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> we have a large amount of heirloom seeds we've collected over the past few years.

Don't seeds get unviable (if that is the right word) after a few years? I've done gardening in the past, and seen that seeds a few years old sometimes do not germinate. Might want to test with a few of each kind and date range, periodically.

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Seed viability is indeed the correct term.

Commercially bought seeds usually have a "best before" date on the packet.

There's some information here, but it's pretty technical: http://data.kew.org/sid/viability/

Had a quick look. Technical indeed :) But good to know - thank you. Heard of the Kew Botanical gardens in the UK. I guess that site will likely be a good resource for other related info and will explore it some.

Kew also runs the Millennium Seed Bank, which is keeping seeds from all over the world in a nuclear-bomb-proof vault in a relatively remote bit of southern England -- tests they run there is where the seed viability data comes from.

http://www.kew.org/science-conservation/collections/millenni...

Correct, and we're not planning on storing them for a decade. We have the year they were acquired on each paper bag of them. Old ones will get removed, new ones will take their place.

Got it.

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