Do garden seeds expire?
Question:expiration of packaged zinnea seeds
Answers:
Yes but not totally.
If you look on the label it will tell the year the seeds were packaged and the percent of germination. Each year that viable percentage goes down. You can compensate for older seeds by throwing in more of them than you would for fresher seeds. In a home garden that will work. On a farm where labor cost is a bigger factor it is not as sensible an idea.
I dont think so
no
dont think so but maybe they do
Not exactly - but the longer you keep them, the less fertile they will be, and the more duds you will have.
Yes actually they do. I just planted some bell pepper seeds that had an expiration date of June 2007, so I made it just in time. Only one pot out of 4 sprouted though, guess it was too close to the date.
They dry out.That's why there's an expiration or best used by date on them.
Garden seeds do expire, but in a different way then food products. After a while they just rot, or won't grow. Usually on seed packets it gives you a "best if used by" date, which is usually equivilent to one or two years
yes I'm VERY sure they do expire...so get planting!
One year after the date of harvest and thus the date on the pck. is accurate. Does not mean they will not grow, only means the germination rate will be vastly different.
Seeds are pretty hardy little monsters. Nature made them to stand up against time and a certain amount of abuse, so at least some of them should still sprout. Go ahead and plant them. If they don't sprout, you haven't lost anything in the effort ... buy a new packet and plant again!
seeds can remain viable for long periods depending on how they were stored.
will some times after a lot period of time the seed can die, dry or get eaten by a bug what you can do is put then in the refrigerator no more than 20-25 C this will made the seed last longer
They do have a best-by date; after this a percentage of them won't grow and this percentage increases every year (I think it's about 10% per year for the average plant; not sure if Zinnias are better or worse than this).
You can still plant them - some of them will be fine, just don't expect a lot of them to germinate if they're a few years out of date.
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