A cannabis seed is a tiny sealed time capsule, a whole plant folded up asleep and waiting, and people treat these little miracles like loose change. Rattling around in a warm drawer, baking on a sunny windowsill, sweating in a wallet, tossed in a kitchen cupboard next to the stove. Then a year later the grower plants his precious saved genetics, gets two sad sprouts out of ten, and curses his luck. It was not luck. He cooked them. A seed is alive, barely, and you either keep it asleep or you kill it slowly through sheer carelessness.

The three enemies

Seeds die from three things, and all three are in your power. Heat is the first and worst, because warmth whispers to a seed that spring has come and coaxes its slow machinery into stirring, burning through its tiny reserves until it hasn’t the strength left to sprout when you finally plant it. Light is the second, sending the same false signal. Moisture is the third, and the cruellest, because a damp seed in a warm spot will either try to germinate in the packet or quietly grow mould and rot. Heat, light, damp: that is the whole rogues’ gallery.

Cool, dark, dry, sealed

So you deny them all three. Keep your seeds cool, dark and bone dry, in something airtight so the moisture in the air cannot creep in. An airtight container in a cupboard away from any heat source is fine for the near term. For the long haul, growers put seeds in a sealed airtight jar or vial, often with a little desiccant to hoard the last of the moisture, and tuck them at the back of a fridge where it is cold, dark and stable. Kept cold and dry like that, good seeds stay viable for years, sometimes many years, dozing patiently until you wake them.

Two warnings from the field. First, keep them somewhere stable, because the killer is temperature that swings up and down, dragging damp air in and out of the container every cycle, so pick one cold dark spot and leave them undisturbed rather than fondling the jar every week. Second, when you finally bring a jar out of the cold, let it come up to room temperature before you crack the lid, so condensation does not form on your dry seeds the instant the warm air hits them.

Do that and the genetics you saved are still there when you want them, alive and ready, instead of a packet of expensive gravel. Treat the time capsule like it is asleep, not like it is rubbish, and it will keep its promise.

This is general information for a responsible adult audience. Know and follow the current law on cannabis where you are. CannaStaySA is a directory and information platform, not a seller.