Old seed should not be sold for cash, unless tested 50%

[michael johnson]

I am absolutly infuriated- that there is an ever increasing amount of "No" shows- on lots of seed that sent out by various companies and private organisations, it should never be allowed in the first place,no seed should ever be attempted to be sold if anything less than fresh.

Over here in the UK, all seed sold by any company or private organisation has to be germination tested first before being offered for sale, fresh means two years or less age, not four-six-eight and up,

Admittedly often one can get some limited germination from seeds older than four years- but even then it is less than acceptable to the buyer as actual value for money and one tends to feel cheated, the only hope one then has is to hope that perhaps one or maybe two seed germinate out of a bad batch and one can re-coupe ones losses at harvest time with fresh seed.but "no" shows whatsoever is close to being criminal.

I myself am absolutly fuming in the fact that I have had four- no shows, all quite rare varieties- that were obviously more than 4 to 8 years old, that I paid good money for- all for nothing, that quite obviously had never been germination tested prior to being offered for sale.

My own saved seed on the other hand are still very viable at up to nine years old with a high percentage of germination, but even so I dont send any of those out that are more than two years old,

If seeds are given privately in friendly seed exchanges then thats a different matter and one has to accept a certain amount of un-tested seed and take pot luck on it. but even then one should at least try to offer fresh seed.

It infuriates me in the fact that now I shall have to wait a whole season and try to obtain the varieties that I wanted from different scources to last time as it will be far too late to sow anymore now this season.

[SelfSufficient1]

How long has it been since you planted your no-shows?

[carolyn137]

Michael,

How about calming down a bit.

I have no idea where you're getting your seeds from, but there are several factors at work here.

First, in the US the larger companies will have a packed by date, which means nothing, b'c all it means is when the seeds were packed, not when they were produced.

In Europe I'm led to believe that most reputable companies put a "use by" date on a commercial pack.

Several seed companies I know of do germination testing and that includes TGS and SandHill and Johnny's. I'm not aware of the practices of others.

There are Federal seed germination percentages for tomato seed and all others that should be met, but since there is no requirement as to any commercial place doing so, they appear to be somewhat meaningless.

And another factor is seed storage, which is separate form seed age but the two are related.

And I certainly would NOT agree with your definition of "fresh" seeds being two years old, or less.

My own experience, from saving seed from hundreds, yea several hundreds of hundreds of varieties is that seed much older than 2 yo germinates just fine.

I call seeds less than 5 yo fresh seed and expect to see germination over 50% for seed at 5 to 7 years and don't do anything special re germination until seed gets older than that.

Most folks I know who list varieties in the SSE Yearbook are on a 5 year seed rotation and I was too when I listed so many varieties and for the few varieties I currently list will use that same rotation schedule if I can.

I am not commercial. If I were I might do things differently, and I can't speak for anyone else who lists at SSE.

Glenn Drowns, for instance is on a TWO year schedule and NO seeds he sells are older than that. That is great, actually, but is not the norm in the commercial world.

So I don't know who your beef is with re these rare seeds you talk of, but if some were traded, then all bets are off as to seed age as well you should know.

I put the year the seed was produced on all seed packets I send out, whether thru SSE or with my recent modest seed offer here at Tville.

And what you might consider rare someone else might not, but regardless of that I can appreciate your concern and frustration, but cannot agree with your definition of seed age as to germination.

[michael johnson]

Probably your right,in all aspects of what you said.

But after all my seeds- about a hundred and twenty varieties germinated except four, of which I kept them for another month and still "no show" using all the tricks in the trade- heat mats,seaweed sprays etc, etc,- not as much as a sausage appeared, and would you believe they were just the four I had been waiting for the most out of all of them, ( I say Rare tomatoes ) yes -but realy there is no such thing as a rare tomato- because once you have got it to grow and managed to save seed from only a couple of the resulting tomatoes- you have hundreds of seeds at your disposal- so realy its not rare anymore- to you,

But you would think that quite regardless of if or not the seed was 1 yr old, 2, 3, or even 4 or 5 yrs old, they would at least take the trouble to germination test the seeds before sending them out .

It is as you say, true that here in the Uk all seed packets have to have a sell by date stamped on them usualy one year after packaging date ( I only wish this was true for all countries ) as none of these seeds came fromthe UK, all were from the USA.and all from the one place.

I cant put names to the varieties involved as I dont wish to embarrase anyone personaly.

[carolyn137]

I cant put names to the varieties involved as I dont wish to embarrase anyone personaly.

I don't expect you to name companies. nor do I expect you to name names of individuals, but I would hope that you would better understand that different US companies store seeds differently, some use pack dates, others do not, there are NO requirements to do germinations , so some do and some don't.

And when I think rare, I'm not thinking rare in terms of commercial offerings, for the most part. There I'm thinking more SSE Yearbook individual listings and then you're dealing with a set of different factors tied up with the practices of individual listers.

But as I said above, what is rare to one person may not be rare to another.

