Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Step1: Chose your best tomatoes, Squeeze out the seeds in a container and let soak for 10 mins in a little water.
Step2: Wash off excess 'tomato meat' under running water in a kitchen sieve.
Step3: Leave to air dry.
Step4: Store in a cool dry place.

I spread them straight out onto paper towel and let them dry so they are stuck to the paper and store them in sheets.

When you want to plant just cut a square of paper around the seed and put in GB. The attached paper acts like a wick and retains moisture to aid germination.

I leave my tomato seeds and pump in some water in a cup to ferment for a week or two. then strain the seeds out and place them on paper towel to dry. I read about this method on a few tomato growing websites a while back and it's worked fairly well for me. Except for when people look at the cup of fermenting goo on the windowsill and chuck it out in disgust.

Interesting - what does the fermentation do? I get pretty good success rate with just the seeds washed in a siv and placed on a paper towel (ala Simon)

Evidently the gelatinous coating around the seeds has a growth inhibitor to stop them germinating inside the tomato, you can either manually wash this off, or ferment it... Supposed to result in very high germination rates, and all the tomato growing sites I visited in the past recommended it as the way to same tommy seeds..

Google search shows a lot of info on many sites.. http://www.google.com.au/search?source= ... =&gs_rfai=

I think the germination rate has more to do with picking the right tomato than anything else. When i breed tomato especially the small cherry types, every seed counts, i plant 25 seed and usually get 25 to germinate, on the odd occasion two or three may not sprout.

The Paper towel method is good for Ap, but a pain in the a$$ when you want single seed for 'controlled planting'.

And the fermenting process takes long and leaves you with a 'cake' of seeds and dry mush that is hard to separate, with the above method a can have single seed ready to store within 30mins after picking the tomys. If in fact there still is growth inhibitors on the seed i am pretty sure a couple days of mother nature will remove this, might set them back 2-4 days but i haven't noticed any difference.

I should do a side by side to see witch one sprouts first.

Dont know about saving seeds but one of my wicking beds has hundreds of tom seedlings coming up

The above documented process would result in individual clean seed that can be stored and retrieved individually for uses such as in a breeding program.

But one of a many ways to collect, save and store seeds for what ever reason the user desires.

Does the same method go for other varieties of plants?

Soak, wash and dry?

how ripe should the tomator be if I wanted to harvest it for seeds?

Over ripe. Let it fall off the plant if possible.

Many plant seeds can be stored basically by gathering them as they dry.Tomatoes take a bit more work.This is very useful ideas that will be referenced long into the future to save tomatoes seeds.