What's the longest any of you's have waited for a Tomato seed to sprout; put another way, when do you's bail?

The Gotch

I have seen various tomato seeds I've started taking anywhere from 3 to 21 days. Conditions like moisture and soil temperature can influence that time.

Two weeks.

Antsy after a week, skeptical after ten days, replant or bail after two weeks. The non-germination seeds get tossed so it doesn't happen again next year. I have too many seeds kept way past "used by dates". Sorry if I send some of those to my friends. From now on it will be "bail" and refresh.

Over a month. Several times I have had all of my seeds sprout except that one little cell that I babied and waited on oh so patiently. Finally I had to say a sad goodbye and toss it outside only to go clean up my cell packs and find that it has finally sprouted, but so very late. All of it's friends were ready to be planted out in the garden and here came along this little one.

Sometimes with these, I think that it may be the temperature fluctuations from being outdoors that move them along. Although it could be that they just took their time.

Up to 3 weeks for older seeds

I'm with Paul on this...

I've had fairly good luck with tomatoes - they seem to be a bit more forgiving even if old. I only start so I have enough for 18 plants with a back up for each that I donate. I mark on my seed packet the year, then add a mark if I had germination issues. I will try again the next year, then toss the packet if I fail two years in a row. This year's non arrival to the prom was Cuor di Bue; will try again next year. Seeded a heart to take it's place and it came up right away.

Now if we are talking peppers, oh my are they giving me grief this year! I initially seeded 18 - 5 came up. Reseeded and got another 2. Attempt #3 was to germinate in a baggy but never have before and I think they got too wet. Ready for start #4 but getting discouraged. I REALLY need these peppers - I can salsa every other year and we're up for it with this harvest.

Tried to germinate celery this year for the first time to avoid buying starts - it seems to be a no-grow as well.

2 wks.

Practically, I will replant after about 10 days, even though late comers MIGHT show up even after 21+ days. For the 2nd batch, I will put in a greater mass of seeds and leave them in a shallow water cup, or in a wet papertowel in a baggy and move them to dirt as soon as they show a good radicle foot emerging. I change water in the cup daily in case some seeds are dead and will decompose and cloud the water. I have a pretty short season, so 10 days is about as long as I dare wait to start a new batch. But many a time I've had old seeds come up right after I started new ones.

379 days. I planted F1 had to wait a year and two weeks before being able grow F2

crunch1224 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 9:44 am 379 days. I planted F1 had to wait a year and two weeks before being able grow F2

Folks...we have a WINNER!!!!!

The Gotch

2 weeks and I’m out!!

i start checking them several times a day after a week. no, i am not ocd.
usually by two weeks, most everything thats going to sprout has done so.
old seeds can take longer than two weeks. i have not given up on my uncle steve
seeds from 2003 yet. i might have planted them mid march when i planted pepper
seeds. nuthin yet. i have had uncle steve sprout from 16 year old seeds before a personal
best. my uncle steve seeds from 2019 have just broken through. they were planted on 4/4.
another week or two, and i will give up on the 2003 seeds.


keith

@rxkeith Uncle Steve's Italian (USI in these here parts) are up and at 'em.

The Gotch

About 75 days, maybe. Sometimes they sprout later than that, but that's about when I stop waiting, if I seed them at my usual time. I try to select for varieties that don't take that long to germinate, though.

About a week and I start to seriously doubt. In soil blocks on heat under dome and buried 1/8", it should be 3 days for good fresh seed. Once a week goes by, any inactive seeds are getting left behind, drying out, etc.

I must be impatient. It's been "only" 8 days since I planted the tomato seeds, and only those two had nothing sprouted yet - Big Cheef and Daniel Burson, out of 22 varieties. This morning I took my olive fork - something I keep in my seedling room to carefully dig up seeds, or seedlings, carefully checked them. This time I dug up the seeds in those 4 pots that I didn't have any visible sprouts in, and found a sprouted seed in one of the pots of each of those two varieties - the other two pots had unsprouted seeds in, for both varieties. So I left the barely sprouted seeds in those pots, the other two pots I left the seeds in, but also dug up some "extra" seedlings, from some similar varieties, and planted those, and labeled those. If those really slow seeds eventually come up, I might dig those up and plant them - depends on how slow they are! And these two are new seeds this year - not some old ones, which did just fine. And most of the seedlings have their first true leaves forming already, after just 8 days.

I've got leggy seedlings this year because first I was sowing purchased seeds and some of them are taking 10-14 days to fully come up. Some pepper seeds were taking 2 and half weeks. Then I sown my own saved tomato seeds and they come up in 2-3 days, but used a dark cover as a dome thinking it wouldn't be that fast and didn't removed the cover in time. This is with heat mat and grow lights on for both.

i gave up on the 2003 uncle steve seeds.
in the same little container i planted pepper seeds from a single pepper
from a plant i wintered in doors. this plant may be a cross between grandpas home
and a small thin chinese pepper the seeds of which i got several years ago from a california
person. the characteristic of grandpas home is the peppers produced all point upward which is
what the pepper from the plant did. the plant should have been a chinese pepper. the tomato seeds
are still in the pot, so they still have a chance to grow.


keith

two weeks, it has taken chalks early jewel, and subartic plenty to germinate.
anna russian, siletz, prudens purple, and virginia sweets are no shows. i will need newer seeds
i suspect. anna russian may have been a no show last year too. matina from saved seeds
was also slow to germinate. i had saved two batches of them in 2021. i must have done something
wrong with one batch because i got very poor germination from them.


keith