in order to begin its growth cycle. The seed is the beginning and end of the plants growth cycle.
(Saving good quality annual/biennial seed demonstrates successful achievement of all previous stages in cultivation)
WHY SAVE OUR OWN SEEDS?
- Wealth and renewal. They represent hope for the future, resilience, a concentrated store of value. Seeds are the most valuable crop we can grow. Saving your own seeds can save you loads of money having to buy seeds in. A seed-bank could be a valuable thing to take with you to relocate. they represent a future potential and an exponential increase of more seeds. Seeds are very transportable. It’s far easier to travel with seeds than it is with plants.
- Biodiversity - Heirloom - Provenance. When a seed is grown in a particular area or microclimate over three generations, it adapts genetically to specific local conditions, making it more robust and likely to succeed. By saving the seeds from your homegrown plants you are allowing them to subtly adapt to the growing environment and your own growing methods and cycles. There is an abundance of diversity in nature – e.g. 20,000 Maize in Mexico. Some of these staples are food plants that have been chosen and created through many generations of plant breeding for their particular edible characteristics; yield, taste, ease of harvesting. Without us they would not exist. Saving the seeds from these plants keeps them surviving.
- An ample supply of home-grown seed - Plants have massive potential to spread themselves. One plant can produce thousands of seeds. When you save your own seeds you have many to re-sow and also have plenty of spare seed to distribute to others. You can also use a generous supply for successional sowings and to broadcast as an edible green manure. Growing for seed tests the quality of your growing conditions and abilities because it requires sufficient fertility and pest / disease control for longer.
- Self-sufficiency/local sufficiency - Most of our staple foods come from annuals, which would otherwise not survive without the practice of cultivation, and seed saving. Biodynamic / local adaptation ( survival & selection )
- Economic & political engagement – GM – agrochemical monopoly - Saving seeds is another step in completing the loop of “food to mouth to earth”, and allows for more independence from commercial systems of production. These systems currently pose a massive threat to farmers and growers who save their own seed for food production and dissemination, attempting to regulate these small scale processes to the extent that they become illegal.
- Availability – catalogues Legal – EU Reg.s - one may wish to save Heritage/Heirloom varieties rather than what is commercially available
- Taste - a lot of home saved varieties simply taste loads better than the commercial varieties.
- Vitality and viability - Seeds grown organically have superior vitality and viability.
- Creating new varieties - Bramley apples came into the market through a lady who saved her own apple seed - Mrs Bramley.
- Deeper understandings - By going through the process of saving seeds - the full cycle of the plant, participating in each stage and completing the cycle by re-sowing the seeds you’ve saved -, you develop a deeper understanding of the plant and of plants.
BACKGROUND THEORY TO SEED SAVING CULTURE -
NOTES about POLLINATION
Most plants have flowers and need insects or wind to become pollinated - taking the male flower pollen to the female stigma. Some plants have male and female parts within the same flower. These plants nearly always remain true genetically, since the insect pollinated the flower on entering. (Self pollinating - eg- peas - Nearly all legume plants will remain genetically the same since they have both male and female flower parts together in the flower.) Many plants with both male and female flowers may be pollinated by other plants with different genetics but within the same family. These will not remain true to type, but will hybridise, and create new plants. (eg squash) This is known as cross pollination. This is when genetics from two different varieties of plants within the same family of plants cross, for example, a bee visits a male flower from one type of squash and pollinates a female flower from a courgette plant. Here the female courgette flower will produce a fruit that is true to the variety of seed that it came from, but the seeds saved from this courgette will be a hybrid – a ‘squashette’. This is one way to breed your own vegetable varieties! But if you want to get true types ( heritage or heirloom ) then you will need to isolate the plants or self pollinate, the plants which are prone to cross pollination, which involves taking the male flowers from the same variety of plant and rubbing pollen on the female flowers. See A Seed Savers Handbook for more info .
Pollination happens quite naturally when plants are out of doors, and there are insects (esp bees) present. When plants are indoors, pollination can be disrupted due to lack of insects, bees or wind. Understanding the families of plants, ( plants grouped by similar characteristics and genetic line) can help you to understand the method of pollination used to save that particular plant, hence understanding how to intervene to ensure pollination.
