Cannabis Seed Storage: Preserving for Future Cultivation

If you bought some cannabis seeds a while back, and aren’t sure anymore if they’re still viable, then you’ve come to the right place. The simple reality is that although cannabis seeds are quite durable and should last for some time, their shelf life is not unlimited.

Just like any other piece of organic matter out there, pot seeds only last so long. This means that you have to use them within a certain period of time, or else they may go bad, become unviable, and no longer germinate or grow.

However, just because cannabis seeds have a shelf life doesn’t mean that they’ll go bad immediately, especially with proper storage techniques.

There are various factors that affect how long a cannabis seed stays good for, such as light, temperature, humidity, and oxygen levels.

If you can effectively control all of these factors, you should be able to make your cannabis seeds stay good for many years to come, which means that you don’t have to rush to use them right away. Let’s find out everything there is to know about cannabis seed storage so you can preserve them for as long as possible.

How Long Do Cannabis Seeds Last For?

As mentioned above, how long cannabis seeds stay good for really depends on a variety of factors. However, generally speaking, if you just keep them out in the open, they’ll last for up to half a year. That is the absolute minimum, but with proper storage techniques, you can make them last much longer.

For instance, if they are kept at room temperature, but kept away from light and high humidity levels, they may stay viable for up to a year or even 18 months, depending on the exact seed. Furthermore, if you keep the seeds in a low humidity, low temperature, and low light environment, they may stay good for up to three or four years.

With that being said, if you keep cannabis seeds in conditions below 30 degrees Fahrenheit, along with low humidity, light, and oxygen levels, they may stay good for up to 10 years, although that is admittedly stretching it a bit.

What Causes Cannabis Seeds To Go Bad?

Seeing as cannabis seeds start to go bad after as little as three months, there must therefore be a variety of factors that causes them to go bad.

High Temperatures

One of the leading contributing factors to cannabis seeds going bad is temperature. This is really the case with any kind of organic material out there.

This is why human beings invented the refrigerator because food lasts much longer when it is kept cool. The same goes for cannabis seeds. If cannabis seeds are kept in excessively warm conditions, they may start to go bad within just a few weeks.

Generally speaking, the cooler the conditions are, the longer the seeds will last for it. This goes to the point of freezing them.

On a side note, excessive heat can also cause a weed seed to start germinating under the right conditions, which of course means that you won’t be able to use it at a future date.

A rule of thumb here is that with every 5-degree Celsius reduction in temperature that a pot seed is stored in, the shelf life will effectively double.

Humidity Levels

The second factor that affects how long cannabis seeds stay good for is humidity. Humidity is another leading cause of cannabis seeds going bad. Cannabis seeds require moisture and relatively high humidity levels to germinate.

Therefore, one risk of having weed seeds in high humidity levels is that they may germinate on you. However, if humidity levels for storage are excessively high, it may also cause the weed seed to start to rot.

High levels of moisture cause organic materials to begin rotting, and may also cause the growth of mold. Therefore, the lower you can keep the humidity level here the better. Just like with temperature, the lower the humidity level, the longer the seed will last for.

Very interesting to note is that for every 1% reduction in humidity, particularly below 5% humidity, effectively doubles the shelf life of a cannabis seed. Therefore, you can see how both humidity and temperature play a really big role here.

Excessive Light

Yet another factor that will quickly contribute to cannabis seeds going bad is light. Light is another one of these things that may spur on the germination process. However, even worse, sunlight, which contains UV rays, causes organic materials to begin deteriorating after a while.

If your pot seed is exposed to too many UV rays over a prolonged period of time, it can breakdown the important genetic components on the inside, thus rendering it unviable after a certain amount of time. Therefore, keeping cannabis seeds not only cool and dry is important, but keeping them in a dark place is just as vital.

Oxygen Levels

As you might know, whether we are talking about cannabis seeds or food, really any kind of work material, oxygen causes them all to go bad.

If oxygen is present, it allows parasites and bacteria to grow. If you don’t want your cannabis seeds being infested with mold, parasites, or bacteria, then it keeping the oxygen levels to a minimum is ideal.

Really the only way to do this is by keeping your weed seats in some kind of airtight container, or even by vacuum sealing them.

However, the bottom line here is that a combination of high oxygen levels, excessive light, high humidity levels, and high temperatures can all contribute to pot seeds going bad within a very short period of time.

Will Damaged Seeds Still Germinate?

So, cannabis seeds don’t just go bad due to the factors discussed above, but may also become unviable to physical damage. If you see that your cannabis seeds have visible cracks in them, then they are likely no longer viable.

As soon as a cannabis seed becomes damaged, which means that it has any kind of crack in it primarily, it will no longer germinate.

