I don’t have a lot of experience with coated seeds besides clover. I haven’t noticed it causing problems in that context but I did once have some coated carrot seeds that didn’t germinate at all.
Anyway I got a batch of eBay China Hosta seeds that are coated. I’m thinking maybe I’ll just crush it /wash it off before I put them in the fridge.
I’m curious other people’s experience with coated seeds.
I’ve never bought coated seeds nor seeds from China. I would seal it back up as tightly as possible and throw it away.
They’re not actually unsealed yet so that’s not ad issue. The listing didn’t mention they were coated or I probably wouldn’t have bought them but looking back I see in their last picture they show them with the coating.
I was able to find other sources of seeds after I ordered these so I suppose I should rethink if I want to mess with them or not. Is there a specific concern about the coating other than just decreasing germination? I guess I thought it was just clay but as I type that I realize that’s a naive assumption. Could be anything in that stuff. Like I said I generally don’t used coated seeds so I haven’t given it a lot of thought.
I don’t have any idea what that coating is, or what is under the coating. I just see some little brown lumps inside a package with Chinese writing. I know there are those who think swapping seeds across continents is fine but I’m not on board with that.
If I trade seeds across continents, I clearly describe them on the customs form and write it bigger on the package too, and I ask someone sending to me to do the same. If it was me, I would incinerate them outside and be careful not to breath the smoke. Oh’ and I’d give the seller a very bad review. Poor packaging, poor service, zero % germination! I’d make it as bad as possible and demand a refund!
I’m new here, so maybe I’m missing something, but why so much hostility toward seeds from another continent? Is it China-specific hostility? Plant disease concerns? Bad experiences in the past?
Worst case scenario: some terrible plant pathogen is imported (think Chestnut blight, Emerald Ash borer, Dutch elm disease), which causes tons of damage . . . and attracts the attention of the government to the importer, who gets their property sprayed with persistent herbicides/huge fines/maybe even jail time.
Maybe such a scenario even creates trouble for other member of GtS (if these seeds or their progeny wind up in seed shares.)
I don’t think the seller has done anything wrong or broken any laws. I certainly don’t understand the nuances of trade with China or anywhere else but there are tons of seeds available to buy here in the US and they seem to be all packages similarly. If you look on aliexpress or other direct trade sites you’ll see there are lots of seeds marked as approved for international export. So I’m not really concerned about the photosanitaty aspect
(Although perhaps my trust in that system is misplaced.)
Looking more into pelleted seeds I’m reading the coating is generally inert clay or other material but can also include Innoculant, fungicides or pesticides. Which isn’t great from my perspective. But I don’t know that burning or negative feedback are called for.
I so love the ability to highlight text from an image & translate it right! That’s how I figured out what the seeds even were 
One reason why I don’t participate in the seed train.
Aliexpress is not a source I would rely on. It’s probably illegal here, if not there, and it’s wrong in a number of ways. I’d do the bad review to discourage them and buyers here, from doing it again. Except I would not have imported them in the first place.
Yeah, it would be hard for me to justify leaving a false bad review “just to teach them a lesson” when, from their point of view, they just sent the product the customer ordered.
Whether the international seed business is good for agriculture or the ecosystem is a wholly different question, and deals with issues over the pay grade of a small-time seed producer who sells on etsy or ebay.
I started a new topic for discussion on international seed orders. There is an additional question of not knowing exactly what’s in the coatings but I’m still interested if anyone has thoughts or experience with pelleted seeds having low germination.
Maybe my carrot experience was a fluke. Those were from Baker Creek, one pack I ordered and nothing germinated and then a year or so later I got another pack of them as free seeds and they didn’t grow either.
Here’s the link to the new discussion:
