Hello, friends, steemians, here I am again with my agricultural problems; And it is that more and more people are interested in the cultivation of self-consumption, which means that they want to depend less on the vegetables sold in supermarkets, that is, instead of buying them, they want to produce them in their gardens. It is wonderful and interesting to enjoy the vegetables harvested in our gardens; We all know that plants propagate through their seeds, others by cuttings and rhizomes, but this time I want to talk about the seeds and how to conserve them. The seeds represent the first step to start planting, so it is important to learn: how to obtain, select and preserve the seeds of the plants we want to grow at home.

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How to obtain our seeds?

Then, I bring you some recommendations to obtain seeds, specifically vegetables because they are the easiest to plant at home because they are small, such as parsley, cilantro, basil, carrots, beets, garlic, paprika, oregano, tomatoes, onions and chives.

Acquire seeds in agricultural stores:

• Acquiring seeds in agricultural stores is an alternative for those who wish to start a crop, these seeds have the advantage that they have already been carefully selected and treated, in order to guarantee a high percentage of germination, but before buying any kind of seeds, it is important to read the instructions and details on the label, as there are plant seeds for short, medium and long cycles; the period of luminosity is vital for the normal development of the plant; a seed can germinate in any climate, but if the plant is not in its ideal environment, in terms of climate, it will have problems to continue with its vegetative cycle; therefore it is recommended that the seeds that are purchased correspond to the climate where we are going to establish them taking into account the hours of sun and temperature.
• In addition to the aforementioned, it is advisable to buy seeds that are not expired, that is why we must check the package and find the date of issue and expiration.

How to get our own seeds? Another way to acquire the seeds, is taking them directly from the fruits we want to plant, such as tomatoes, peppers, etc., In these cases, what we need is to buy some of these fruits and extract the seeds, for example if we want to plant tomatoes, we must buy some fruit in the market to extract the seeds, but for this it is necessary that they are ripe, with an intense red color, of good size and healthy, and also, that they do not present deformations or signs of diseases. Likewise we can do with other fruits such as peppers, ajies or any other fruit that we want to reproduce.

In green leafy vegetables, such as parsley, coriander, chives or bulbs such as onions, which we had already planted, we can wait until these reach their maximum development, until the stage of flowering and let the seeds dry in the panicle, and once dried these are extracted and stored and then used in new crops.

flower with onion seeds:

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Process for the conservation and storage of seeds

For a farmer it is important to have healthy seeds, that is to say that they are very well preserved so that at the moment of being used, they are free of bacteria and can germinate at 100%. To ensure that the seeds remain healthy during the time, it is necessary to submit them to a drying process after being extracted from the fruits to store them.

Seed drying process:

Once the seeds of the fruits are collected, we subject them to a drying process, which consists of eliminating the moisture in the seed at 100%. This process is of utmost importance to maximize the subsequent longevity of the seeds, it is important that this process be carried out correctly, since an incomplete drying would have catastrophic results when we submit the seeds to low temperatures, while drying too much fast could damage the embryos.

The objective of the drying process is to reduce the moisture content of the seed to a value that allows to reduce its metabolic activity as much as possible, and to avoid freeze damage when subjected to low temperatures.

How to remove moisture in the seeds?
Once the seeds of the fruits have been extracted, it is necessary to eliminate the moisture content to 100% in order to save them, the best method to dry the seeds is to place them in a warm and airy environment, we can use a domestic fan to ventilate them and thus achieve a drying, although a little slow but effective. Some farmers dry the seeds with the sun, this method is feasible, but an excess of sun could burn the seeds and damaging the embryo that is the life of the seed.

How to achieve the correct conservation and storage of seeds?
For our seeds to be kept for a certain time, it is important to keep them isolated to avoid being contaminated by external agents, and not be attacked by insects or bacteria; There is a wide range of containers or containers to pack seeds, of various shapes and materials, from paper and aluminum envelopes to glass jars and cans of different metals. More than the form or the material, what matters of the container is the hermeticity, which is what will prevent the seed from absorbing moisture and contaminating and affecting the germplasm in some way.

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The recommended containers for the conservation and storage of seeds

Glass containers are the best containers for the conservation of seeds in the short and medium term, especially those that have a good closure, type "jar of jam (better if they are provided with a rubber gasket)". These have the advantage that you can access the seeds inside without having to discard them, taking care that they are always well closed and handled in a very dry environment. In addition, being transparent, they allow to add inside a small amount of silica gel that will serve as a witness to check if a boat has entered moisture.

Other recommendations

• It is important to label your seeds, so that you can distinguish which species and variety they belong to, especially if you are not yet familiar with all the seeds you want to plant. On the label you must place the date on which you saved the seeds in this way you can keep track of the estimated time they can lose their germination power.
• The containers of seeds purchased in the agricultural stores, as well as the ones that we have extracted and packed in jars, should be kept in cool places, if we place our seeds in hot places, we can cause the seeds to be damaged.

References: Source Source

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Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://oscarcede.vornix.blog/?p=204

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