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storage Does freezing ur peppers damage the seeds?

Very good question KingChile!

I've heard that growers have been able to germinate seeds from frozen peppers.
Of course the seeds would need to be thawed out first. I would also imagine it would have an affect with the germination percentage.
 
Yes.
Most of the time.
 
I just take a few dozen out, stick them in a little paper envelope, and set somewhere warm---not hot----for a week or so.
 
Then they go in "the seed vault".
 
(actually a small tackle box full of seed envelopes)
 
Keep them cool and dry and they will last for years, though the germination rates will usually fall a bit every year.
 
megahot said:
Very good question KingChile!

I've heard that growers have been able to germinate seeds from frozen peppers.
Of course the seeds would need to be thawed out first. I would also imagine it would have an affect with the germination percentage.
Not impossible.
But it all depends. If your freezer is too cold, or they freeze too fast, and if the seeds have enough moisture content, they will crack and not germinate, or if they freezer burn, they are dead.
 
Why risk it.
1 pod should have enough for yourself (if you are not planting acreage) and a few pods will give you loads to share.
 
Most pods, anyway.
Always an exception to the rule.
 
Yea i always set aside 2 or 3 pods to deseed so i have seeds for them unless im asked not to keep seeds of a certain variety then i just eat them or turn them into some kinda sauce lol
 
Gotrox said:
Not impossible.
But it all depends. If your freezer is too cold, or they freeze too fast, and if the seeds have enough moisture content, they will crack and not germinate, or if they freezer burn, they are dead.
 
Why risk it.
1 pod should have enough for yourself (if you are not planting acreage) and a few pods will give you loads to share.
 
Most pods, anyway.
Always an exception to the rule.
I would consider it an experiment rather than a risk.
I suppose it would be more of a risk if you were dependant on the seeds sprouting and had no other dry seeds to germinate.
 
I should pin this response somewhere for handy reference, as I keep posting the same thing......
 
Seeds freeze in the wild all the time and are fine - why would they behave differently in a man-made freezer? I've heard so many people say crazy stuff, including that the seed would basically implode on itself if frozen and that the ground outside doesn't actually freeze. (Which is supposedly why seeds in the wild are fine, but ask any farmer around here and they will laugh at the idea of the ground not freezing, too.) Ha! To prove a point, I took pods that had been in my freezer for at least 6 months and removed the seeds. Did I take time to set them out, let them dry, blah blah blah? No. Stuck them on a damp coffee filter and put them in a plastic tub on top the the refrigerator. 
 
My germination rate? 100%. Why? Because the seeds were viable - from pods that were fully ripe when placed in the freezer. The fact is that you will have varying germination rates from pods that are not fully ripe even if the pods were never frozen. So if you have pods you want to just toss in a ziploc and put in the freezer, or pods already in the freezer you want to harvest seeds from, go ahead. Just make sure they are fully ripe. 
 
(most hot peppers are not cold weather tolerable, so therefore don't freeze in nature.)
This is also why they are considered annuals and not perennials where freezing temperatures are found, and why they don't grow wild where it freezes.
There is a reason most supers have a longer growing season than is possible in most of the U.S.
 
But nature is forgiving.
For instance, she doesn't require us to pass the seed through a bird's gut to get them to sprout, as she has designed.
But try that one on a blackberry seed without soaking it in acid for a bit----or several others.
Bird of Paradise, for instance.
Need sandpaper on that one.
 
I won't argue the fact some are sucessfull at using frozen seed, that is obvious.
I just don't intend to take the chance when every seed counts.
 
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