seeds How do you manage your seed collections?

[Drunken Bee]

As I rummaged through a bag full of assorted envelopes and baggies yesterday I came to wondering - how do Hot Pepper users with big seed collections manage their collections?
Specifically I’m wondering:
- for those of you who don’t grow every variety in your collection every year, how often do you grow out a variety to resave seed and ensure viability;
- what steps do you take (if any) to ensure purity when resaving seed;
- do you hold onto seed of the same varieties for multiple years in case of a failure/problem?
- do you collect from multiple plants/pods each year to ensure diversity within landrace/wild types?
- what do your collections/vaults look like practically? Baggies, boxes? Where are they stored?
I’m looking to try and work out a best practice for my own collection without generating unnecessary work…

 

[Black Compass]

I feel like one of those plastic fishing tackle or craft divider boxes would work well. Could print a label or sharpie on the individual cell for each seed variety and should keep them organized and separated. Easy to store and stack on top of, if it seals each cell well enough it could even be stored vertically for less space in the closet or pantry.

 

[Karpasruuti]

I'm a lazy guy. I have one bigger freezer bag, smaller freezer bags inside it, to contain each variety and lastly small zip bags with specific traits. Don't take too much space. Seeds are viable for maybe ten years.

 

[jgundo]

I use Big binders

 

[Marturo]

I do germination test every winter & decide what peppers I must grow for seed.
2" X 3" baggies inside a small paper envelope both labeled by year and variety.
I keep them in airtight ammo cans. I try to collect seeds from first ripe pods not late season pods.

Shot of isolation of plants, I expect a new mystery pepper every now and then, makes for some interesting pods LOL.

 

[SpainChillihead]

I keep the seeds in small zip-lock bags and label them with relevant data (variety, year and code).
Then I have two freezer bags. In one I keep seeds from the last 3 years. In the other bag I keep older seeds.
I store the bags inside a plastic box and the box in the vegetable drawer of the refrigerator (like a russian dolls ).
I usually grow more than one plant per variety and save seeds from each plant.
All the seeds I save are from isolated flowers to protect variety.

 

[Tinkerbelle]

In glassine bags in a box - think I'm going to need a bigger box

 

[Drunken Bee]

Thought I’d share where I ended up….this is a crafting storage box designed for holding beads and stuff….

 

[Byadagi]

- for those of you who don’t grow every variety in your collection every year, how often do you grow out a variety to resave seed and ensure viability;

Seeds are viable for five years easily. Even if they are up to 10 years old some part will still germinate.

- what steps do you take (if any) to ensure purity when resaving seed;

1) Collect seeds from several pods, so at least some of them will be true to type.
2) Varieties that look alike I plant as far as possible from each other. Plants that grow together should be different. So even if some spontaneous hybrid occurs, it can be easily distinguished.
3) I have enough space to keep a 2-3 feet distance between varieties. Eggplants, bush beans, marigolds, cosmos etc.. are planted in between.

- do you hold onto seed of the same varieties for multiple years in case of a failure/problem?

Definitely yes. I keep seeds forever, just can't make myself to throw them away ))

- what do your collections/vaults look like practically? Baggies, boxes? Where are they stored?

Zip-locks labelled with variety and year. Two cardboard boxes - one for seeds I will really use (or at least hope to), another is kinda Doomsday vault.