Will 35 year old seeds sprout

[Hash Hound]

welcome Skinboy
this guy has had luck, might want to check his thread out
OTM's DIY Bubble Cloning & Sprouting 40 Year Old Seeds & Current RDWC Harvest

good luck

 

[Skinboy]

I can’t quite believe what I am seeing but I have cut one open and this is what I can see through high power magnifier...its unbelievable after just 48 hours in a bowl with tissue
I had them stored since 1981 in this coconut.
I’ll leace the others for a few more days and see if the roots can tap out on their own

 

[Hash Hound]

I've had a few crack open and ooze out some white crap, but no tap roots

 

[Skinboy]

I added some concentrated cooled black tea water to the dish last night to see if that will accelerate the process

 

[Hash Hound]

tried that too, no luck

 

[Big Sur]

Use gibberelic acid to break them out of dormancy. I used peroxide on some old NorCal skunk beans and I got 6/7 to germinate. 3 stalled out and 3 grew cotyledon leaves. One damped off and a mini slug got another, leaving me one still growing here.

 

[Escalabrador]

Hi

Try throwing a few seed in a worm bin with fresh worm castings if you can. I have seen in other site a member explaining with detail about that and he got great success with 25-30 years old Mexican and Colombian bag seeds.

I have tried with bought in the store worm castings but it didn't work.

 

[JCsuperstar]

I have some seeds I have kept since the mid 1970s. Panama Red, Colombian Gold, a few rare landraces, ... Kept them in a bank bag, refrigerated with desiccant packs for close to 50 years. I do have GA3 (gibberillic acid) used to stimulate gender changes to create feminized seeds. It is supposedly useful in germinating very old seeds as well. Pulled a dozen fat and promising looking ones. No paper towels. Would consider dumping them a quarter inch under some Ocean Forest. But has anyone credibly worked with older seeds and GA3?

 

[Big Sur]

I have used GA3 on old 1977 Colombian Gold beans here that refused to germinate in wet paper towels. Usually it only takes a few days, but after a week, still nothing. So I soaked them in a paper towel with water and 100ppm GA3 overnight. Then after 3 more days, 3 out of the 5 seeds popped tails. They are about 3 inches tall now. Slow growing, but growing.

 

[KingNyx]

tried that too, no luck

Hypothetically speaking, if someone could get one to crack for you, would you be willing to donate for a clone in exchange if it worked?

 

[Hash Hound]

hypothetically yes

 

[TorturedSoul]

Been so long since you started this thread that I don't remember (if it was ever mentioned), so:

Have you tried cutting any of the Oaxacan seeds open to see if there is still a viable "embryo" (tiny unformed seedling) inside?

 

[KingNyx]

hypothetically yes

Hypothetically if I ever reach 50 posts, I have 3 ideas and i dont mind sharing in case you wanna give it a go.

1. 50/50 mix of hydrogen peroxide 3%, and 200ppm nutrient solution for veg, plus seaweed extract. Soak seeds in mixture for half a day then transfer to very slightly moist paper towel in ziplock bag.

The nutrients, auxins, gibberelins and amino acids should soak in and replace the ones the seedling has exhausted staying alive this long as well as the nutrients that broke down naturally.

2. If that doesnt work then same method repeated with a extremely low DC voltage applied across the papertowel.

3. Using microscope to surgically remove embryo and place in sterile culturing solution.

 

[Conradino23]

I’ve seen tissue culture being very effective in germinating of old seeds. One member here managed to recover his Maui Wowie 78 this way.

 

[Escalabrador]

I wonder what happened with all those old seeds in the Mexican brickweed schwag when Mexican weed was still landrace sativa. There would be literally tons of them!

 

[Big Sur]

I wonder what happened with all those old seeds in the Mexican brickweed schwag when Mexican weed was still landrace sativa. There would be literally tons of them!

There were hundreds of tons of seeds. At least a third of the weight of most bricked weed was seed. Some were planted by the likes of me and grew into plants and were harvested and smoked. Most of them died from being stored at higher temperatures and/or exposed to humidity. All the Mexican seed along with all the Colombian and Thai stick seeds, and early heirloom beans in the late 70s and early 80s. Above 60 deg F. even in a sealed jar you will lose about half your seeds in 2 years. By 4 years they are going to all be tired and about shot. The more humid they are kept and the higher the temp, the faster they go off. At refrigerator temps below 40 deg F and above freezing, they will last up to 10 years if sealed and kept bone dry. At 0 deg F. they will last virtually forever, and being kept dry is not as big a factor the lower the temps.

 

[Escalabrador]

Thank you for your reply.

I have never had the luck to get seeds from weed because all we have got here is Moroccan soap bar. I really feel envy of people who got seeds from real sativa buds. But that is something it seems it is no longer going to happen. Nowadays here it is possible to find some homegrown weed but very little and all of the strains are modern couchlocking low ceiling boring hybrids which lack all interest. Also seeds found in those buds grown from feminized strains are hermaphoditic. The problem now is most seed sold under the name sativa have significant amount of Afghan/Hindu Kush genetics which completely ruins the psychoactivity from my point of view. You can try to look for the many Acapulco Gold strains or lines sold by a lot of seedbanks which don't resemble by far a sativa. Even Thai and Haze from most seedbanks have wide leaflets and typical indica hybrid pattern. Almost all people have crossed their old strains or those seeds inherited from a grower to another have been subjected to several crossings with modern hybrid strains, sometimes even accidentally because modern western growers tend to grow many strains in little space. Also indoor growing tend to select for stunt plants because the vertical space is limited ans also increase yield under lamps as electricity is expensive. So few growers have resisted the temptation to develop their own hybrid strain, along in the past as today everybody seems to hate and avoid males as hell.

