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Through The Veil Registered: 07/30/13 Posts: 23 Last seen: 8 years, 7 months |
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Storage and Shelf Life Extension of Hawaiian Baby Woodrose.
I am particularly fond of HBW. I like them better than Morning Glory, even though it took me years to have the mediums to buy HBW online, provided they are not sold locally. But once I tried them I grew instantly fond of them, they are way more practical in several different ways. So down to the skinny: I bought 350 seeds in order to have a stack for a long time, in case war erupts or anything happens that could render access to these difficult/impossible. To achieve the maximum shelf life possible I did my research, and found recounts of people using these seeds, still potent, after up to 6 and 8 years, without any special care beyond a pierced bag inside a drawer away form light... no extra considerations to temperature or humidity, specially because these seeds were simply forgotten for years and found later, still viable. I was not going to let chance take care of my seeds, so I did my research on long-term storage. I found many tutorials and the basics are: 1. Dryness 2. No light 3. Very cold to no freezing temperatures. The details are: 4. Hermetic Jars 5. Dessication of Seeds 6. Baggies 7. Silica Gel Highlights of my general investigation: *Seeds must be dry before storage, several seeds behave different: Recalcitrant seeds do not tolerate dessication nor freezing temps. Orthodox seeds tolerate both. *Most tutorials recommend drying seeds down to 6-7% humidity content, this is done through mechanical, professional, ways or by simple Silica Dessication, basically you let a 1:1 of Seeds:Silica sit on a tupper or jar, with a lid on, for two weeks, changing the silica each time it saturates, colour changing silica is best. *Once one has dried seeds, then the best is to pack them in hermetic baggies, and then those baggies must be stored in sealed jars. Jars must be GLASS, plastic lets humidity through with the years, even metal/plastic lids on glass are a no-no. *The baggies must be double sided aluminium on plastic bags, the plastic lets humidity in with time, aluminium does not. Also the baggies must let all the light out for good measure. *Once the dry seeds are bagged, they are stored in a jar alongside an equal amount (weight) of silica (silica:seeds), the silica is left in the jar WITH the baggies NOT IN the baggies. *The Jar is stored in a freezer. Rationale: *Dry seeds have their metabolism halted, and wont get their innards crushed by water crystals when frozen. *Low temps keep everything nice for years, check this amazing feat by Russian scientists: http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/0 *Silica dries the seeds when stored 1:1 in a small sealed tupper or jar, sharing the air, it usually takes two weeks, sometimes it is needed to reactivate the silica several times during this period, depending on the seeds. *The double sided baggies keep the humidity and light out. There are one sided aluminium/plastic baggies, don't be fooled, the side without aluminium will let humidity in, eventually. *Having the seeds packed in individual packages with just enough seeds as you would use in one or two occasions is best, provided each time you open the frozen jar to take a small amount you don't compromise the whole batch. Fluctuations of temperature above freeze once they are frozen can shorten the seed's life. You see, on top of this, each time you open the frozen jar hot humid air gets in and it condensates inside the jar, capturing the humidity in. If the seeds were on bulk without baggies, the humidity would condensate ON the seeds each time the jar is opened outside the fridge. In theory letting the Jar achieve room temperature before opening it would avoid the condensation, but that means fluctuation of temperature each time you take some 10 or 20 seeds out, hence the usage of individual packets. *Leaving Silica Gel inside the jar when storing it in the freezer will take care of the humidity that gets in each time you open the jar. When the Silica Gel changes colour(get colour changing silica) it is time to re-activate it. Extrapolating Researched Data and HBW Specifics. First of all, information on seed behaviour (Recalcitrant vs Orthodox) is scarce. As I already mentioned only Orthodox seeds tolerate dessication and freezing. There is one database on seed kinds and information, but there was non about Hawaiian Baby Woodrose. Secondly, the taxonomic name of these seeds seems to vary from author to author just take a look at the wikipedia article: Quote: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ar Now, I dug and dug the net and found an academic paper on this Order of plants and their seed behaviour, by the following Indian author: Kariyawasam Marthinna Gamage Gehan Jayasuriya http://www.researchgate.net/publ The paper was protected so I contacted a kind woman in an university who facilitated this and a second paper she thought would be of help. (Links to the documents for you to download will be available at the bottom of this post under "Resources") At first I only read the first paper, which had the information I was looking for. What I found is this: Regardless of "Argyreia" not being considered one of the 11 Genera of the Convolvulaceae Family in this paper, "Convolvulus" does appear as a genus of said Family. And as we saw in the wikipedia article, Hawaiian Baby Woodrose is also known as: "Convolvulus nervosus and Convolvulus speciosus." On top of this the "Convolvulus" genus is next to the "Ipomea" genus(morning glory) genus in the phylogenetic tree of this Family. Bottom line: This is the genus we are looking for, this paper does not consider "Argyreia" a genus at all. Having established the latter, I read the whole paper and it addresses seed dormancy and activation in the Convolvulaceae Order, and basically 9 genera are Orthodox and have Physical Dormancy (included Convolvulus), the other two are Recalcitrant and do not have Physical Dormancy. The two genera that are Recalcitrant and have no Physical Dormancy are also the farthest genera from our seeds of interest: "Convolvulus and Ipomea". What I learnt from this paper is that not only are HBW seeds ORTHODOX, hence fit for dessication and freeze, but also Physically Dormant. Physically Dormant? I have been mentioning this, and it was also some extra detail I did not understand, until I read the whole paper and understood it: Basically, dormant seeds are coated in such a way, that NO HUMIDITY is let into them, that way they don't start their metabolism and "wake-up". In the experiments done for the paper investigation, seeds were BROKEN in a corner in order to let water in. In a couple of other tests they had to leave the dormant seeds (of this same family) in WET sand for a couple weeks with fluctuating warm to hot temperatures, before the seed sturdy coat naturally broke and let the water in. Does Physical Dormant means, then, that there is no humidity on the seed, naturally? I was no sure (because at this point I did not read the second paper), so I decided to do the dessication process just in case and to be sure (the first paper does NOT deal with dessication nor freezing). Now the actual process: Applying Oneself: 1. Colour Changing Silica (50gr aprox). Changes from orange to deep green when saturated. 