Tell Me About My Wildflower Seed
I spent a fascinating day at Kew yesterday listening to lectures on wildflower seed. It was hosted by NASSTEC, a hopelessly complicated acronym for the even more complicated Native Seed Science Technology and Conservation Initial Training Network. This is an EU funded project to find out about who is doing what in the world of native plant seeds, and to share that information. Very worthwhile it has been too.
One of the interesting topics that came up yesterday was an old bugbear of mine - certification and seed quality. If you buy a wildflower seed mix you want to know:
1. That the seed in it is what it says on the packet
2. Where it's from
3. That it can germinate
I don't think this is unreasonable!
Weirdly, however, I don't have to tell you any of that on the packet. The seed might be from Vladivostock, it could be 10 years old and might just be grass seed. I have my supplier's assurance about its origin and quality, but that's all. We randomly test some seed mixes ourselves, but it's an expensive business and so we can only test a tiny number of batches.
Not declaring anything about seed origin and quality suits the less scrupulous. Producers can use non-viable seed bought in from outside the UK, or different species than are in the specification. Resellers can store seed in inadequate conditions for years until selling it to you. As incredibly, there's no standard protocol that wildflower seed producers are obliged to follow. There are no guidelines about storage, for example - different producers use different regimes as to humidity and temperature.
Whatever the reasons, there's clearly a problem with the germination rates and content of some seed mixes supplied by some folk. Sadly I think this situation might suit them; it was notable that in a room full of academics, ecologists and specialist seed producers that I was the only seed reseller.
I would guess that the overwhelming proportion of wildflower seed mixes sold to retail buyers are poor quality and of dodgy origin. They're too cheap to suggest otherwise. They often look peculiar. They sometimes include agricultural cultivars and odd surprises. Specialist wildflower seed producers and harvesters only seem sell around 5% of their seed to individuals*, but it feels that the total amount of wildflower seed being produced by these guys is very small compared to the total volume sold. There are only around 10 specialist producers in the UK, and most of these are tiny.
The market is so opaque that some resellers don't even tell customers that they're not actually producing the seed they sell themselves.
Vive La Difference!It won't surprise you that this state of affairs is unusual. They have well organised independent certification schemes in the U.S. and in Germany, and identify and audit seed origin and propagation in France.
There's no point existing producers getting together here and producing some kind of quality assurance mark. It wouldn't be seen as independent. If it were auditable it would be expensive. Consumers wouldn't know to look for it and won't know if it's missing. It only suits a tiny number of producers who are trying to do the right thing. The government must legislate. It's only with this that struggling small scale producers can be rewarded for doing the right thing, and that we can consistently create really high quality wildflower projects.
There wouldn't be the money to create a testing framework but a move to the French system - so that you can see the origin of the seed and producers have some kind of protocol to follow in production techniques - would be a good start. I do hope organizations like Kew, Plantlife and perhaps even the RHS might understand this and lobby for it.
*This is one of the reasons we set up the British Wildflower Seeds website
One of the interesting topics that came up yesterday was an old bugbear of mine - certification and seed quality. If you buy a wildflower seed mix you want to know:
1. That the seed in it is what it says on the packet
2. Where it's from
3. That it can germinate
I don't think this is unreasonable!
Weirdly, however, I don't have to tell you any of that on the packet. The seed might be from Vladivostock, it could be 10 years old and might just be grass seed. I have my supplier's assurance about its origin and quality, but that's all. We randomly test some seed mixes ourselves, but it's an expensive business and so we can only test a tiny number of batches.
Not declaring anything about seed origin and quality suits the less scrupulous. Producers can use non-viable seed bought in from outside the UK, or different species than are in the specification. Resellers can store seed in inadequate conditions for years until selling it to you. As incredibly, there's no standard protocol that wildflower seed producers are obliged to follow. There are no guidelines about storage, for example - different producers use different regimes as to humidity and temperature.
Whatever the reasons, there's clearly a problem with the germination rates and content of some seed mixes supplied by some folk. Sadly I think this situation might suit them; it was notable that in a room full of academics, ecologists and specialist seed producers that I was the only seed reseller.
I would guess that the overwhelming proportion of wildflower seed mixes sold to retail buyers are poor quality and of dodgy origin. They're too cheap to suggest otherwise. They often look peculiar. They sometimes include agricultural cultivars and odd surprises. Specialist wildflower seed producers and harvesters only seem sell around 5% of their seed to individuals*, but it feels that the total amount of wildflower seed being produced by these guys is very small compared to the total volume sold. There are only around 10 specialist producers in the UK, and most of these are tiny.
The market is so opaque that some resellers don't even tell customers that they're not actually producing the seed they sell themselves.
Vive La Difference!