Boy ! Have seed prices increased !

14 years ago

I just was cleaning out my old seed catalogs that I was saving. I looked at some of the old price and compared them to the current prices for the same items.

WOW ! Have they increased in the last few years, since 2007 and 2008. Many by 25% ! That couple with the shipping cost increases it's getting to the point where starting your own veggies are just too expensive.

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Comments (12)

mailman22
14 years ago
Looks like seed saving is going to be catching on. Heirlooms will rule!
morz8 - Washington Coast
14 years ago
yes, possibly true but have you shopped lately, drafted?

Tomatoes here last week, even the usually less expensive romas - $4.99/lb. A head of nutritionally inert iceburg lettuce was $1.89....I'm paying more for the salad I serve than I am my entree. Not that I bought the tomatoes, couldn't justify the quality with the price.
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We don't know enough about the individual packets of seeds to answer that question. Some discount websites and seed companies sell seeds from the previous season. In and of itself, that is not necessarily a problem, assuming the seeds have been kept in proper storage conditions so the quality of the seeds has not significantly degraded. So, if you are buying less expensive seeds to plant in 2011 and those seeds were packed for 2011 or 2010, you likely would have similar germination rates for most varieties. However, if the seeds were packed for 2008 or 2009, your germination rates might drop. Seed viability differs from one type of vegetable or flower to another, though, so there's no cut-and-dried way to say "oh, anything less than 5 years old is going to germinate well". A blanket statement of that type might be true of tomatoes, for example, but not lettuce or onion seed. There also is a huge variation in the number of seeds in a packet. Some companies might put 40 tomato seeds in a packet. Some might put only 10. If you're buying from a company that doesn't tell you how many seeds are in a packet (either by weight or by seed count), you don't know what you're getting. Sometimes the cheaper pack is not always the better deal. Even with Burpee seeds, there is often a difference between the number of seeds in catalog packs versus the number of sees in retail store packs. A few years ago, a Gardenweb member whose user name was "GoneFishin'" ordered seed of one specific tomato variety (might have been Porterhouse) online and then picked up a seed packet of the same variety at a local store to test our theory that the catalog packs had more seed per pack. The packet from Burpee was about $4.00 or $4.25 but contained 40 or 50 seeds. The packet from Wal-Mart was about $1.26 or $1.37 and it contained 8 or 9 seeds. After he reported those results, I did the same thing the following year with a new zinnia introduction. Sure enough, the more expensive pack from the website/catalog had 40 seeds and the 4 packets I bought at a local store had between 7 and 9 seeds. So, even though the cheaper packets seemed like a better deal initially, I would have had to buy 5 or 6 packets of the cheaper seeds at the store to get the same amount of seed that was found in a more expensive packet from the website. For a while, Thompson & Morgan sold their surplus seed on a website called Value Seed for 99 cents a pack, and it was understood that this was a clearance website and you likely were getting "old" seed. However, most folks who bought the slightly older surplus seed did not have germination problems. Many seed companies buy their seed from the same seed wholesalers so often the seed from one company is no different than the seed from another time at the time the bulk purchase is made. From that point on, different companies pack, ship and store seeds differently and that can affect viability. 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That's the law of supply and demand at work. Big Boy tomato seed has been around for decades and you can buy it plenty of places for around $1 or $2 per pack. Brandy Boy F-1 hybrid is a Burpee exclusive, though, and it is available from only a couple of Burpee-owned companies and it will run $4 or $5 per pack. So, with any variety you purchase, you need to do your research well in order to know you're getting the best price. Hope this info helps a little. I always carry the thought around in my mind that "if anything seems too good to be true, it usually is" or "buyer beware". I knowthere are some great discount seed companies out there, but you have to start slow with a company that's new to you and not sink too much money into their seeds until you've tested a few to see how they perform. Some of the bigger companies with big name reputation, and Burpee Seed is a good example of this, do charge higher prices. They have huge printing costs for those glossy, photo-laden catalogs and they have big advertising budgets. Smaller, online firms avoid many of those costs and pass the savings along to the consumer. That's not a bad thing. Dawn
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oilpainter
14 years ago
While some things may have gone up and the shipping is slightly higher over all they are not much different. I keep a scribbler where I write down my orders, I have a record of what I spent going back to 1992. The one before that has been sent to the garbage. I like to write in the bottom of the page just how well things grew and if I'd order anything special again.

Anyway in 2000 my orders were $31.05 +74.34= $105.39

In 2010 my orders were $32.33 + $27.35 + $51.40= $111.08

Last year my order was $115. Although I roughly order the same vegetables I may get different flowers. The difference may be extra flower seeds or a more expensive variety--I don't really know.

What I do know is that things haven't changed much that i've noticed, except the shipping charges and you can blame the post office for that. The difference Between my 2000 order and my 2010 order is $6 for the entire order including shipping. Not a great increase in my opinion considering how much the price of groceries in the store have gone up.
bcskye
14 years ago
What I wonder about is why I only had to pay shipping and handling of $3 for an order from one place where others are charging $5.95 and $7.95, even if you'd only order 1 package of seeds.
oilpainter
14 years ago
Do you think of ordering more seeds from the place with the cheap shipping and handling. That's their reasoning and it is a business decision.

Dominion seed house in Canada charges nothing for shipping if your seed order is over $30 or if your plant and seed order is over $80. I looked at their catalogue and all their seeds are a bit more than others charge. T+T seeds has a $2 shipping charge for small orders and their prices are most reasonable. All business decisions and nothing to do with the cost of seeds.

