Few year old seed

[bigboreblr]

Any experiences with a few years old seed? Might of bought too much rye seed this spring. I've done rye a year later as well as oats, seemd to be ok.

Clover is hard to tell with frost seeding. Thought I did turnips over a year old. I use those more for garnish on a plot than a big portion of a mix. Spread some leftover timothy in the snowmobile trail to see if it handles atv traffic a bit. Stuff was maybe 3-4 years old, seemed to do ok. Not an ideal foodplot seed though.

Got a 3 year old mix of weeds collected from home for camp. Persistent clovers, dandelion, crabgrass, and plantain. Planted that in april. Haven't been up there since then. Go up in a week or two.

 

[Bill]

I bet it will germinate. Maybe not 100% but seed lays in the seed bank for years and shows up. Especially if you don't want it...

 

[Turkey Creek]

Depends on the seed. I did a little test last year, planted soybeans that had been stored in a deep freezer for a year, a bag that was laying on the back seat of the farm pickup for over 6 months and they were all at least 2 years old. Both germinated well and I saw no difference between the 2 in terms of germ rate. On the other hand I had some milo/sorghum seed that was a couple of years old that had been stored in cool basement and it had terrible germination rate. I have a bag of black oil sunflower that is going on its 3rd season, last year it had good germination this year it is poor and I tossed the remainder when I was done planting this year.

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

I've been trying to get better at using up random leftover seeds before they get a few years old. I've never noticed any germination issues with any of them, but to be honest I doubt I could tell by looking at a field if the germination rate was 99% or 65%.

 

[bigboreblr]

I used to check feed oats for germination. Randomly pick 50 seeds and plant in a planter saucer and lightly cover to keep moisture in. Each one is 2%.

Got good results everytime, dont even bother checking anymore. I usually use oats as a nurse crop, like 5-15% of the plants in a field. Worse came to worse, I had several other things in there. I used oats as a majority of the mix in spring plots. Only spring plot if I make a new place to plant in the spring. Otherwise, the fall planting brings the herd into spring.

 

[bigboreblr]

Buying by the lb for clover gets expensive. I use about 20-25 lbs of clover most years, some years 30-40. Buying bigger bags, mixing them takes about 3 years to use up. Medium red and ladino. Not sure if berseem is going to be a main component. Like it handy for both spring / fall planting and frost seeding. Haven't been impressed with frost seeding berseem.

Doing less experimentation with foodplot and sticking with the same stuff each year, so stuff is getting better at rotation.