Why Seed Bag Tags are so Important for Food Plot Planting

Seed bag tags can throw you for a loop if you fail to pay attention to what they’re telling you, because they tell you everything that’s important about your bag of seed. When you look at a seed label, you’ll see numbers, many numbers. All those numbers are significant; the Federal Seed Act and all state seed laws require a seed label. In fact, the U.S. has some of the most stringent seed laws in the world. The seed label reflects those laws.

Many people don’t even pay attention to bag tags. That is a mistake. With food plots and other conservation practices, you need to know WHAT to plant, but maybe more important, HOW MUCH to plant. And you want to be sure the bag or bags don’t have seeds you don’t want. Understanding the seed label will allow proper decision-making when planning and installing any seeding.

It is essential to know and properly interpret what is in the bag. One of the most important parts of establishing desired plant growth for any food plot or other conservation practice is making sure that the correct species, variety and amount of seed is planted.

WATCH: How to Frost Seed Your Food Plots and Extend Your Plot’s Life!

For instance, seed bags hardly ever have 100% pure live seed — known as PLS — so when instructions tell you to plant ‘X’ pounds per acre of a specific seed, you need to calculate the number of pounds a bag has of pure live seed, and then work from there to find out how much more contents from additional bags you may need to plant to get the desired ‘X’ pounds of pure live seed of the species you intend to plant.

More than one factor is involved in these calculations, so hang in here.

Components of the Seed Label

The law requires that each seed lot offered for sale must be truthfully labeled. This is regulated by the Federal Seed Act as well as state seed laws. In addition, all state certification agencies comply with the minimum requirements and standards of the Association of Official Seed Certification Agencies (AOSCA) to insure uniform testing methods and minimum standards of seed quality.

The format of seed labels may and probably will vary, but all labels will have some semblance of the following as required by the Federal Seed Act for seed in interstate commerce. Some of this information is from Pat T. Miller, director of state affairs for the American Seed Trade Association, and Mike Stahr, seed lab manager of the Iowa State University Seed Laboratory, and some is from “A Simplified Guide to Understanding Seed Labels” Technical Note No. 2 by John M. Englert, manager of the USDA-NRCS National Plant Materials Center, Beltsville, Maryland.

Here’s the list:

Product name — the brand name and/or species name, so you, the consumer, know what you are getting; this is sometimes called the variety and kind.
Lot Number — a series of letters or numbers assigned by the grower so the seed can be traced to its origin.
Origin — state where the seed was grown.
Net weight — how much material is in the bag/container.
Pure seed — percentage by weight of the desired seed(s), based on the weight of the entire contents of the bag.
Inert matter — Percent by weight of material in the bag that is plant debris or other materials that are not seed; in other words, whatever is in the bag that doesn’t grow.
Other crop seeds — percent by weight of seeds not considered weed seeds.
Weed seeds — percentage by weight of weed seeds, unless they are considered restricted noxious weed seeds by law where the seed will be sold.
Names of restricted noxious seed (with number per pound of seed). Noxious weed species vary by state. There are two types of noxious weeds — restricted and prohibited. Restricted weeds are listed as seeds per pound of material in the bag (usually around 0.25%). Prohibited noxious weed seeds are not allowed.
Germination (germ) — the percentage of seed in the bag that is expected to grow (based on a lab test).
Treatment — coatings generally used to enhance germination, protect the seed, or assist in growth.
Hard seed — seed which does not germinate readily because of a hard seed coat.
Dormant seed — seed which does not germinate readily because it requires a pre-treatment or weathering in the soil. (Some suppliers may combine hard and dormant seed on the label.)
Germination test date — Month and date this lot was tested. This should be within 12 months of the planned date for using the seed. The date of the standard germination test must be listed, even if it is different from the dates of other tests done.
Name and address of the company providing the seed.
Other items deemed necessary by your state.

This list is not all-inclusive. It may vary from state to state.