As for ordering 1 package of seeds-- well let me ask you this What does your local furniture store charge for delivery? Is it not the same for 1 chair as it is for a whole truck full of furniture. It would be a bookkeeping nightmare to do it any other way.

There are plenty of seed companies out there so just like the seed companies you have to make a business decision about where to order from
bcskye
14 years ago
The place I ordered from for $3 shipping only offers seed for one type of veggie. I did order more than one package from them, but their price for shipping is $3 no matter what you order. The places that charge more offer a wide variety of vegetables, but I don't need more than one or two packages of their vegetables. Most of the furniture stores charge the same amount to deliver whether you order one item or a truckload because a truck using the same amount of gas (or diesel) and labor fees is used for either. Postage for one package of seeds plus the few minutes to drop them in an envelope should be quite a bit less than a lot of packages of seeds. Actually, I did use good business sense, I don't order from places that charge more for shipping than the price of the seeds I'm ordering.
krazy_karma
14 years ago
I'm wanting to find a reputable supplier of non genetically modified seeds, particularly for vegetables. Anybody can SAY their seeds are pure, but how do you really know?
oilpainter
14 years ago
krazy karma:

I think you are confusing organic growing with seed production. They are completely different things.

I think you need a lesson in seeds!

Seeds sold by seed companies aren't genetically modified. Those genetically modified seed are jealously guarded be their developers and you cannot buy them. A genetically modified seed is one where they have taken a plant that has a certain characteristic like not being suseptible to certain plant diseases and things and mixing that gene into an altogether different plant. They may take the ability of peas to withstand freezing and cross it with a tomato that is suseptible to freezing.

Then there are hybrids. Hybridization has been going on for centuries. Hybridization is taking plants that have certain characteristics and breeding other like plants, to have that characteristic. Hybridization never crosses plant lines. A tomato is always fertilized with another tomato.

If you want pure seed then go for heritage seeds. These are also jealously guarded by growers to be pure seed and seed is saved from year to year. Many gardeners do save their own seed from year to year. There are even seed banks to preserve the varieties. If you grow a heritage vegetable you will be growing varieties that have been around for centuries. Find yourself a seed supplier who specializes in heritage seeds and you can be sure it will be pure.
the_gurgler
14 years ago
Krazy Karma,

While I don't disagree with what oilpainter has posted I think it's a thumbnail sketch. You might like to read "Seed to Seed" to learn more about seed saving and production.

Three things I think you would probably like to know regarding your question:

1. GMO plants are usually modified with completely different organisms not just an interesting plant cross. Inserting the ability to produce BT from bacterium for example.

2. Hybrids are plant crosses to introduce additional genetic diversity and "hybrid vigor", which improves plant performance. Usually the resulting seed of a hybrid is sterile.

3. Hybrids, Hierloom/Antique, or open pollinated seed are all separate from whether that was seed was produced organically. You could find organically produced hybrids for example.

As oilpainter notes you don't run across GMO seed in most of retail seed carriers. Many seed companies provide organically grown seed like:

Park Seed

Territorial Seed Company

Fedco

to name a few.

Hope this helps!
oilpainter
14 years ago
gurgler:
Hybrid seeds are not sterile. Some are but most are not. You may or may not however get the same kind of plant from a hybrid seed. In other words the plant you get from a hybrid seed will in all probability be different in some way from the plant you gathered the seed from. Unlike the heritage plant that always produces a replica of the plant you gathered the seed from.
veggieholic
14 years ago
Krazy Karma-

I have been really happy with the following heirloom / non gmo seed merchants:

http://rareseeds.com/
http://heirloomseeds.com/
irisman646
14 years ago
Woops ! Lets set some things straight here. This thread is full of errors. Most hybrids are not sterile. Rememeber if they were sterile they could not pollinate themselves in straight stands where hybrids are often grown. Its true you can have a sterile hybrid (interspecific hybridization/nuclear sterility genes, etc) but to paint all hybrids sterile is a gross mis-interpretation.

Heritage lines breed true ? Nooo - heritage refers to the perceived origin of the plant. Just because the population it derives from was developed in the last century has nothing to do with its mode of reproduction which is the driving force on the genetic structure of the population and determines whether it is genetically uniform, or not. If you have a largely self pollinating plant like pea - it can maintain genetic continuity and stability over time. Out crosssing plants (corn/pumpkin)are extremely difficult to maintain in pure state without controlled pollinations unless they are growing in strict isolation. So, the bottom line is that a heritage label has very little to do with genetic continuity across generations. It follows that genetic purity is NOT a broad result of heritage/antique labelled material. Rather the opposite. Often such material is diverse in genetic background because of ad-mixtures, outcrosssing, segregating material, accumulated mutations and more... all this speaks to diverse germplasm not purity and uniformity.

GMO=genetically modified organism. Most GMO's are mans insertions of genetic material into the genome of another recipient plant. The donor can be from the same or another species.

Organic production is the PROCESS of production. Whether a cultivar is labelled as "heritage" or "antique" has little to do with process and much to do with provenance/origin and handling of the germplasm over its history. Its true, but confusing, that organic standards impose restrictions and requirements on cultivars that qualify for "organic labelling". However, these seed source restrictions are aimed at excluding certain material deemed to be undesirable. Less to do with directly qualifying the source as more desirable than another. Yes, I know some ideological purists will not agree. However, you can grow a GMO modified plant in an organic production system - it will not qualify for organic labelling, but it will have been grown organically. Confused - so is the rest of the world. So are the standards.

Back to seed prices. Driving factors in price increases are rapidly escalating costs of shipping and regulatory/legal compliance.

Boy ! Have seed prices increased !

Comments (12)

mailman22

morz8 - Washington Coast

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