27-01-2005, 02:41 PM
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(Guppy21014) wrote:
I make a lot of mustard throughout the year. I would like to try to grow my
own mustard seeds. How much seed could I expect to get from 1 plant? I usually
use between 25 and 30 pounds of seed per year. To harvest it do I need to
remove hulls? Wow so many questions for a simply bag of mustard seeds. Any
advice would be appreciated. Pam
Growing your own mustard seed would be impractical to say the least.
There's probably a list of things that just don't lend themselves to
being done on a greatly reduced scale. I'm sure that growing enough
mustard to harvest 30 pounds of seed must be right up near the top of
that list.
As a rough guess, I'd think a single plant would yield about 15 to 20
grams of seed.
And, growing it would be the easy part.
Average harvest yield for mustard seed runs about 1400 lbs per
hectare.
A hectare is roughly 107,640 square feet. So, to harvest your 30
pounds of seed you'd need a garden plot of about 2300 square feet, in
other words a plot of ground almost 50 feet square.
After it's been planted and has ripened, there's the harvesting which
is normally done by combine. You probably don't have a combine,
besides, it's pretty hard to manoeuvre a combine on a 50' x 50' plot,
so you'd have to harvest by hand. Cut all the plants down, let them
dry for a few days, thresh them by hand to get all those tiny seeds
out of their tough little pods. Make sure to do it on a nice smooth
surface, like a big tarp, so you don't lose any seeds. Wait for a nice
breezy day and winnow them to get rid of all the chaff and you'd be
pretty well finished.
I enjoy making and using different mustards but, I buy my mustard
seeds in bulk even though I have 50 acres of land on which I could
grow it.
If you're determined to give it a try, I wish you luck. Let us know
how it goes.
Ross.
To email, remove the "obvious" from my address.
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