Thread: pelleted seeds?
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Old 07-01-2007, 02:51 PM posted to rec.gardens.edible
Steve Bonine Steve Bonine is offline
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First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Jan 2007
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Default pelleted seeds?

Salmon Egg wrote:

On 1/6/07 "higgledy" wrote:

What is a pelleted seed? I saw this on Johnny's Selected Seeds


I think that it is a method for greatly increasing the cost of a seed beyond
what the market would ordinarily bear. Supposedly the pellet contains
fertilizer and other goodies to help the seed start out well. In practice, I
have not gotten better germination rate.


I think the main advantage cited for pelleted seed is handling. If the
seeds are small, it's much easier to plant them if they are pelleted.

In the old days, you could get maybe a gram of tomato seed in a packet. Now
many seed packets contain about 100mg. Even that was too many seeds. By
pelletizing, you are down to 20 seeds per packet.


Which in many cases is still too many. I need 20 tomato plants of a
given variety . . . why?

The idea of pelletizing may be innovative, but my guess is the main benefit
is a fatter bottom line for the seed companies that push it.


So don't buy pelleted seeds.

Free markets are an amazing thing. If pelleted seeds were "too
expensive", people wouldn't buy them, and they would cease to be
available. I happen to like pelleted seeds in some cases, so I buy
them. To me the extra cost is worth it.

Another reason for pelleted seeds is that if you're using mechanical
equipment it may require pelleted seeds. If you're a farmer who needs
to plant a few acres of alfalfa, you don't have the luxury of "saving
money" by buying non-pelleted seed because your planter won't work with
them.