How To Make a Cheap "Light Box" for Sorting Seeds

When you have seeds of a plant that can be "candled" for checking viability, such as Lilium, you can do it very easily with this setup. I bought a clear "scrapbooking" box from a craft store. Look for sales!



This box, in particular, is fairly large and was about $5 on sale.

Then you will need some type of "tap light" for the light portion. This is where it's easy to customize. You can get a box as big or small as you like, and as far as the lights go, you can get different-sized tap lights of varying qualities. They have LED and soft white versions for different prices.





I chose to buy a 4-pack of soft white tap lights for $4 with batteries at Walmart.
I will say these are fairly cheap as far as construction is concerned, but they work, and I will use them until they aren't worth using anymore.







Throw your seeds on top and check for embryos. With these lily seeds, you can see the line in the seed indicating the embryo. As you can see, some of my hybridizing has yielded good embryos.

It is easier to use the box in a darker area,, where the lights will be most effective. So, for about $10, I have a great light box to sort my lily seeds.