What I would do would be do as you are doing, ferment properly in a covered bottle outside out of the sun if you wish, by wrapping a piece of saran or something on top and poking a few holes if it might get too hot, though this is not necessary unless airtight in which case you could make a Molotov tomato which is somewhat nasty.

After you do it all, you could put a teaspoon of concentrated bleach plus 8 more teaspoons of tap water mix them separately and then add the cleaned seeds to it and swirl them around for about 2 minutes. Then rinse them off. It is probably unnecessary, but will sterilize the seeds and won't harm them. Just be sure to wash them off. Then set them to dry as normal.

Hope that helps, and I think they'd be fine, but who really knows what has gotten into the specific tomato rotting outside, so better safe than sorry especially if you share your seeds, it is nice to practice safe germination with no surprises.

Happy growing, PC

Dave

As for the clear container of cup, no need to be opaque at all, the only thing you want to watch is that no direct sunlight hits it since that may impair or kill the microbes that do the fermenting.

ML, about 7 different versions of same
AGG
ARGG
NAR
EPB
PP
GRS
IS
NDC
BK
KB and KBX

All OP's and ones commonly grown by many.

Carolyn, the former teacher always willing to facilitate and accelerate the learning curve, (wink)

The FAQ'S I read said put them in a sunny window inside so I didn't think being in sun would be a problem. I will put it in the shade. Should move the one in the window out of the sun? It can get pretty warm in that window, which is west facing so gets strong afternoon sun.

Hi Sue, Like they say, life is tenacious, so whether sun affects what's inside depends on whatever fungi and bacteria happen to be doing the fermenting and it sounds like your E's ML has developed quite an active micro-community.

Glass blocks more of the UV radiation than clear soda/water bottles so if you had a choice I'd probably pick glass. I don't know about the FAQ, and didn't see it, but I ferment mine at 77 degrees F which in my opinion is quite warm, but that's my room temperature, which drifts up to 80 F in the hottest part of the day. It is not critical, but warmth is usually required to get things moving or it will take long and I get mine done in 4 days like that, sometimes three. I always add a little non-chlorinated water, but this is hotly debated and not necessary, and in fact under some circumstances not a good idea. Here things are always warm and putrefying fungi and bacteria abound, so the water is like my control rod and allows me to mix it well, towards the end, just to be sure everything gets done uniformly, but your mileage will really vary depending on whatever happens to be the ambient conditions and sort of microbe family in your tomato and air, and bottoms of the feet of creatures that step in the tomato outside, etc.

The sun is not required for fermentation; most microbial critters that do the job can't photosynthesize, so adding Sunlight is just going to upset the micro flora balance in there. Probably they just didn't want you fermenting too cool because generally the quicker you get it done, the less that can go wrong, and you really don't want a stinky mess for 2 weeks.

Put a thermometer on the window, or use your creativity in the house looking for the warm place. As a rule of thumb, don't subject the seeds to over 85 F, no reason to since in general when you stat seeds they do better between 76 and 83 F of so. Little things like that will give you an edge with higher quality seed and soon you will find what worked. The reality is fermentation is extremely robust and nearly anything works. But good technique has a more professional feel and less smelly things associated with it in the case of a fermentation gone wild.

Hope that helps
Happy Growing
PC

Tomato and many other seeds are so tough that can pass through birds and mammals digestion system unaffected. This process also will put to test the weaker ones that will not survive. another natural process, "The Survival of the Fit"

I disagree with this^^^; the reason being that at warm temperatures fermentation is finished after a limited amount of time and you don't want your seeds to be in there longer under conditions of decay, which should not be confused with fermentation. If you are preparing high quality seed to save it is a different situation than mother nature. The seeds in a decaying tomato begin to germinate after the fermentation is over and the decay sets in. The decay provides nutrients to help germinating sprouts.

If you want to save the seeds, you don't want the seed to begin germination or you will lessen the viability of the lot of saved seeds. If you ferment them four days at 78 F which is my average, bubbles will have slowed to a crawl under my conditions on day 3, indicating germination is over and done with and that is the time to suspend the plants life cycle.

Fermentation aids in destroying most pathogens. Bacterial canker is a particularly stubborn one which under fermentation for four days cannot survive.

The best duration of fermintation for high quality seed, as used by commercial seed companies fighting for ever percent over 90% is 3-4 days, and they would lower the temperature so the fermentation is over and done with in that time frame. I have to use water now because I can't change room temperature for the seeds.

