{"id":2085,"date":"2026-09-08T22:45:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T21:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/koczoradam.hu\/?post_type=fw-portfolio&p=2085"},"modified":"2026-09-08T23:04:28","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T22:04:28","slug":"zsalya-vetomag-eloallitas","status":"publish","type":"fw-portfolio","link":"https:\/\/koczoradam.hu\/en\/project\/zsalya-vetomag-eloallitas\/","title":{"rendered":"Sage seed production"},"content":{"rendered":"

Common sage (Salvia officinalis<\/em>) 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

I work the same way in rosehip<\/a>\u00a0and oregano growing<\/a> too.<\/p>\n

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

If you have any thoughts on the subject, feel free to get in touch with me.<\/a><\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":2084,"template":"","fw-portfolio-category":[6],"class_list":["post-2085","fw-portfolio","type-fw-portfolio","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","fw-portfolio-category-portfolio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/koczoradam.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/fw-portfolio\/2085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/koczoradam.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/fw-portfolio"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/koczoradam.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/fw-portfolio"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/koczoradam.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/fw-portfolio\/2085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2093,"href":"https:\/\/koczoradam.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/fw-portfolio\/2085\/revisions\/2093"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koczoradam.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/koczoradam.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"fw-portfolio-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koczoradam.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/fw-portfolio-category?post=2085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}