2. Relative Humidity Indicator Card. This one was never mentioned in the teks I found on the web, but I will use them for good measure. Read at lavender, the colour mixture of light pink and blue indicates RH%. This one indicates around 35%RH at the moment the picture was taken 3. Some 350 seeds (about 40gr) are placed on jewellery box tops, used as trays, on top of the Silica Gel, inside a tupper. The seeds are not in direct contact with the gel, but they do share air. The RH Indicator Card is added right before closing the lid. 4. After a couple of hours the RH Indicator Card inside the tupper shifts to 10% - which is as low as it indicates, these are packed in a vacuum and they always indicate 10% from the get go. I reckon there is as low as 0% humidity in there. The idea is to let the tupper sit for two weeks in order for any possible humidity in the seeds to transfer into the beads. 5. After 2 weeks this was the result. Most teks on the net say one would have to re-activate the desiccant from two to three times in two weeks while the seeds dry-up. In the case of these HBW seeds the RH% was kept under 10% and the Silica beads did not -noticeably- change colour. There is a small chance some water was transferred into the beads for the colour between <10% SATURATION and 35% saturation is quite similar: I know in my pictures the beads look rather on the yellow side, but that is because they are dispersed on a wide surface and photographed on the air against a white background with plenty of light in the room, after gathering them in the bottle they look more on the orange side. 6. By now the bags are ready to be used: These bags are black on the outside and silver in the inside, on both sides. The latter is key, many bags are sold with aluminium and solid colours on JUST ONE SIDE, while the other side is just see-through plastic. 7. Seeds are stashed in these bags, and then each bag labelled. *HWB --> Acronym. this way momma wont know much when snooping into the freezer *1/4 2013 --> First quarter of 2013, date of harvest. *Waikoloa, Hawaii --> City of origin. Hawaiian grown everything is stronger. *20x and 100x --> 20 seeds and 100 seeds packages. 20x is better to be fetched on a hurry this same year, without disrupting a large batch of seeds. 100X is better for longer term storage. 8. This classic Italian glass jar is ready. It is new for good measure, but you can use an old one as long as the mechanism closes tight and you ENSURE to use a new seal rubber band, which are sold cheap. 9. This is how the HBW Stash Jar looks like at the end: The Humidity Indicator Card drops to >10% in 10 minutes or so. Compare it against an Indicator Card on the outside: 10. Place the Jar in the fridge, and check on the Humidity Indicator every now and then. If the Humidity Indicator rises it will probably do so AFTER the Silica beads change colour to deep green, but it is there for good measure. Conclusions: The Indicator Card should last some years, I will certainly replace it once every year (they go for less than a couple bucks each). The Silica Beads are re-activated through heat and can be reused over and over again, I haven't found an exact number but I reckon they will go for decades. I would change mine every 5 years or so. Bear in mind these seeds are for storage for a post-apocalyptic scenario, I would certainly rotate seeds every 3 or 4 years, but in case these are not available I reckon they will last at LEAST a decade stored this way, I bet they would still be useful 20 years later. Some papers referenced in seed storage sites mention that in some experiments seeds are just as well preserved in room temperature as in the freezer as long as they are really dried. I rather freeze them because my "room temperature" is bloody hot, and it fluctuates a lot. Now we know these seeds have no or close to no humidity in them, probably due to their Physical Dormancy physiology. The latter is the reason why I publish this, because most of the literature you will find on seed storage addresses fruit seeds or crop seeds that are naturally humid, it is not the case with HBW's. I am about to receive a second batch from a different Hawaiian city along with more Silica gel, and to be honest I will still do the two week dessication process, just for good measure. Physically Dormant seeds are so water-resistant that they need to be scarified to have a 100% rate of germination against around 30% just by long exposure to humidity and warm temperatures fluctuation. I hope this guide is thorough and teaches someone about these wonderful seeds. All my respect and love to the wonderful researcher that made the elucidation of all my doubts possible: Kariyawasam Marthinna Gamage Gehan Jayasuriya Resources: Phylogeny of seed dormancy in Convolvulaceae, subfamily Convolvuloideae (Solanales) https://docs.google.com/file/d/0 [This is the paper I based this post on] Dormancy, germination requirements and storage behaviour of seeds of Convolvulaceae (Solanales) and evolutionary considerations https://docs.google.com/file/d/0 [If you actually read this paper you will notice they DO mention that the two Recalcitrant, NON-Physically Dormant, genera in this family are the only two with high water content, around 45%. Whereas our Physically Dormant friends are <13%. So yeah.. you better read this one too, it even explains how frozen seeds will later germinate] -------------------- - “Through the Gates”, H.P. Lovecraft. Edited by popckorn (09/09/13 06:13 PM)
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