Oldest Viable Seed - Anecdotal

Anecdotal

• In December, 2009, a Turkish newspaper reported a claim that a 4,000 year-old lentil had been successfully germinated. As of January, 2010, this has not been confirmed by radiocarbon dating, and does not appear to have been reported in an academic journal.
• The "1500 Year Old Cave Bean" is a variety of bean that have been alleged to descend from 3 beans found in a sealed clay pot during an excavation at an Anasazi settlement. The settlement appeared to date to the 6th century A.D., but the seeds were not carbon dated.
• There is a persistent myth that seeds from Egyptian tombs with ages of over 3,000 years were viable. The myth was reportedly started by scam artists selling "miracle seed" designed to capitalize on European Egyptomania of the 1800s. In 1897, the claims were tested by the British Museum's director of Egyptian antiquities, E. A. Wallis Budge. Budge provided genuine 3,000-year-old tomb-seeds to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew to plant under controlled conditions. The test resulted in none germinating. In 1922 a pea found in Tutankhamen's tomb supposedly germinated and was soon introduced as a new variety, but historians and horticultural experts believe that the origin was a fraud and that the pea was actually bought from a vendor at a Cairo market.
• In 1954 an Arctic lupine seed (Lupinus arcticus), in glacial sediments believed to be 10,000 years old or older, was found in the Yukon Territory. The seed was germinated in 1966. New dating techniques revealed that the seeds were not 10,000 years old as believed.