Sage seed production

Common sage (Salvia officinalis) is a crop I have worked with from the seed-production side: I followed a ten-hectare certified organic sage field all the way from flowering to a tested, export-quality seed lot. Medicinal-plant seed is a trade of its own within herb growing, and it asks entirely different questions than growing for the herbal drug.

The stand did not start from named-variety propagating material. In a medicinal plant that is not a shortcoming: a genetically diverse, farm-propagated population copes with extreme years more flexibly than a variety with a narrow genetic base – and in organic farming that adaptability is one of the most important reserves. In exchange the lot is not uniform, and that has to be handled openly towards the buyer.

The look of the field can mislead anyone searching it for a weed-free stand: there are weeds among the sage. In organic farming, however, the goal is not a weed-free field but the greatest possible plant cover. The task is twofold: to support the crop’s own weed-suppressing ability, and to keep out the few weeds that really matter – dangerous and invasive species, and those that damage the purity and quality of the medicinal-plant lot at harvest. With seed, the latter is the bottleneck.

We harvested the seed with a grain combine. There is no dedicated machine for it: everything depends on the combine settings, the timing of the harvest and the quality of the cleaning. The result from a single season was around 800 kilograms of certified organic sage seed, which I entered into stock with the certification body – because with organic seed it is not only the quality of the seed that is the product, but its paperwork as well.

With seed, germination vigour decides everything. For common sage, 60 percent counts as a good result for one-year-old seed; the literature also reports lots of around 20 percent. According to the literature, sage seed improves in storage for a while: three- and eight-year-old lots germinated better than one-year-old seed. Washing in running water as a pre-treatment can likewise raise germination vigour.

The documentation of the lot is as much a part of the goods as the seed itself: organic certificate, stock entry with the certification body, germination test and lot specification, brought together in a datasheet with field photos.

I work the same way in rosehip and oregano growing too.

If you are thinking about medicinal-plant seed production, this is something I can help with: take a look at my advisory service.

If you have any thoughts on the subject, feel free to get in touch with me.