By RUSSEEL T. NAGATA
By RUSSEEL T. NAGATA
University of Hawaii
at Manoa
College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources
Komohana Research and Extension Center, Hilo
It’s not whether you “eat to live” or “live to eat,” plants are one of the three or four essential parts of our existence. Over the millennia of civilization, we have learned to nurture plants in order that we are able to have some control over our destiny.
Garden seeds, whether for vegetables, ornamentals or fruits, provide ways to restart our garden plantings season after season throughout our lifetime. And if “seeds” is used loosely, we can include cuttings, keiki, and other forms of vegetative planting material. For many, seeds form a chain from the past to the present and a link into the future providing a path and a sense of security as we venture forward. Seeds are the starting point of many good things and without seeds the world we know would not exist.
Seeds can be a precious commodity to gardeners, especially when they represent a link to our being, as would heirloom seeds handed down from one generation to the next. Precious as these seeds may be, their treatment during production, harvesting and storage varies considerably from individual to individual.
When saving seeds, are you a hoarder that will keep everything that passes in front of you? Do you have boxes and boxes full of seeds?
Do you store seeds under the proper conditions to favor their survival and vigor?
Do you plant each and every variety of your collection at least every one to four years and save seeds from those plantings to keep your lines fresh?
Are you the keeper and supplier of seeds for friends, neighbors and seed exchanges?
Whatever type of seed saver you are, it is best that you keep the healthiest and best seeds for your future plantings. Larger seeds tend to have more food reserves and give rise to vigorous healthy seedlings that are better able to weather adversity. Seeds that are free of insect damage and disease are also a good starting point to prevent their introduction into your garden from the start and really get a jump in infecting your garden.
After harvesting your seed, use caution when drying the seeds. Whether using heat from a dryer or the sun, external heat sources can over heat your seeds and damage them by killing the living embryo within. A shaded patio or work area with good ventilation and protection from the rain and wind works well, as would an air conditioned room.
Layer your seeds or seed pods in a single layer for good, even drying. Using a shallow pan or screen box raised a few inches will result in more uniform drying as would gathering the seeds in a mound and redistributing into a single layer.
In maintaining vigor of many vegetable and flower seeds, low temperatures and humidity are the best for the long term viability of seeds. One of the fastest ways to weaken and kill many of your seeds is to subject them to heat and high humidity. Temperatures in the mid 80s, with relative humidity in the 80-to-90 percentile, will weaken and kill many garden seeds.
In general, the best practical storage condition for garden seeds for the home gardener is the rule of 100. Simply stated, the rule of 100 is that the relative humidity plus the Fahrenheit temperature should equal 100. For example, if the storage temperature is 50 degrees, than the relative humidity of the storage container should be 50 percent.
Many gardeners prefer to keep only open-pollinated and heirloom seeds, as these tend to breed truer to the type that was originally obtained. For others, and for certain crops, it doesn’t matter since the crop had inherited variability like those found in many of the local pumpkins grown in Hawaii.
Growing of the same heirloom or open-pollinated crops is fine if everything stayed the same. As all of you know, the garden is a dynamic place where change is occurring all the time. The climate and environment is slowly changing where temperatures are warming ever so slowly and the rain patterns are shifting. Extreme weather is becoming common in many areas.
However, the fastest changes that are affecting us are the amount of diseases and plant pests that are arriving from geographic locations outside the state and settling in our beautiful gardens.
We can choose to remain with our current plant varieties and learn how to manage pest and diseases if it is possible. We could chose not to grow all susceptible plant varieties, but that may lead to a very bare table in a few years.
The addition of new varieties that resist pest and disease to your garden mix may be the best solution for continued sustainability. Plants with host plant resistance that naturally protect plants from diseases and pest offer the best solution. Host plant resistance reduces the need to apply pesticides for the control of certain pests.
For those of you who want to improve your seed-saving skill, The Kohala Center will be having a two-day workshop as part of the Hawaii State Public Seed Initiative on the Basics of Seed Saving, Nov. 3-4 at the Amy B.H. Greenwell Botanical Garden in Kona.
There is a fee for this workshop. For more information please go to http://kohalacenter.org/seedbasicsworkshop/hawaii.html or search Kohala Center.
For more information on this and other gardening topics, please visit the CTAHR electronic publication website at http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/Site/Info.aspx or visit any of the local Cooperative Extension Service offices around the Island. I can be reached at russelln@hawaii.edu.