Looking for tips from anyone that freezes seeds for long-term storage.
I’ve been storing breeder packs and home made seeds in zips within a mason jar, in a cool dark place. I’m excited to elevate my storage game, by transitioning to cryo vials and also incorporate desiccants (silica beads). This is also an effort to ensure seed viability around growing restrictions in my area. Currently trying to make my way through 2018-19 varieties…
I’m probably being cheap, but I don’t want to buy a mini-fridge for seeds at the moment. So the alternative is a shelf in the freezer.
My goal is to divide the seeds intended for the 2026-28 season, and continue to store them in the cool location, and then put everything else in the freezer. In the cryo vial container (as noted in question #3 below).
(Quickly want to thank anyone who answered storage questions in threads or 1:1 convo’s already)
Here is where my questions begin. For people storing in the freezer:
When adding/removing from the freezer, how do you do this safely so as not to mess with the entire freezer seed cache?
When taking seeds from the freezer, can you safely take some from a frozen cryo vial, or must all of the seeds in that vial be thawed and used?
I was planning on storing in the freezer as follows: seeds & a couple silica in a cryo vial, the cryo tub placed in a tupper with silica around the tub, and sealing the tupper in a freezer ziplock with more silica. Is this overkill?
If you’ve made it this far, thanks. I just don’t want to destroy a lot of hard work and also money by doing this wrong.
There is a small germination loss of about 1~2% of seed going into the freezer. So the freezer is long term storage only (+5~10 years) in my mind.
Interestingly the seed is best prepped by open air exposure for 30 days at around 50 RH, this lowers the internal moisture content to about 4~5%. Going to a lower moisture content starts to reduce the germination rate.
Your storage system above looks great, IIRC Cadman and others are using a very similar system.
Yes, you should be able to partially remove seed and return the balance to the freezer without affecting the remaining ‘frozen beans’ (just don’t let them defrost).
With things in the freezer for long term I try to use small/tiny zip bags so that I can pull something out quickly without affecting the rest. Basically nickel bags for those who remember.
If I collect pollen, I’ll do so multiple times so I have a few if not many separate zips to pull from or leave frozen with the desiccant.
Can do the same with seeds, but less of an issue if you are fast in taking what’s needed.
I have become the owner of a small hoard of 1.5ml microcentrifuge tubes. which will be used for sharing seeds and pollen storage (if my males ever actually mature this season).
@Gpaw@Omphaloskepsis Thanks for the replies. I do recall the small plastic ‘change’ bags. Which I considered but the tubes seem easier to organize.
This give me the confidence to move ahead on the seed migration.
I usually like to document the process, so hopefully i’ll be able to make a post and video to help others.
For me i was surprised to not be able to find any web images of centrifuge tubes filled with seeds and silica.
The tubes sound way better. I was just underlying the use of smaller “containers” to allow for pulling out small portions of one’s Dewey Decimal System at a time.
