Big Problem, Maybe! Need Help (Weevils)

First let me say this, most of the seeds I have, I have gotten from traders here on DG,

I received some minosa seeds a while back, - yesterday I was looking thru my seeds to find certain ones for a trade. Well I pulled a minosa seed pk out and it had weevils in it (I killed them) and there were also some tiny holes in the zip baggie... :( so that tells me they got out or in). I didn't have time to check all my seeds (I have 100's) to see if any others had these bugs in them or not...

I put all my seeds in the fridge, and I was wondering how long do I leave them in there and also will it hurt my annual seeds I have? Way too many seeds to list. Are there certain ones that can't be put in the fridge? I am very new to collecting and saving seeds. And I have no clue how long the weevils have been there, I do know I didn't see them in there when I got them...

Happy Holidays

Connie

Hi Connie
A couple points- I'm not sure any Mimosa would live in Michigan, but that may be beside the point... depending on which Albizia (mimosa) it is, it might be considered an invasive species. In some states it's a real problem... and they're hard to kill. This tree is the source of a lot of frustration and good-natured humor on the Trees & Shrubs forum. In fact, an old thread about these trees was bumped up recently, called Mimosa seed storage:

http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/577774/

So you might have saved yourself some trouble in the future. Or not. Some of the invasives are a problem in one area and not another. I don't know if refrigeration would hurt the weevils, I kind of doubt it, though. I guess the bugs just come with the territory, some of them it's nearly impossible to tell unless you use a magnifying glass and inspect each seed, and even then you might not find the critters... hopefully you'll get advice about the refrigeration of the annual seeds

Connie... You can put your seeds in the fridge. Keeping them dry and in cold storage will help prolong their self life. Dry and sealed they do not grow, they do not germinate, they do not recive cold stratification. They just stay in a form of like animated suspension until you add moisture to them.

Youc an keep them in the fridge for years like that. Of course every year you are liabable to have some reduction in germination.

ClayPa gives good advice on the Mimosa. I would talk to folks around your town and see if anybody has one and see if folks are complaining of invasive seeedlings. Let me tell ya it no fun to be sitting and trying to pull thousands of those seedlings up in a tiny section of ground and that is how invasive it is.

Thinkin of invasive hows about one of you Americans sending me some poison ivy seeds!

I have never seen it and very much doubt it will be invasive here. But i'd love to try.

I have an American friend who says you guys have never had stinging nettles over there either i think someone should start an invasive plant swap! Lol

Mike

Michael Poison Ivy I don't think you could get anyone to send you some. It is very bad...

claypa & starlight thanks for the help. I went thru every one of my seeds and checked them all, all are okay but the mimosa. Thank God :o) Threw those baby's away...

Merry Christmas,

Connie

To be honest i don't even know what it looks like.

Would be fun to have over here though.

I killed some of those weevils i got sent by putting the seeds in the freezer. The seeds where ok.

Hi mike Poison Ivy can be a beatiful plant, sometimes the fall color is striking. It has little waxy white berries that get snapped up quickly by birds. A piece of root would certainly make it through the mail.... I'm surprised it hasn't wound up in Europe somehow already.
Sure, there are stinging nettles here, maybe not everywhere, but they exist. I grabbed a handful once and my hand went numb for a day, kind of scary

Mikey,
Don't let anyone kid you that we don't have stinging nettle here. It is alive and well, believe me. You have no idea the pain when it slaps you across the ankle, or worse, when you think it's "just a weed" and grab it to pull it out.
blpender

Shame i was gonna send you guys some in the next rr. hehe

I know they hurt. When i was a kid i fell off a fence into a big patch face first. .... No jokes about it makin me better lookin! lol

I'm goona check the plant files for poison ivy.

Hey Mike you reminded me of the time my brother (maybe 7 at the time) stepped out of the car and rolled into a ditch of stinging nettles. My mother grabbed the vinegar and dosed him to diminish the effects. With four kids she carried it in the car as we did a lot of traveling while my dad was posted in France.
I went on a walk at a local park when the Ranger pointed out the stinging nettle. I was surprised at the fear it dug up in me!
Aline in Pennsylvania

Vinegar?
I never new that. I heard you can use it for stings of a wasp or is it bee. I will try next time i get stung. There is a field of them next to me so they spring up all over my garden.

I take it there not very common over there though!

Mike

There's a few kinds, this one is ubiquitous: http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=URDI

I had a roommate in college who made tea from it, it was delicious! The tea was red. I wonder which nettle you have there, is it one of the ones mentioned on that site?
Maybe we should start a thread on Indigenous plants forum

Hey thats the fella. I was thinking i was gonna start a colony in america some time. lol

Tea? urgh. I heard some strange village in england has a nettle eating contest. That must really hurt your tongue.

About those weevils - they can have 7 phases in their life cycle:

adult
eggs
larva (4 stages) (also called instar)
pupa

Just because you may do in those visible adults doesn't mean you've set those instars back - the 4th one can withstand arctic winters.

With regard to controlling weevils' movements through your seed, Atenkley keeps individual packs of seeds in a double baggy which helps to contain the weevils, because they seem not to chew through the second plastic bag after going through the first.

And Ron said, "...I usually use the extra-large freezer ziplock bags > they are thicker and thick plastic tupperware containers and haven't found any bug that can chew through either one of those..."

And Ron again, "I had Ipomoea leptophylla that was infected and simply left it in a thich freezer bar for several years...all of the weevils hatched and I picked out the seeds with no damage...haven't had a single weevil from that batch of seeds again..."

The above weevil info came from the following thread from the Morning Glory Forum: http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/667996/ There's a nice little explanation of a weevil's life cycle, and their menu is quite disconcerting.