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Picton,ON (j.vincent@xplornet.ca)

I am aquireing a seed that has been frozen for several years. It is now thawed and in the mail. Can or should this seed be refrozen? My thoughts would be that once a seed is frozen and thawed out, the clock is ticking as to viability. The freezing process is often helpful and often necessary for germination of many seed species. Eddy Z was telling us at Niagara, he freezes all his seeds at least two weeks ahead of planting and feels that it helps with germination.
I personally don't store my seeds in the freezer as i'm concerned that the drying process varies widly between growers and that freezing could cause dammage to a seed that is not "dry". I know this has likly been discuss on the site in the past, but I thought it was worth some discussion.

3/24/2007 8:41:25 AM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

Mother freezes all of her seeds so I do too.

Seriously, freezing is a trick we use in the trade to coax stubborn seeds.

3/24/2007 11:22:42 PM

Picton,ON (j.vincent@xplornet.ca)

I have no doubt that freezing will aid in germination. My question is ‘ can you or should you refreeze a seed that ha s been previously frozen’?

3/26/2007 8:59:15 AM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

I would freeze every seed regradless. If planting right away the pop faster. If you're storing the seed it will last longer. There is no down-side unless the wife get's irrate when she comes home from shopping. Hence I have a dedicated freezer in the garage. Downside to this is the huge cuts of beef I keep finding in *MY* freezer whenever Big-Y has a Black Angus sale.

3/26/2007 12:36:29 PM

President - GPC

I freeze my seeds also. 2 Years so far, I did this because of a deep freeze seed cache I read about them creating to preserve all of the worlds seeds in case something happens. Sounds like to me this is a great way to also store our seeds too.

3/26/2007 2:08:52 PM

Gary... one of those places is right in Fort Collins at the U where I visited.... National Seed Storage Lab. It's called cryopreservation and is done with liquid N.

Anywho I'm going to get horticulture-y on you all now... Some seeds need stratification to germinate... that's basically giving them a cold period. Pumpkin seeds don't need that to germinate, but I'm not sure if giving it to them would improve germination at all. There are lots of plant species that have improved germination under light (they're called photoblastic) but fewer of them actually need the light in order to germinate. On the other hand, some plants need total darkness to germinate.

Kid - as long as you let the seeds your receive dry down in a warm dry area for a while, you shouldn't have to worry about them being to "wet" to survive the freezing. Seeds right out of a pumpkins would definitely not do too well if frozen right away.
I wouldn't refreeze the seed that you have now if you're going to grow it this year. If you're saving it, I would keep it in that dry area for a while if you're worried and then freeze it again.

3/26/2007 7:18:01 PM