From: Hydraulic Seeding and Stabilization 101
What’s on a Label?
Crenshaw Creeping Bent Grass |
| 99.89% | Pure Seed | Lot: | M33-4-69 |
| 0.00% | Other Crop Seed | Net Weight: | 25 lb. |
| 0.11% | Inert Matter | Germination: | 97% |
| 0.00% | Weed Seed | Origin: | Oregon |
| Sell By: | December 2001 | Tested: | October 2000
AMS-472 |
| Noxious Weed Seed:None Found |
| Intermountain Seeds, 123 Grass Valley Road, Green River, UT 45678 |
Reading a label and understanding what it is actually setting out can be very confusing. Nevertheless, the tag tells you what is supposed to be in there as determined by independent lab testing. It is the single most important piece of information the consumer has concerning the seed being purchased. Let’s look at a typical label for turf seed and what it can, and cannot, tell us.
The variety of seed will be on the label, along with the net weight, lot number (sometimes needed for tracing purposes), the place of origin, the date the seed was tested by a certified lab, and a sell-by date. The producer of the seed will have been assigned an Agricultural Marketing Service Number (AMS), which will appear on the label along with the name and address of the producer.
Pure Seed indicates the percentage by weight of pure seed in a lot. For instance, if 97.85 lb. in every 100 lb. of a seed lot is pure named seed, the percentage on the seed tag will read 97.85%. The germination rate for pure seed is also listed and indicates how much of the pure seed will germinate under controlled conditions.
Then there is Other Crop Seed. If it reads 0.10%, you know that by weight there is about 1/10th of 1% crop seed (seed of plants grown for crops other than the kind or variety included in the pure seed) in the lot. You do not know what kind of crop makes up this percentage, but you know that it is seed of any crop grown for an economic purpose. Nor do you know how many seeds are represented in this 0.10% - a serious problem if the seed is very small compared to the size of the pure live seed.
Inert Matter indicates the percentage by weight of anything in the lot not classified as seed, such as chaff, sand, dirt, or hay. This is not necessarily bad, but don’t forget that seed is sold by weight.
Then there are the common weeds. Say you have a weed content of 0.05% in the lot. You still don’t know what kind of weeds they are, and you don’t know the size of the seeds or their number either. If you are dealing with something like Mediterranean grass, you’re talking about 4 million seeds per pound!
Tolerance of weed content varies from one category to another and state to state. This is one of the weak links in the chain: Weed content that is not tolerated in one state, but is not prohibited in another, might just tempt some seed suppliers to offload an inferior lot on another market. John Haynes, an erosion control specialist with the California Department of Transportation, points out that this is one of the areas where he’d like to see more stringent regulations. "If the weed seed is very, very small and the species you are purchasing is very large, it’s possible that you can actually have more weed seed than the specified seed in the lot and still be under 1.5%, which is the maximum tolerance in California. This is because the 1.5% is determined by weight. It’s very important to buy clean seed."
Finally, you come to Noxious Weed Seed. By law, no seed lot with any noxious weeds present may be sold. That seems straightforward enough; however, these lists vary from state to state, and even the federal government maintains two lists: one in which all the weeds listed are prohibited; the other in which a tolerance of two seeds per lot is allowed. Currently 206 species are declared noxious by state or federal governments: 112 of these are on state lists, the additional 94 are only on the federal list. Because noxious-weed lists vary by state, labels list any weeds so defined by the state to which the seed is being shipped.
November-December 2000
From: Hydraulic Seeding and Stabilization 101
What’s on a Label?
Crenshaw Creeping Bent Grass |
| 99.89% | Pure Seed | Lot: | M33-4-69 |
| 0.00% | Other Crop Seed | Net Weight: | 25 lb. |
| 0.11% | Inert Matter | Germination: | 97% |
| 0.00% | Weed Seed | Origin: | Oregon |
| Sell By: | December 2001 | Tested: | October 2000
AMS-472 |
| Noxious Weed Seed:None Found |
| Intermountain Seeds, 123 Grass Valley Road, Green River, UT 45678 |
Reading a label and understanding what it is actually setting out can be very confusing. Nevertheless, the tag tells you what is supposed to be in there as determined by independent lab testing. It is the single most important piece of information the consumer has concerning the seed being purchased. Let’s look at a typical label for turf seed and what it can, and cannot, tell us.
The variety of seed will be on the label, along with the net weight, lot number (sometimes needed for tracing purposes), the place of origin, the date the seed was tested by a certified lab, and a sell-by date. The producer of the seed will have been assigned an Agricultural Marketing Service Number (AMS), which will appear on the label along with the name and address of the producer.
Pure Seed indicates the percentage by weight of pure seed in a lot. For instance, if 97.85 lb. in every 100 lb. of a seed lot is pure named seed, the percentage on the seed tag will read 97.85%. The germination rate for pure seed is also listed and indicates how much of the pure seed will germinate under controlled conditions.
Then there is Other Crop Seed. If it reads 0.10%, you know that by weight there is about 1/10th of 1% crop seed (seed of plants grown for crops other than the kind or variety included in the pure seed) in the lot. You do not know what kind of crop makes up this percentage, but you know that it is seed of any crop grown for an economic purpose. Nor do you know how many seeds are represented in this 0.10% - a serious problem if the seed is very small compared to the size of the pure live seed.
Inert Matter indicates the percentage by weight of anything in the lot not classified as seed, such as chaff, sand, dirt, or hay. This is not necessarily bad, but don’t forget that seed is sold by weight.
Then there are the common weeds. Say you have a weed content of 0.05% in the lot. You still don’t know what kind of weeds they are, and you don’t know the size of the seeds or their number either. If you are dealing with something like Mediterranean grass, you’re talking about 4 million seeds per pound!
Tolerance of weed content varies from one category to another and state to state. This is one of the weak links in the chain: Weed content that is not tolerated in one state, but is not prohibited in another, might just tempt some seed suppliers to offload an inferior lot on another market. John Haynes, an erosion control specialist with the California Department of Transportation, points out that this is one of the areas where he’d like to see more stringent regulations. "If the weed seed is very, very small and the species you are purchasing is very large, it’s possible that you can actually have more weed seed than the specified seed in the lot and still be under 1.5%, which is the maximum tolerance in California. This is because the 1.5% is determined by weight. It’s very important to buy clean seed."
Finally, you come to Noxious Weed Seed. By law, no seed lot with any noxious weeds present may be sold. That seems straightforward enough; however, these lists vary from state to state, and even the federal government maintains two lists: one in which all the weeds listed are prohibited; the other in which a tolerance of two seeds per lot is allowed. Currently 206 species are declared noxious by state or federal governments: 112 of these are on state lists, the additional 94 are only on the federal list. Because noxious-weed lists vary by state, labels list any weeds so defined by the state to which the seed is being shipped.