Customers often ask how long grass seed will keep for. Providing you store seed in cool dry conditions, it’s actually longer than you might think.
Grass seed, like most natural products does eventually have a best before date. We suggest that you should use your seed within 2 years of purchase. Every bag is sealed closed using a DEFRA label. This label contains all the certification details for the seed mixture, but also a month and year of sealing, this saves a lot of trawling through emails to remember when you purchased your grass seed.
Grass seed germination rates tend to decrease by approximately 10% per year after the first few years of storage. In theory this means that a 10 year old bag of seed would still see around 1 in 5 seeds germinate. It’s important to remember though that grass seed varieties are being constantly developed, and suit the present climatic conditions better.
Here are some useful tips for storing grass seed:
- – Store at room temperature, preferably in a garage
- – Keep out of direct sunlight
- – Keep dry
- – Try to keep seed in original packaging – we usually use polypropylene bags to prevent condensation build up
