Under-served guys: Would you buy spring and fall seed at once if you got a bigger discount?

SD51555

5 year old buck +
For you cats that live way out in the boonies, far from any ag services (New England, Georgia, Yoopers, etc). You farm country guys with farmer coops that actually serve farmers stay outta this thread.

You know who you are. You have to pay $50 to get a $15 bag of winter rye sent to you. You have to settle for dirty horse oats that were defoliated pre-harvest so the germ is sh*t and it's full of unstoppable death weed. This is only in regards to bulky cheap or high poundage seed like cereals, sunflowers, beans, corn, flax, buckwheat etc. Leave out the expensive or 2-10 lbs/ac seed.

If you could get a bigger discount and better price overall for ordering your spring and fall seed together, would you do it? Would you have the will and ability to store up to 8 or 10 bags of seed if it saved you $100/year?
 
I absolutely would do it. I pretty much did that this year when I drove 2.5 hours to get a puppy for my wife. Part of the allure of going to get the puppy she wanted was that it was within 15 minutes of a good seed place. I was in need of buckwheat and they had everything else I wanted WR, AWPs, sunflowers, soybeans, and wheat. I ended up with a 7% discount and no shipping charges. I stored them in my detached garage but probably should have stored them in my utility closet inside. I had good germination rates but ended up with a poor fall plots so far due to lack of rain.
 
No... $100 saving to store seed for a year is a real risk. Storing seed bad idea for most as they won't store it right.

Give up Starbucks coffee for a month, brew your own, and stop having GrubHub deliver your food and you will be far ahead of the game.
 
I absolutely would do it. I pretty much did that this year when I drove 2.5 hours to get a puppy for my wife. Part of the allure of going to get the puppy she wanted was that it was within 15 minutes of a good seed place. I was in need of buckwheat and they had everything else I wanted WR, AWPs, sunflowers, soybeans, and wheat. I ended up with a 7% discount and no shipping charges. I stored them in my detached garage but probably should have stored them in my utility closet inside. I had good germination rates but ended up with a poor fall plots so far due to lack of rain.

7% on what type of order value?

Welters offers 5% if ordered in December and no storage required.
 
7% on what type of order value?

Welters offers 5% if ordered in December and no storage required.
It wasn’t a bunch like $35 in savings. But no shipping. Not sure if you have had a shipping quote lately but it was $90 for 150 lbs last time I checked from Welters. My fall plots included 300 lbs of WR no realistic shipping options there. Now I bought my fall seed the same time I bought my Spring/Summer plots I probably wouldn’t order my Spring seeds with my fall plots for the following year but SD didn’t specify ordering Spring or fall. Although I have planted plenty of year old seed without issue. Mostly radish and MRC.
 
For example, would you order your fall seed in the spring if you also needed spring seed? Maybe it's two bags of buckwheat, two bags of sunflowers, for spring and summer, and then you also wanted 4 bags of rye or winter wheat for fall. Would you order them all at once if it saved a huge shipping charge?
 
Actually, we have coops nearby, but I still evaluate pricing and make those kinds of purchases. For example, While I could get WR at a reasonable price ($18-$20 bagged), shipping cost would make anything mail order just or more expensive. On the other hand, Durana was quite expensive locally but I could (and did) order it from Harvey at Poudre Valley Coop out west for $5/lb delivered in 50 lb bags. That per/lb cost was much lower than the local coop. Welter Seed and Honey pays half the shipping on some seeds, for things like PTT and Radish, even with the shipping cost, they are quite a bit cheaper than I can get them from the local coop. One year, Hanover offered free shipping on sunn hemp at a discounted per/lb price even on 50 lb gags. That made it much less expensive. The following year, they stopped offering free shipping on 50 lb bags putting it in the same ball park my coop could order it for, so I bout it from the coop. If prices are close, I'll buy locally, but if the discount is substantial, I'll mail order it.

Other strategies also work well. If I want to add a warm season annual to a fall plant for archery season attraction, I just wait until it is too late to plant soybeans in our area. I'll then have a chat with the coop manager. They can return unopened bags, but some always get ripped or torn. He sells me them cheap.

Another issue is timing. Because our objectives are different from farmers, we sometimes need seed at different times. I use Winter Rye in a mix for fall that includes turnips. PTT get larger bulbs for winter if I plant it early. Sometimes I'll stagger planting PTT first and then top dressing with WR later, but often I don't have the time. So, I'll simply plant some fields early to favor PTT and some later to favor cereal. The problem is that when I do this, the WR is typically not available. WR stores well in plastic bins. I get a bigger discount from the coop if I buy in larger quantities. So, I'll often buy more WR than I need for the fall and save some for the early fields the following year. This both addresses the cost and availability when I want it.

My point is that while I'm not in the problematic areas with extreme price inflation, the strategies you list, I use, and folks in problematic areas would benefit even more if they could use them.

Thanks,

Jack
 
I have and will be ordering fall seeds in the spring for different reasons. I am picky! There are certain varieties I want and have found over the years that if I wait, said variety isn’t available at the time I want to plant. It may be left over from the year before but I’m ok with that.


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