KarenHolt said: ... My Merit corn is pink. I was told it was colored so that folks that were buying more than one variety of corn would not mix it up. When I handle it, the dye comes off easily on my fingers. Does that mean it was treated?
Wow, I wish I knew! I could see arguments either way, but I would lean toward it really just being dyed, not treated with any kin d of 'cide4.
If it is in a commercial package with a point-of-sale barcode, I would guess they would be required to label it "treated" if there were a fungicide. If it was a scoop or a trade, who knows?
But since corn is usually planted into warm soil (I guess), would it even NEED a fungicide? Gurneys now "treats" all their pea and corn seed, but they sure danced around admitting WHAT they treated them with. So maybe.
>> I was told it was colored so that folks that were buying more than one variety of corn would not mix it up
?? If I were the customer, I know that I would want to know the NAMES of each, not just "this is pink so it isn't the same as all the yellow types". In other words, what possible customer anywhere would be satisfied growing "pink, blue and yellow dyed seeds" without feeling a need to know what each one WAS?
I guess some customer might be able to list the names and associated colors somewhere, but was NOT able to write down the name on a piece of paper and just stick it in the bag with the seed.
So really, I don't know. But if some clerk said that to me, I would raise one eyebrow into my hairline, give him the Hairy Eyeball, and ask "Oh, REALLY?"
The answer might be "YES, really, even if YOU don't think it's a useful idea". Sales gimmicks don't HAVE to make sense!
Or lots of people might have some habits where dyed seeds as a great advantage - again, I don't really know. I just can't imagine having seeds without labels.
Going all the way back to High School Chem lab,
if it isn't labelled, you don't know what it is,
so pour it down the drain Right Now.
Little Willy was a chemist.
Little Willy is no more.
For what he thought was H2O ,
Was H2SO4 .
After all, if a fungicide came off instantly on contact with anything, what good would it be?
And if the vendor is big enough to sue, and he sold treated seeds without labeling them, and you fed ten pounds to a hog that got sick, you could sue them. hence if it was not labelled, either it was not treated, or the vendor is immune to lawyers.
If you ever go back to that store and cross-examine them, I would love to hear more details!
(I did buy a tomato seed mix once, three colors of cherry tomatoes mixed in just one pkt. Partly invalidating my argument, they DID color those mixed seeds so you could separate them if you wanted to. Since theey were all in one pkt, that WAS very useful.)
The one I bought was only a three-way mix, but the idea was like this 7-way rainbow mix, 7 varieties and only 25-30 seeds (0.2 grams).
https://www.botanicalinterests...
Sundrop = orange (orange seed),
Gold Nugget = yellow (yellow seed),
Brown Cherry = brown (blue seed),
Sweetie = red (red seed),
Green Grape = green (green seed),
Super Snow White = white (raw seed),
Bicolor Cherry = pink/white striped (pink seed).