[michael johnson]

they were not ( thankfully- from the SSE ), but from a semi- commercial vendor,

All from the same place, and four " no shows ", one wouldnt have been quite so bad, but four from the same place is I bit rich I think, almost half of my order.

Needless to say I shant be buying any more from there, thats a fact.

[GreenThumbGal_07]

Michael,

I've experienced some of the same problems.

Two seed companies I know of will test their seed for germination before shipping and will send out double the amount if they have observed that germination is substandard. I think that's a good policy for a commercial seed company to follow.

Another seed company I know of will send out replacement packets (of different varieties) if I report problems with germination. Needless to say, I'd rather have the varieties I originally ordered, with viable seed. With this company I've decided to test germinate all seed from them before distributing it to anyone else.

GTG

[clay199]

I think I need glasses, I keep seeing double of everything...

[valereee]

Michael, perhaps you could contact the company? Maybe they'll offer to reimburse you or send out replacement seeds free next year?

Val

[carolyn137]

Val, contacting a company to let them know that germination was bad to zero is always a good idea, but asking for fresh seeds next year usually isn't an option.

And that's b'c they will use up what they already have and aren't going to go get seeds for certain varieties that are better.

I'd like to say that ALL companies contacted about crossed seed or low germinating seed would pull them from their listings, but I know that not to be the case.

For two years running I did a wrong varieties thread at GW and I was the contact to various seed companies that had problems and I do know that in some cases the bad/wrong seeds continued to be listed and sold.

I'm always hopeful they'll get their collective acts together and am hesitant to list such companies publically since situations can and do change.

Most folks aren't interested in getting reimbursed, they want the seeds. And many companies do state that their liability is limited to the cost of the seeds.

And of course there's absolutely no recourse when it comes to most traded seeds.

[michael johnson]

I am always worried about asking for replacement seed from these companies- in the fact that I might get some more of the same seed sent out to me again.

Its not so much the dud seed that makes me so mad, in so much as the complete loss of adrenaline rush that one gets after spending several months reading about how good a certain variety is- researching out the location of said seed, sowing it, and then the thrill of absolute elation one gets after peering into the little seed pots each day after about the fourth day and finaly one of their little heads pops up, and then another, and another, you think to yourself-at last-at last, I have finaly got some W-s or some B-----r of my very own , one feels emotionaly cheated , I get all excited almost like an expectant father, but I am not quite at the stage just yet where I am pacing up and down the floor puffing on lucky strike one after the other, but must admitt that I am reduced to waking very early each morning and dashing downstairs to peer into the little seed pots to see if anything has come up on those four yet, .


But all joking apart, it is maddening to say the least especialy since I was charged 36 cents per seed for one of the varieties. and "still no show " you would have thought at that price they would have been springing out of the ground like chapel hat pegs.


I think that Carolyn is right about one thing at least- its an issue of storage of seeds in some if not all of these cases, we had a large problem with this over here in the UK a couple of years ago- with large Garden centres- who usualy have their seeds on display in large show cases for you to select your own from, and they usualy stand there all summer under dry hot garden centre roofs built like a giant greenhouse, and lots of the seeds would not germinate later onin the season, and this was the cause- seeds must be kept in very cool dry condition to store well, I always keep mine in a sealed plastic tupperware box inside the cool part of the fridge, and they keep for years and still germinate well.

[carolyn137]

I think that Carolyn is right about one thing at least-

Well that's certainly reassuring since I just hit over 500 responses this morning, and was shocked to see that b/c I don't keep track that much, but when I checked the Membership list it looks like I'm ahead of the pack in posts done to date.

[SelfSufficient1]

LOl, Micheal I love your description of watching the seeds and hoping they come up. Now isn't that the truth!
My suggestion would be to put a post on here (in the Wanted) part for the seeds you wanted to try but didn't germinate. Everyone here is so generous, I am sure if someone has any they will let you know.

[GManess]

I planted 20 seeds of 160 varieties this year and had zero germination on 4 of the varieties. 2 of the 4 no shows were from a trade from this web site (Box Car Willie & Eva Purple Ball), 1 was from a SSE request/purchase from an individual that I got 30 varieties from this year (Large Mennonite Heritage) and the other one (of the four) was from a commercial supplier that I purchased 25 varieties from (Adelia). All seed packs were marked harvested 2005 or for 2006, so supposedly we are not talking about "old" seeds here. Am I mad ? No. Disappointed ? absolutely. All I can do is make a note and remember it down the road. That's my 1.67586 cents worth !

[carolyn137]

All seed packs were marked harvested 2005

Did they really say harvested?

In the US companies put the packed by date on a seed pack and most of the time unless they produce their own seed they haven't the faintest idea of when the seed was produced b'c the wholesale suppliers don't tell them that info.

i do know of one SSE lister who had problems with some of his 2005 seed that was fermented and germination was questionable for some of them but he didn't know that when he listed them last Fall.

Best thing to do is to always contact the person or company so they know there might be a problem.

Other than that there's no way for me to comment not knowing actual sources, and I see no need to post those publically.