Once the inside, the vital DNA and genetic components, get exposed to the outside air and light, they very quickly break down. As soon as the seed cracks, it will no longer germinate.

Therefore, not only do you need to keep your weed seeds away from light, heat, humidity, and oxygen, but you need to keep them in a padded container as well to keep them safe physical impacts.

What Is the Average Germination Rate of Cannabis Seeds?

An important note to keep in mind here is that the newer the cannabis seeds are, the more likely they are to germinate. Germinate is of course the process of the seed opening up and starting to sprout. Without germination, a weed plant cannot begin growing. See this guide on Cannabis Plant Anatomy.

If you have very high-quality seeds that come from male plants, they usually have a nearly 100% germination rate, particularly within the first six months. They should have at least a 90% germination rate.

Furthermore, if you wait for up to a year after the seeds have been harvested from the plant, the germination rate should still be anywhere between 80% and 90%.

However, this downward trajectory will continue over the course of several years. After the first three years, you can expect the germination rate for pod seeds to be anywhere between 50% and 75%.

If you wait a full 10 years, you can expect the germination rate to be well under 25%. With that all being said, if you follow all of the tips and rules that we provide you with here today, you should be able to significantly increase the germination rates of old weed seeds.

How to Prolong the Shelf Life of Cannabis Seeds

Now that we know how long the average weed seed stays good for, and what factors affect their eventual demise, we can work on finding a solution.

The following are all great methods to help preserve the overall integrity and lifespan of all of your pot seeds.

Keep Them Cool

Seeing as the number one contributing factor to the demise of cannabis seeds is temperature, it is absolutely vital that you keep them cool. Once again, at room temperature, you can expect cannabis seeds to stay good for up to one year.

If you put cannabis seeds in the refrigerator, you could expect them to stay good for up to three years, especially they’re kept in the dark.

However, if you keep cannabis seeds below 30 degrees Fahrenheit, or just below 0 degrees Celsius, which qualifies as a freezing temperature, they could stay good for up to 10 years.

Therefore, it is recommended that first and foremost, you keep your cannabis seeds in the freezer, especially if you don’t plan on using them for several months or years.

Keep Them in the Dark

Seeing as the light is another major contributing factor to pot seeds going bad, keeping them in a dark place is therefore essential. Most people would choose to use some kind of opaque container, which means that absolutely no light can get through.

You can always just use something like a glass mason jar and color it black or covered with opaque tape.

Whatever the case may be, the main point here is that your pot seeds should in no forum come into contact with natural sunlight, or even regular light for that matter. The darker the conditions are, the longer the weed seed will stay good for.

Keep The Humidity Low

As mentioned above, yet another contributing factor to your weed seeds going bad so quickly is humidity. The higher the humidity levels are, the faster your weed seeds will go bad. Now, this is admittedly one of the harder factors to control, because the only way to really do it is by using humidity control packs.

Humidity control packs look like little square packets, not unlike those you would find in certain food products. These are designed to absorb a certain amount of humidity from the space around them. You can find humidity control packs that are designed to keep humidity levels at various points, such as 5%.

When it comes to your cannabis seeds, the humidity level should be kept below 5%, and once again, every percent below 5% makes a big difference in terms of overall shelf life. The dryer you can keep your weed seeds the better.

Limit Contact with Oxygen

While controlling humidity levels can be difficult, what’s really hard is controlling oxygen levels. The only way to effectively eliminate oxygen from the equation here is to vacuum seal these weed seeds.

This of course means that you need to have a vacuum sealing machine. However, if you manage to remove 100% of oxygen from the equation, this will significantly prolong the shelf life of your cannabis seeds.

If you can manage to vacuum seal cannabis seeds, and then place them in a dark, freezing, and low humidity area, they should stay good for up to 10 years. On a side note, vacuum sealing your cannabis seats is also a great way to keep them away from moisture.

How to Choose High Quality Cannabis Seeds

Let’s go over some quick tips on how to choose high quality cannabis seeds that are the most likely to germinate and produce healthy cannabis plants.

• Always purchase your weed seeds from a reputable retailer or seed bank. Always read some reviews to see what other people have to say, particularly about the germination rates.
• Make sure that any cannabis seeds you purchase are well packaged inside of a container that prevents heavy impacts from damaging the seeds.
• Containers that hold weed seeds for purchase should ideally also be vacuum sealed and opaque so that light cannot get in.
• You should always choose feminized pot seeds, as this guarantees that you will get female plants, plus the germination rate on these is nearly 100%.

Conclusion

As long as you follow all of the rules and tips that we provided here today, you should have absolutely no problems preserving cannabis seeds from many years to come.