I read in the latest edition of the newsletter that Tom Carruth talked at the National meeting about processing hips for seeds in a blender. I really need a new method. Can someone describe Tom’s method? (Or share a better one?) I have a refrigerator full that I need to work. Thanks.
Hi Debra, I’ve used the blender method for large amounts of hips from the same cross or self for years very successfully. It is VERY simple…I fill the jar half full if there are many of the same cross, cover with water, shake in a few shakes of Comet with bleach and liquefy. Let it run for a long while until all the pulp and threads are ground fine. Pour the mixture into a large strainer and run water through it until there is nothing left in the strainer except clean seed. Rinse until you feel comfortable all of the Comet is rinsed off. The bleach in it sterilizes the seed. I then dump them off on to dry toweling until they are air dried and can be stored in the Zip Lock bags I use in the refrigerator until I am ready to plant. Gently shaking the strainer side to side will help push the debris through the strainer faster as it will often clog the holes and the strainer will fill up with water. Using your finger to move it around and push the debris through the strainer unclogs it and gets the draining going well again.
Rugosa hips require different handling as they seem to have pectin or something in them. If you put as many Rugosa hips in the jar as you do “normal” ones, it congeals and the blades will simply spin in an air pocket. I’ve had to reduce the gelatinous glop in the jar up to three quarters, adding water to re liquefy the glop to get the blades to spin.
It’s very effective with large hips or very large quantities of smaller ones. If you have too much pulp remaining once you’ve processed, simply dump them back in with more water and give them a longer spin.
You’ll find pulp, seeds and fibers all over the inside of the lid and jar when finished so you have to carefully rinse them off into the strainer for cleaning. It will appear some seed are split in half by the liquefaction, but I’ve chalked that up to unviable seed anyway and don’t sweat it. I don’t use the blender for small quantities of a cross or for seed which were impossible to create in the first place so I don’t lose any really “valuable” ones. For large quantities of the same cross or self which don’t have to be kept separate, it seems a time saver, definitely an energy saver. The largest downsides are the electricity and water used as well as the irritation of anyone else around while you run the blender for five at a time.
Be sure to use plenty of water, not only to assure the seed are well rinsed, but also to push all that glop down the pipes so it doesn’t catch on anything else and create a clog. Often, that stuff can be as thick and nearly the size of fine coffee grounds. I’ve found for the initial rinse, just submersing the strainer in a bucket of water and shaking can move most of the solid material through it into the bucket for dumping outside to keep it out of the pipes. Final rinses are under fresh, running water to remove any Comet or other contaminants so the seed are left clean from all debris.
Practice it a bit and you’ll hit on the methods which work best for you. As I said, it ain’t hard and it does work.
Hi Debra,
Just a precaution, I did this for a few years and got reasonable germinations with many crosses, however, I noted that some seed parents have rather thinner seed coats. Seeds from those varieties were much more chopped up and comparing with hand shelled germination rates, the blended ones were much lower. One of the varieties with thinner seed coats that comes to mind is ‘Singin’ in the Rain’. Since then, because I consider most of my crosses too valuable to risk blending, I have hired someone else to extract my rose seeds.
Jim Sproul
Hi Debra,
I have never used the blender method but after hearing how Kim does it I just might try it. I usually just take the seeds out of the hips with my fingers and fingernails, let them soak for about 30 minutes then scrape them with my fingernails until they are pretty clean, it does take alot of time to do this with each seed though. But I have all winter so I am not in a hurry, I let the hips sit in the frig til I have time to get to them.
Has anyone ever tried Polident to clean their seeds? LOL I’m thinking of trying it…
I tired of picking the seeds from hips in large batches and from having those horrid fibers “all over my body!” as Jonathan Winters used to say. I knew there HAD to be a faster, easier way, so I’ve been blending them for many years. Polident may work, but why spend that much to do it? Comet is probably already under your sink and it works perfectly. Agitating the strainer in standing water to loosen the pulp through the strainer, then agitating it under flowing water does a perfectly acceptable job of cleaning all the debris and Comet from them. It is SO incredibly easy and even if the seed coats aren’t hard enough to withstand the treatment, I don’t do it with crosses I don’t want to take any chances with. The biggest asset is, NO MORE bloody fibers “all over my body!” LOL!
NO MORE bloody fibers “all over my body!”
Oh yea, I know what you are saying, they are unbelievably itchy! You just can’t touch any part of your body until you are done especially the inside of your nose…LOL! Then you are really in trouble!
I love Jonathan Winters, he is so funny.
