Left to dry for 30-60 days, then placed in either glass vials or plastic prescription drug sealed bags. No problem whatsoever. In future years, they have ALWAYS come up as well as ever. Sometimes the KISS principal can be your best friend Yea John, I agree that over-engineering and unnecessarily complicating things is not very productive and is, in fact, usually a waste of resources. Now my buddy in OH has done it both ways and now does not ferment any seeds for saving. And has had no problems either. I ferment primarily because the process "cleans" the seeds and no repeated rinsings are needed to remove unwanted detritus. If some nasties are dispatched in the process, fine. Below are about 42 gms of fermented and dried seed of one variety, saved in 3 ferments and dumps. These are now in equilibrium (constant weight... ñ 0.1% weight change on successive weighings), with ambient conditions. Reggie

I would be interested to trade with you. I am sending you an email.

This is very confusing but let me see if I can sort some of it out. The first picture - this appears to be a leaf (a tomato leaf is made up of a branch composed of several leaflets) that was cut off a plant. it does not appear to be a stem. Leaves cannot be rooted into a plant. Only small lateral stems (aka suckers) or stem growth tips will root enough to become a plant. Plus if this were a stem sucker or stem growth tip then you would have to strip off all those leaves except for the top tuft for any roots to develop. Plus cuttings should be rooted in moist potting mix rather than water for best success as the roots that form in water aren't the feeder roots the plant needs to survive. The second and third photos also appear to ne leaves, not stems. Leaves have a totally different cortex and all they will do is seal themself off, scab over. That is what they are doing in the photos. For that reason most cuts are made adjacent to the stem itself rather than in the middle of the leaf. The fourth photo is apparently a plant inside but was apparently outside at one time as it has suffered some environmental damage. But without seeing the entire plant that is only a guess. Just remove that leaf and get the plant outside. Indoor plants seldom do well. The outside plants - (1) the condition of losing blooms is called Blossom Drop and you can read all about it in the FAQ here or online. It has many causes most related to stress. Plants that aren't hardened off well before transplanting, poor pollination, over fertilization, air temps, over watering, too small containers, etc. etc. but you will seldom get every bloom on a truss to set fruit so don't expect that. (2) the white spots are environmental and/or minor pest damage and no big deal. Leaves are seldom perfect. The last photo shows over-watering and some early signs of Early Blight. Remove the affected leaf (the whole branch) and begin spraying with the fungicide of your choice. Basically all of these things are normal to some degree with tomato plants so don't let yourself get all caught up in every little detail or it will overwhelm you. So what to do? By some fungicide, read the label carefully, and spray the plants. Then do some research into Blossom Drop as that is the most potentially serious issue, ID what you are doing that may be causing it, and work to correct that problem. Hope this is of some help. Dave

