| |  | | Growing Jewelweed Commercially
Answered by: Conrad Richter
Question from: Jenn
Posted on: June 20, 2005
Thank you for your reply. I do not use credit cards and generally pay via paypal here in the U.S. Is there any way I can copy the order and send it with a money order payment?
I "would" use a check but it would probably take too long to process for you whereas, a money order is like instant cash instead. Please advise.
We accept money orders and checks. Please be sure to add $5 for postage and handling to your order. A check won’t delay things because we won’t be shipping until September, so if you order now then there will be enough time for the check to clear.
Also, is 10 grams enough for me to be able to grow enough plants to use commercially? I have no idea, as we use ounces or parts of ounces as our measurements here in the U.S. Apparently here in Oregon, we have no jewelweed at all, or at least so I’m told. This is why I need so many seeds. I didn’t know how may seeds are in the single packets, hence my need to know about the 10g amount.
There are 28 grams in an ounce. A packet contains about 50 seeds.
We do not have a precise seed density for jewelweed, but it should be about 100-200 seeds per gram. Therefore, 10 grams will give you 1000-2000 seeds. Provided the conditions are ideal you can expect a germination of 70-80%; but more realistically you will get 40-50%. Jewelweed is an annual and is somewhat less amenable as a commercial crop tha other herbs. Typically the seeds are sown in a moist but sunny or half-sunny location and the aim is for the plants to become established and reseed themselves so that you get a crop every year. But to get them to reseed you will need to allow some plants to go to seed, which means you cannot harvest all of the plants. How many you need to leave to set seed and how many can you harvest is difficult to say because there are many factors that determine the success of the crop. You will have to experiment and you may not get it right the first year. I recommend you try leaving every fifth plant.
Notes: Jewelweed seeds are short-lived so we ship immediately after harvest in early fall. The seeds are sown immediately on arrival but they don’t germinate until the following spring. In spring many seedlings will appear but not all will succeed in reaching a mature size. This is why it is difficult to translate the number of seeds you get into a specific amount of pounds of fresh harvest. Really, the initial goal should be establishing the plant in your location and then slowly expanding the area until you have enough to produce the product you need. This process could take 2-3 years.
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