Down to 68 F is probably the lower end of the optimal range (IMO 68 F to 75 F), but at 68 mine would take 5-7 days. Fermentation shouldn't smell of decay, ask any any brewery or their patron ;-)

All bacterial and viral pathogens Ided to date have been found in the endosperm of the seed, so fermentation can't remove them for it can only lessen the bad guys from the seed coat.

If doing fermentations never cover the container since you want as many fungal spores and bacteria to fall into developing the mold growth on top of the goop. Initially the fermentaion is aerobic and as the O2 is consumed it turns to an anaerobic fermention, which is what you want in terms of the end products.

I always used a clear container so I could monitor the fermentation by seeing the bubbles that appeared on the inside of the container.

Never do fermantations in the sun, always in shade

There are two conditions where seeds can and do germinate inside a fruit, rotten or not.

The first is with soft fleshed varieties like the gold/red bicolors where from time to time we get pictures here saying EEEEKKKK, there are worms crawling out of my tomato. Nope, just germinating seeds.

The second condition is from shipped in store bought tomatoes that have been stored in cold storage for who knows how long and we have gotten the same pictures with someone grossed out at seeing germinating seeds in tomatoes, especially when they slice them since the cell walls of store ones usually have a thick cell wall, for shipping purposes.

Carolyn

Comment on this one:

(1) All bacterial and viral pathogens Ided to date have been found in the endosperm of the seed, so fermentation can't remove them for it can only lessen the bad guys from the seed coat.

This is *also* true:

(2) All bacterial and viral pathogens ID’ed to date can contaminate pulp and seed coat superficially from our gardens and surroundings, so fermentation is an insurance policy that better to have and one of the reasons. Never select seeds to save from sick plants because of (1), if you can avoid it. If you are concerned about disease, the insurance policies are like this:

Good = Fermentation alone.
Better = Bleach treatment (mentioned above, only disinfects outer seed coat)
Best = Carefully done hot water treatment (10 minutes 100F into 25 minutes 122F, temperature controller preferred as the treatment takes the seeds to the edge of their tolerance)
Near Perfect = buy seeds from certified pathogen free sources.

I seem to recall Johhny's and Fedco both use the hot water treatment, but I might be wrong.

Lesson Learned, after further thought: thanks to the OP and motivation from Carolyn's keen observations: I will switch from de-chlorinated water to diluting with tomato puree I make.

The switch based on this quirky fact for geeks:
The average Red USDA Tomato is 94.52% water.
Happy Growing
PC

And if you Google how to do the hot water treatment, my suggestion is, don't try this at home. Without calibrated equipment it's very difficult to maintain the temp required and even then there can be a significant loss of seed viability, I say let the pros do it. And this for bacterial pathogens since I don't know anything about destruction of viruses in the endosperm,just have never Googled it.

As for bleach treatments, most use it just right before sowing seeds and for what readon I don't know, some say it increases the germination percentage. To date I've never seen any controlled data that indicates the efficacy of bleach in removing fungal pathogens from the seed coat. Some use oxidative methods to process seeds such as Comet, Oxiclean and similar, and again,there are several of us who have never found data to indicate the efficacy of that method for lessening the fungal pathogen burden on the TOMATO seed coat,

What I do know is which fungal pathogens on the seed coat are lessened by fermentation, and that from the work of Dr.Helene Dillard who was initially at the Geneva, NY USDA station who had a grant from either Heinz or Campbells to do that work.

Pathogen Free seeds? Where to buy? Which pathogens? I don't know of any place that says they sell pathogen free seeds, Maybe a combo of acid production of seeds which most commercail places use in conjunction with hot water treatment? But where are such seeds are sold, if indeed there are any?(smile)

Quite a few large commercial places use TSP as alast treatment since it's knwn to inactivate TMV, but why they still do it I don't know since thelast TMV cases were more than 20 years ago in an open field situation, but TMV today is mainly transmitted in large greenhouse operations and done so manually, not the normal insect mediated route. US tobacco growers have been using TMV tolerant seeds for many years now, not so with imported Turkish tobacco.

Carolyn,who smokes only US tobacco ( wink)

So don't worry about Estler seeds.

I also offered same to Edie, since she's an Estler relative but did not hear back from her.

I won't be sending out your seeds until Fall since right now I'm so far behind on lots of computer stuff keeping touch with my seed production folks, getting more info about someof the ones being grown out this summer,and on and on it goes, and then I have medical appts to catch up on and I can no longer drive my own car, so that's messy right now as well,

The faster I go the behinder I get as is oft said and we must not forget my obsession with tennis either, the TV kind. LOL

Carolyn