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  • From: road's end farm <organic101 AT linkny.com>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] seed germination
  • Date: Sat, 4 Feb 2006 22:25:38 -0500


On Feb 3, 2006, at 12:56 AM, <mnr200 AT charter.net> wrote:

Many people dont understand the seed business. Most of the seed you get is over 18-24 months old and is kept in very cold storage till packaging... depending on the state each batch gets germination tested every 6months or 12 months. Very little seed is sent the following season. A good company will not send you seed until it grows out a sample crop itself and trial gardens it to check for purity, cross pollination, and other problems, especially hybrids.. [ . . . ] If a large company has for instance a huge amount of lets say, Tam Mild pepper seed and in germination testing they find it has an 84 % germination rate from 2004 they will not grow more of that seed, but
spend theire time on other varieties that they do need .
Also most seed companies dont grow all there own seed but get it from other suppliers... We get most of our pepper and tomato seed out of arizona and california. I have not been able to get White Habernero seed ( in lb lots) for 2 years and had some left at 74% germination...It puts you in a postion of not offering it at all or throwing it out.. I dont care about the throwing out or donating it as a tax writeoff , I care that people get rare varieties they want. If everyone else is out what do you do.?

All perfectly sensible, and I did know that; but it would nevertheless be very useful to me to also know what year the seed was grown, because I often store seed over myself. Some species/varieties have a fairly sudden drop off in germination after a certain age, so that the seed may indeed test 84% right before it goes out for sale and be fine for that year, but may have very low germination if kept by the purchaser for even one additional year (especially if you don't have absolutely perfect storage available). Because I need more seed than a home gardener but am very small a grower, I find that seed is often not packaged in just the size I'll use; and even when it is, it often costs a lot less to buy two year's worth of seed at once -- if the seed will also be good the second year. I've taken to buying winter squash seed fresh every year, because although the second-year seed is often fine it's sometimes useless, and I have such a narrow time window for seeding winter squash that by the time I realize something isn't coming up it's too late to replant, let alone to get fresh seed. (Yes, I know some people start their winter squash from transplant. I'm running too fast transplanting other things at the time for that. And yes, I know I could test everything before putting in the seed orders; I do test some things; but the seed orders tend to go in too late as it is.) I suspect, though I'm not certain, that the difference between squash (or other) seed still vigorous the second year and seed that isn't is in at least some cases the actual age of the seed.

-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale



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