You may also see the following additional information on the label:

Total Viability and/or Germination — this may or may not be stated. To get total viability, add Germination + Hard Seed + Dormant Seed. Total viability may not equal 100%. This just means that some of the seed is not viable and will not germinate.

Even More Info

In addition to the seed analysis label, there may be a second label indicating the certification class of seed. The most typical second label would be blue and would indicate it as CERTIFIED SEED.

Certified seed is the progeny of seed that has been handled to maintain genetic identity and purity and has been approved by a state certifying agency. Certified seed should be the first choice for any seeding project, especially when cultivars are used. (A cultivar is a plant that is selected for desirable characteristics that can be maintained by propagation.)

Using the Seed Label

The total of Pure Seed, Other Crop Inert Matter and Weed Seed should always equal 100%.
If the purity or germination is very low, you may not want to use the seed.
If there are noxious weeds, you should know what they are and whether they will be a problem on your planting site.
Always purchase and use seed based on Pure Live Seed (PLS). PLS is the amount of seed which will germinate and can be calculated using numbers from the seed label.

First, determine total viability.

Viability = germination + hard seed + dormant seed.

Viability is the percent of seed which will germinate, though it may not all germinate the first season. In our example above, total viability = 93.00%.

Next, calculate the amount of Pure Live Seed (PLS).

PLS = % Purity x % Viability/100

In our example: PLS = (93.8 x 93)/100 = 87.23%

PLS can be used for calculating the amount of seed you will need to buy for a planting or when calibrating the output of a drill.

Bulk seed/acre = lbs. PLS recommended/acre/Percent PLS

If you want to seed 10 acres at 8 lbs. PLS/acre, then:

8 lbs. PLS/acre = 9.17 lbs. bulk/acre x 10 acres = 91.7 lbs. bulk seed needed / .8723 PLS

Most native plant seed is sold on a PLS basis because germination and purity can be so variable. Always specify buying seed by the PLS pound to make sure you get the amount of seed you need. Some of the cool-season turf-type grasses (fescues, orchard grass) and agronomic seed (oats, rye) are sold on the basis of bulk pounds only because germination and purity are typically very high and minimums are regulated by the Federal Seed Act. Under the FSA, minimum germination rates are listed for each type of plant. These minimums include 65% for chicory, 75% for kale and 80% for turnips.

Disease Dangers

Diseases occur with nearly all food plot varieties — caused by pathogens such as fungi, bacteria, viruses and nematodes. Depending on the particular pathogen, diseases can affect the leaves, stems, roots and crown, and are sometimes highly visible but other times not.

Weather conditions also affect the severity of diseases with some diseases being more prevalent in wet, humid or dry conditions. Most pathogens live in and accumulate in the soil, so the combination of the right environmental conditions along with the total number of pathogens present will relate to the severity of the disease.

While some pathogens can live in the soil for many years, others die more quickly when the host plant variety is no longer present. Both clover and alfalfa can suffer from several fungal, bacterial and other pathogenic-caused diseases. Some of the common ones are root rot, leaf spot and wilts.

Closing Thoughts

Seed labs can conduct more than 50 types of tests. Many of these are not used to provide information for the label but provide supporting information to the seed company.

The standard (or warm) germination test is conducted under conditions considered ideal and so its results are likely the maximum germination rate of that seed. It must be remembered that fields vary in soil type, fertility, fungal and insect population, environmental conditions, etc., so the germination percentage or the result of a vigor test may or may not match field emergence.

Vigor of a seedling isn’t considered in the germination test, but rather that the parts of a seedling are present and not badly damaged mechanically or by fungi or insects.

Also determined in the germination test is the percentage of dead seed, dormant seed (those that take up moisture but don’t grow) and hard seeds (certain types of seeds that can have a seed coat that doesn’t allow water to penetrate until later).

There’s more to a bag of seed than meets your eye, but when you study the seed bag label you can find out all you need to know.

— Glenn Helgeland is a former hunting industry executive, book author and bowhunter with more than 60 years of deer hunting experience. For more than 30 years, he owned and operated Target Communications, founders of deer and turkey expos across the Midwest.