Tomato 'Red BrandyMaster' seeds that were packed for 2016 and stored for five years in a refrigerator were used for this experiment. 17 seeds were soaked in chloroform for 1 hour and dried for 0.5 hours before planting on 3/1/21. Also, 17 untreated seeds were planted as controls. Photos will be taken and posted as time progresses. Controls are on the left halve of tray and treated seeds are on the right half of tray.
3/10/21
So far, 3 treated seeds and 0 untreated seeds have germinated.
Answers to Obvious Questions
This was discovered by accident by SK Ries in the 1970s who used chloroform as a solvent to apply 1-triacontanol to tomato seeds and noticed improvement in the controls that were treated with chloroform without triacontanol. I lost the exact reference.
Shortly thereafter I did experiments to confirm this but did not document my results. I tried other solvents on tomato seeds without improvement. I also tried chloroform on other seeds without improvement.
More photos to come.