Key points -
- Distribution Strategies - Wind-blown / Insect (bee / fly / moth etc) / Animal (internal / external)
- Varietal purity - Simple flowers are self-pollinating (e.g. Tomato / Legumes).
Promiscuous – maintain isolation / avoid cross-pollination with a related cultivar or wild relative (e.g. Brassicas).
- Retaining genetic diversity - Grow enough specimens to retain and maintain the full range of genetic characteristics. For most crops this means at least 12 plants. Corn needs 100.
- Saving hybrid varieties - F1 (two separate lines combined for vigour) will produce viable seed, but are more likely to deteriorate long term. - latent genes appear
PREPARATION TO SAVE SEEDS
TYPES OF CROPS - information about seeding cycles
Root crops – most of our common root crops are biennial and will seed in the second year. Root crops that are prone to damage outdoors in the winter can be transplanted to the polytunnel in Oct/Nov/Dec.
Leaf crops – Nearly all common salad plants that are sown in the spring will go to seed by the summer. (Annual). Hardy salads are commonly sown in the autumn so as to overwinter and give picking throughout the cold months. These sowings will go to seed in the spring. Brassicas (cabbage, kale..) usually behave like biennials unless stressed. This means that they will tend to over winter and go to seed in the spring, setting seed by about midsummer.
Flower crops – Many flowers are a mix of perennials and annuals. Since one wants the flowers of the plant, annual flowering plants will all be sown in the spring so as let them go to seed in the autumn.
Seed crops – Annual patterns of seed crops fall into two main categories – those from spring sowings and those from overwintering. Grains are sown both in March – may (spring sowing) and august – oct (overwintering). The overwintering grains will crop around mid July and the spring sowings will crop around autumn equinox (mid sep). Legumes ( beans and peas ) follow the grain cycles but usually have a wider diversity of seeding cycles, depending on what variety of legume it is. Broad beans and the hardy peas ( particularly the round seeded varieties) are sown overwintering in Oct – Nov, or even December and continuously throughout the winter in sheltered warm areas (down south) as well as throughout spring. In the north there will be overwintering sowings and spring sowings. Less hardy beans (runner beans) will be sown late spring. Overwintering sowings will be cropping by May and the spring sowings will crop throughout the summer. Continual sowings give continuity. Many sowings between July and Sep will not have the time to produce seed, so would be used as green manure.
Fruit Crops - annual patterns for fruiting crops (tomatoes, squashes, peppers, aubergines) require long growing seasons, and good sun to produce good seed. Start the cycles early. Fermentation is the main method of cleaning tomato, cucumber, squash/pumkin/melon seed.
KEY POINTS TO REMEMBER -
- PLANNING - Label AND record variety on a diagram. Plants will go to seed without one's involvement, but they are often hard to identify once the seed is ripe. Tomatoes are a good exception to this rule.
- SPACE - Leaving seed crops in the ground may disrupt your rotation, so leave a few plants at the end of a bed. Support tall plants as they flower. Biennial can be left to over-winter in the ground outside. Mulching will feed, maintain weed control and speed up ripening.
- MATURITY – For Stem, Leaf and Root crops Allowing the plant to grow long after the usual cropping point. Often this means over-wintering. (biennial)
- Start growing season EARLY for crops that need a long growing season to come to maturity (corn / climbing beans / peppers / aubergine)
- TRANSPLANT - select specimens and transplant either outside to minimise the space they take up, or inside a structure for winter protection and to avoid cross-pollination.
COLLECTION OF SEEDS -
Collect seeds ;
- when the majority of the seeds are ripe, before they start to fall. wrap in a blanket, with roots off the edge of the blanket, so that soil does not get mixed into the seed
- Harvest wind-blown seed (e.g. Salsify / Scorzonera) and fruit seeds (eg tomatoes) DAILY as they ripen.
Tip: To free up space for next crop, lift the whole plant with its root early, when seeds are nearly mature. Nutrients in the plant’s root, leaves and stems will be recycled and diverted into ripening the seed.
PROCESSING SEED and CLEANING SEED - to get pure seed
1 - Dry the plants thoroughly before processing. This will make it loads easier.