@dirtygardener It’s just an experimental precaution against disease, which also helps dissolve organic debris somewhat. It also releases copper into the water (especially if something acidic is being zapped, or if you zap for a long time, in which case the water turns blue). Copper is antimicrobial. I hypothesize that copper aside, the zapping also helps, but I make no definitive scientific claims. I think there might be something to some things that Hulda Clark said, but I don’t agree with everything she ever said. I can tell you garden-related anecdotes. For instance, I saved and zapped seeds from tomatoes with anthracnose, and the plants I grew didn’t have anthracnose (whether or not the zapper was the reason). Also, I haven’t seen nearly as many signs of alternaria on tomatoes since I started zapping. They're just a few simple anecdotes from a few uses of zapping, though (not published studies). Whether zapping is ever superior to fermenting, zapping is not always superior to fermenting, but I personally prefer it in most regards. I don’t claim that either method is superior. You can do both to the same seeds, for that matter, should you want to do so (be sure to ferment first, if you do); zapping fermented seeds does make them smell better, anyhow. However, if an extremely high germination rate is your primary concern you’d probably be better off fermenting, whether or not you also zap. Zapping doesn’t distinguish between inviable and viable seeds (while with fermenting, the sunken seeds are usually viable, and only some of the floating seeds are viable). With zapping, you just get them all, the same way you would if using hydrogen peroxide or bleach. However, there are probably loads of other ways to sift out the inviable ones, should we discover them. Fermenting also is kind of like digesting; I think that process wakes some seeds up that would be harder to germinate otherwise. I’m personally confident enough with zapping that I’m no longer anxious about disease in my garden. So, whether or not it technically works, I’m happy. I’ve been very curious if it would cause any mutations in seeds or stuff like that, but I haven’t seen an increased rate of obvious mutation among plants from zapped seeds. In fact, I’ve probably seen more mutations from seeds I haven’t zapped. You’d need a lot more plants to draw any conclusions there. Disease aside, I should try growing several seeds from the same fruit, some zapped, and some not zapped, and observe if there are any obvious differences between the two groups. I'm the only one who uses zappers on seeds, to my knowledge. Here’s what I do: Supplies needed: • A Z4EX (I got mine from zapperguy.net; I’m not affliated with them, nor with any other company) • A 9-volt battery (the ones that read 9.6v on a multimeter are ideal; the Sunbeam ones at the Dollar Tree are fine; rechargeable ones usually read less then 9.6v) • Copper pipes (I got mine from The Home Depot; they cut them to size for me—probably about five inches long each; these aren’t as good as the pipes that come with the zapper, but as zapping things in water can corrode the pipes, you may want some cheap ones for the purpose) • A widemouth quart or pint jar • Tap water • Fruits with seeds • A fine mesh strainer (about 3 to 5 inches in diameter), or a blender • A countdown timer, or a clock • Labeled empty herbal tea bags (if you’re doing multiple kinds of seeds at once) I grow plants, such as tomatoes, watermelon, muskmelons, peppers, ground cherries, wonderberries, Morelle de Balbis, eggplant, tomatillos, West India burr gherkins, and so forth. I remove the seeds from the fruits. How to do this differs depending on the plant. For tomatoes, a fast way is to cut each fruit in half, get a fine strainer, turn the faucet on and wash the seeds from the fruits into the strainer (but the fruit tastes better if you tediously take the seeds out without using water to help). If the seeds have a lot of gel, you can optionally either ferment them first, or else put them in the blender on the lowest setting for a second or two, to remove the gel sacks. The blender method is very effective at removing the gel sakcs, but it does destroy and mar some seeds, however (on some varieties more than others). Instead of fermenting or blending, since I like to get nearly as many seeds per fruit as possible, I usually just use my thumbs and fingers to rub the gel sacks off on the strainer, while I have some water going (it takes some time and effort, and skill, but yeah). The gel sacks don’t always come off perfectly by rubbing, but it’s not the end of the world, since zapping dissolves them somewhat, too (the seeds may stick together when they dry, if it’s not completely gone, but it’s easy to break them apart and get nice-looking seeds without gel on them). I’ve recently taken to using baking soda to assist in removing the gel from some seeds while rubbing (it helps for some varieties more than others). Leaving the gel in its entirely on the seeds should be fine, if you’re confident that zapping works, if you don’t mind sticky seeds. However, gel sacks are said to contain things that inhibit germination (and while my experience tells me tomatoes will sprout with gel sacks on them, I don’t know whether zapping would denature those germination-inhibiting substances). Anyway, then I have a quart or pint wide-mouth jar with two copper pipes in it. I put the cleaned seeds inside labeled empty herbal tea bags. I tie the bags and put them in the jar. I can put up to about 15 kinds of seeds in a jar with the standard I decided to set (although another standard may or may not be as effective). I fill the jar two or three inches with water (maybe a little more sometimes); I make sure all the seeds are wet, and ideally submerged (as long as they’re wet, though, they should get zapped). I attach the zapper’s alligator clips to the copper pipes. I turn the zapper on the 15hz setting for 15 minutes. Directly afterward I turn it on 2.5khz for 15 minutes. Directly afterward, I turn it on 30khz for 15 minutes. Zapping a lot longer doesn’t kill the seeds, in my experience. If the water turns blue, that’s okay (it just means there’s more copper in the water, probably due to acids in whatever you’re zapping). Then I remove the water from the jar and the herbal tea bags (I usually rinse the seeds afterward, but not always). I put the herbal tea bags on brown paper bags on a table in a room with a fan going nearby (to dry). When they’re dry, or when I need to open the bags, I like to put them in those plastic zipper bead bags. When I put the seeds in storage, I put them in a cheap foam cooler in my room. The foam cooler is mostly just a buffer against rapid temperature and humidity changes, while keeping things dark, but it’s also a handy box to put them in. It should be noted that seeds in water will get a strong and thorough zap, due to the water, the small quantity of stuff being zapped, and to how the electrodes are extremely close together. I think my 15 minutes per frequency is probably overkill. 3 minutes per frequency is probably enough to do about the same thing on seeds, but I haven’t tested the 3-minute way more than on one year on a few plants.