Man, I didn’t even have to TOUCH anywhere and they were all over me like stink on a skunk! The first time I cleaned seeds, I stupidly did it shirtless, sitting in an arm chair in my living room. I thought I was gonna die! LOL! I couldn’t get those things off me fast enough! Even when standing at the sink, not touching anything other than the hips and containers, it ends up on me. I think that’s what triggered the idea of using the blender. If I could put the hips in it and have them all trapped in water, it would prevent me from itching, which I always do anyway from Atopic Dermatitis. Ugly stuff, both the fibers and AD.
Yes, Jonathan Winters is a hoot! “When I wear my yellow dress and red earrings…!” LOL!
Harm Saville used the blender method and described in a RHA newsletter somewhere (early 80s?). So did at least one other hybridizer back then. It’s on the CD. One year I did it too when I had massive amounts to process of a single cross. Kim describes it clearly.
Now I just cut the hips open with a short dull pocket knife and pick out the achenes. Most crosses that I’m doing have relatively thick flesh that is not soft by harvest and only 1-4 achenes. But rugosas, or previously frozen hips of most kinds, are something else-sticky mucoid mush that I don’t want anywhere on my body and certainly not all over.
I sit down with dentist tools and just go at it while I listen to background noise 
The trick, really, is just getting a pattern going.
I dont trust blenders. I really dont trust others to process, either. I think with something one is personally invested in, its best to keep it personal. But thats me.
Oxiclean has been used but I cannot recall anyone using polygrip, haha.
I recall a RHA meeting in Shreveport some years ago when Joe Winchel discussed the blender method at length. Many of us thought he was foolin’ us, as he told us about it in a very humorous way. But we soon realized this was the way he did process his seeds.
Yeah, his process was detailed in the ARS in the 1990s. He has some nice HTs but half of their parentage is unknown because of his shotgun methodology.
“Rugosa hips require different handling as they seem to have pectin or something in them. If you put as many Rugosa hips in the jar as you do “normal” ones, it congeals and the blades will simply spin in an air pocket.”
“But rugosas, or previously frozen hips of most kinds, are something else-sticky mucoid mush that I don’t want anywhere on my body and certainly not all over.”
Pick the rugosa hips a little earlier, pop them in your mouth, swoosh it around and spit out the seeds swallowing the pulp lol Works for me, tastes pretty good too.
Simon, Rugosa hips are pleasantly flavored? I wouldn’t have guessed that based upon the skunky, “sweaty sox” scent they impart to crosses where foliage scent is expressed. Ralph Moore created several with moss or otherwise scented growth tips, peduncles and sepals and all where Rugosa was involved stink! Jerry Rugosa X 44 Stripe is very well scented and I make it a point NOT to get the new growth or any flowering green parts near my face.
I believe we need to establish some rules here…
Rule #1:
Whenever opening hips…KEEP ALL GARMENTS ON.
Easier said than done, Jeannie, when you’ve been out in hundred degree plus heat for eight to ten hours and come home with the intention of completing the garden related tasks BEFORE you get cleaned up! My habit was to not run the a/c while not home as it was actually much more cost effective to cool it down when I got home than to let it run for twelve or more hours while not home. Yes, ma’am, I LEARNED my lesson! LOL!
When one of my Portland buddies is writing some random script, I’ll be sure to have him include nude man + rose hips 
I was serious about the dental tools though. Stainless steel and still cracking hips/picking seeds many years later
Joe Winchel told me that he came up with the idea when Agnes said that she couldn’t help him digging out the seeds the usual way. Something like, “necessity is the mother of invention…” He always had many thousands of seeds. I spent a whole day with him one year helping to extract and clean up his seeds. It was quite a lot of fun and impressively fast!
I won’t knock it for anyone else, because I know how time consuming shelling hips can be. At my best, I can only shell about 500/hour the old fashioned way, however, I did head to head comparisons for germinations with various lots of seeds, and always found lower rates among the blended batches.
Jadae, regarding hiring out someone else, I found a real gem. She has been a worker for J&P and has years of experience doing the same for them. She does a better job than I do and keeps excellent records. She would always get laid off just about the time that I needed her help. She got extra Christmas money for her kids, while I got 60 to 80 hours extra to do something else!
Jim Sproul
I’ve done them both ways and prefer hand shelling.
The few times I tried blending I lost a significant portion to blade damage.
I figure I’ve already got plenty of time energy invested by the time I’m ready to harvest. It seems wasteful to do it any other way.
Jim, I do not blame you if it is someone you trust. Its the whole trust part that gets me for the very reasons Robert stated. It is a lot of time, heart and effort to invest.
Hi Jadae, I understand, and except for the person that I have found, I would be hand shelling my own too!
The three jobs that I despise most about this hobby are extracting seeds, planting seeds and spraying the greenhouse for spider mites. I think of the three I dislike shelling seed the most, with spraying for spider mites a close second!
My favorite operations are new seedling selection and making crosses - way more fun than spraying for spider mites…!
Jim Sproul