2 - Once dry, Spread plant out over a blanket, (check its got no holes) and begin to reduce the volume of plant/seed-stuff in progressive, incremental stages, by stamping with feet, crushing, rubbing with hands, so the seeds fall out over the blanket. (Seeds are very resilient and can withstand vigorous mechanical impact.)
3. Remove seed heads and stems from the blanket, pour the seeds into a bowl or a tray (no holes) and, using GRAVITY, agitate so that seed settles to the bottom of the bowl. Begin to remove lighter chaff from the top.
4. WINNOWING. Blow the chaff off the seed, shake to settle and repeat.
5. (optional) Use a SIEVE to separate dirt, dust, soil which is smaller than seed.
(STAGES = Whole plant - Seed heads+stems - Seed+chaff - Seed+dirt - Pure seed. )
FERMENTATION METHOD (eg for tomatoes and cucumbers)
- place gel-coated seeds in water for 2-4 days, rinse with a sieve & dry.
STORAGE OF SEEDS -
- Label all your saved seeds with the year date, and correct name.
- Store in cool, (5c - 15c) dry, conditions such as an unheated room.
- Avoid direct sunlight
- Avoid variations in moisture and temperature.
- Use paper or card containers which breath ( rather than sealed plastic).
STORAGE LIFE
- Most seed will remain viable for 3-5 years (level humidity and temperature)
- Umbellifers (Apiaciae) and Alliums (Amaryllidaceae) only safely viable for 1 year e.g. Root crops, such as Parsnips, carrots and onions.
- some seeds need to be really fresh – Sweet Cicely / Angelica / Rice
Caution: Saving seed potatoes. Vegetative reproduction allows viruses to build up after 3-5 years. Save some tubers, but buy in some new stock too.
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Subtleties - BIODYNAMICS Sow and cultivate crops for seed on FRUIT/FIRE days. Harvest mature seed AFTER Full Moon at the completion of growth cycle.
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NOTES about PERENNIAL SEEDING CYCLES
TREES and SHRUBS – since trees have already developed the STEM (trunk to support fruit/seed) stage 4 – then they go straight into budding phase in the spring, often before putting out any leaves.
CLIMBERS – Most trailing plants behave the same as trees. Some trailing plants like blackberries, die back after the 3-year growth. Blackberries often fruit on second year growth, and will fruit late on first year growth and will only stop putting out flowers when the weather turns too cold. Vines develop strong tree like branches, and can grow very old.
GROUNDCOVERS – ground covers, nettles docks grass etc, have a seeding pattern that is similar to the annual stages of plant growth above, and yet despite the stems of last years growth dieing back, the roots of these plants survive in the ground over winter and hence can skip the first two stages of growth that annuals have to go through. This usually means that they are seeding at least a month before their equivalent annuals.
LINKS
Local - For buying seed in UK -
www.tamarorganics.co.uk , - this is a key one for market gardeners.
www.biodynamic.org.uk, www.gardenorganic.org.uk, www.realseeds.co.uk, http://www.beansandherbs.co.uk , http://www.chilternseeds.co.uk, http://www.simpsonsseeds.co.uk/, http://www.thomasetty.co.uk www.organic-guru.co.uk - soon to be ediculture
Brighton seed swap -
http://www.seedysunday.org - lots of useful links from here .
Info -
http://urbantomato.blogspot.co.uk/
http://open-seeds.org/bad-seed-law/
Global -
good book about seed saving (hard to get hold of now ) -
THE SEEDSAVERS HANDBOOK
Here are 3 tables of seed viability; rough guides as to how long seeds will remain at their best.
I have found many reports that seeds will store much longer than this, indeed in many cases up to 5 times longer than the stated number of years above. (I have heard of people germinating 20 year old squash seed with 90% success!) Seed companies who make their money off buying seed will give dates that are much lower than what is possible for obvious financial reasons; people buying seed more frequently. However, despite the advantages of storing seed for longer periods of time, It is worth bearing in mind that if seed is desired to be stored for a long time, optimum conditions are essential; fridge like temperatures, (4 - 10degreesC ) dark and dry, with no change of temperature.
Another very useful web page I have found is this one -
GERMINATION TEMPERATURE -
http://tomclothier.hort.net/page11.html