Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Oct 23, 2012 9:07:29 GMT -5
I plant plenty of melon seeds that people have just scooped out onto a plate. The seeds don't care.
If the intention is long term storage, good clean seeds help.
Clean seed helps during planting: It goes through a mechanical seeder easier. Clean seed can be winnowed/sorted easier leading to higher germination percentages. Clean seed harbors and/or attracts fewer species of seed pests.
Then there are the social aspects: I see lots of dirty carrots offered for sale at the farmer's market. I'm always the first one to sell out of carrots, because I take the time to rinse off the worst of the dirt. Same thing applies to seeds. If people are buying seeds they like to see seeds and not dehydrated melon fruit.
And when I'm processing the seeds from large numbers of melons, it's plain old easier to crush them into a 20 gallon bucket, and let the microbes separate the seeds from the pulp.
Clean seed helps during planting: It goes through a mechanical seeder easier. Clean seed can be winnowed/sorted easier leading to higher germination percentages. Clean seed harbors and/or attracts fewer species of seed pests.
Then there are the social aspects: I see lots of dirty carrots offered for sale at the farmer's market. I'm always the first one to sell out of carrots, because I take the time to rinse off the worst of the dirt. Same thing applies to seeds. If people are buying seeds they like to see seeds and not dehydrated melon fruit.
And when I'm processing the seeds from large numbers of melons, it's plain old easier to crush them into a 20 gallon bucket, and let the microbes separate the seeds from the pulp.