In the homeland of those strains most of them have vanished replaced by the modern hyped short fast strains with thick bright buds and strong stink. But the high isn't bright anymore. In fact I wold don't call that psychoactive effects a propper "high".

I have read waxed seeds have high germination rates after 8 years at room temperature. So I wonder if seeds preserved in an ambient depleted of oxygen and humidity could still germinate at a low % at least. But such conditions as such seeds must be very difficult to find even if tons of them have been around some decades ago.

Greetings.

 

[Big Sur]

Yes to all the above. Pure sativas are getting rare, regular photo seeds are even getting rare, and hermie, auto and indica genetics are pretty much in everything out there now. And on purpose from the likes of GHS. Such is the fate of wind pollinated plants like corn (maize). But for a flip side to things here is a site that only has regular seeds, many of which are actually pure sativas. Try looking at regseed dot com. I have gotten several strains from them, and they are the real deal. Especially seeds from RSC (Real Seed Company). They have a large selection of landraces there as well.

As for seeds in wax, actually if they had a good amount of hash oil on them in the bud that hardened to resin they can last a lot longer. In which case you need to scratch the seed coat to get them to germinate. I use a nail file on my old seeds and scuff the seed surface before I put them in damp paper towels to germinate.

As for hash not having seeds, that was also the case in California until the late 1970s. We did not have any indica seeds, as indica all came in the form of hashish from Lebanon, Morocco, and Afghanistan. We had mostly seeded sativa strain colas bricked or loose or tied to sticks from Thailand, Colombia and Mexico. We also got seeds in weed from Panama, Jamaica, and occasionally other places in Central America and Central and South Africa, and SE Asian weed from Cambodia and Vietnam, and Kona and Maui weed from Hawaii. In the early 1970s some Afghani hybrid strains popped up in California, like Cali-O and California Red Bud. But they were rare. By the end of the 1970s indica hybrids started to become more common, like in skunk and S.A.G.E. By the 1980s things moved north to the Emerald Triangle, and lots of indicas became more prevalent, like Mendo Purps, Purple Urkle, and Humboldt. Northern Lights came out of the Seattle aea, and Blueberry came out of Eugene, Oregon. By the mid 1980s skunk, what would become known as Haze, Cali-O, and Durban Poison were all exported from California to Amsterdam, and the indica hybrid breeding went into high gear.

Funny, in 1982 my oldest brother insisted that my landrace strains were too common and inferior, and I should grow Nevil's Amsterdam strains. He had all the early Holland seed catalogs then. I pointed out to him that Nevil's genetics were all based on strains from Northern California, and I had seeds for them in the freezer. Also at that time, seeds were still commmon in weed, and so they were essentially free and thus worthless. So why would I pay $5 for a single seed, when I had hundreds of seeds on ice? Or I could buy a lid with seeds in it? So I continued to grow Mexican and Colombian landrace weed. Fast forward to a month ago and my brother emailed me saying that he has all the latest Amsterdam srains, and that clones are passe', and my landraces and heirlooms are all passe'. He is still hooked on the indica feminized hybrids from Holland. I told him to "go f* himself." I have not had much to do with that brother for over a decade. My other brother and I grow all my landraces and heirlooms from my seed collection, and some local clones. Passe' my asse'. My seeds and clones are in demand. My oldest brother has no clue that I have vastly expanded my original landrace, heirloom and clone collection.

Anyway, I will grow and smoke my Colombian and Kona Golds, and Maui Waui, Oaxacan, Durban Poison, and others. All sativa photos for the most part (Maui Waui is an exception, and a good early hybrid). I grew Blue Dream, GDP, White Widow and several OG cuts a few years ago just to see what all the hype was about. I was disappointed. It has for the most part all been rendered into hash oil and blended with oils and bees wax for skin creams. BTW: Freezing seeds is the way to preserve them long term. They can last virtually forever frozen at 0 deg F. Far better than wax. Short of freezing them, put them in the refrigerator in a sealed jar with dry rice. They should last for up to 10 years that way.

 

[Bettunya]

I visited an old friend to catch up with and turn to him on to a bud of my NL. He pulled out an old box from back in the day that had all his old bong, pipes etc. AND he had bags of seeds I had given him about 35 years ago.

A huge zip loc bag almost full with old school Oaxacan seeds. And a few other small envelopes with maybe 100 seeds in each marked; Colombian gold, Kono gold, and Hawaiian. I remember each of them being excellent smoke.

What's the chance if any that a few will sprout?
Any advice on how you would go about it to give them the best shot at sprouting?

So glad to have found this forum! Hi everyone. Go for it. I am growing four plants now from 50-year-old seeds. They were stored in the sleeve of a double album since 1970. Five seeds took 3 days to germinate with paper towel method and four survived. They're all super healthy and about 2 and a half feet tall now. One is definitely female and the other three, at day 69, still have zero signs of sex. Wondering if that might take longer in the older seeds? On the three non-females, only leaf buds where the male pre-flowers are supposed to be. This is my first time growing so much to learn. But sometimes the old seeds work, for sure.

 

[ResinSaurusRex]

Try and assist the seed by making a small Crack on the end where the root pops out. If it's viable it'll assist. If the seed is dead you will know. Light pressure with some needle nose pliers will do the trick.