Some of you may have seen my post a week or so ago,where I conducted
an experiment comparing commercial pea seed and my own saved pea
seed.When I save my own seed,I store in a paper bag or envelope and
note the date of harvest e.g Harvested 2010.
On commercial seed packets for example,written on the seed packet is
'Packeted year ending 2011' followed by 'Sow by 2012'.
This information is absolutely useless,as one has no idea when the
seed was harvested.They always quote EC regulations on seed
quality,and I suppose hope noone checks it out.
I have asked several of my fellow allotment holders of their
experience with sowing coomercial pea seed,and almost without
exception,they blame failure of their pea seed to germinate well on
their own gardening inexpeience-soil too cold ,wet or dry,seed sown
too deep or mice problems.
I have come across a couple of seed companies from the US some years
ago,who put on date of harvest,but noone does it these days.Perhaps
'Which' should run a campaign to persuade seed companies to be more
open with their seed dates.
Michael