The Parable of the Weld Seed – Part 2

After sifting through a tiny fraction of the weld seeds I had collected and dried, I began to wonder whether I actually needed to separate them by color. More accurately, I began to hope that I didn’t have to, because even with the double-sift/shake-down method, progress was slow.

I decided to do a germination test. On July 3rd, I planted some yellow seeds, some brown, and some black. Lo and behold, a month later, none of the yellow or brown seeds had germinated, only the black ones had. These photos are from August 2nd.

 

yellow weld seeds did not germinate
Yellow Weld Seeds. No seedlings here.
brown weld seeds did not germinate
Brown Weld Seeds. No seedlings here, either.
black weld seeds did germinate
Black Weld Seeds. Ah ha!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Granted, it was a small-scale trial (I only filled 6 cells with each type of seed), but still I felt pretty satisfied that the lightest colored seeds are, in fact, immature, and not worth saving.