[CH] Great Seed Debate & seeds in South Africa
Sue Callaghan (scallagh@african-life.co.za)
Wed, 15 Sep 1999 14:42:04 +0200
Hi all,
I don't usually get involved in these flame wars but I decided to jump
in here for two reasons. Steve wanted to know about ways to purchase
seed in South Africa and I have purchased seed from Tough Love for the
past three years and have had great success with thirty odd different
types of chiles supplied to me by them. Dave Anderson is a hell of a
nice guy and very helpful. You can also buy some of Jim Campbell's
powders from the site. Dave marked the seed envelope 'Chile Powder' and
this seemed to fool our P.O. and the customs guys. I have had other seed
confiscated by customs in the past.
I bought big quantities of seed that we grew commercially from Johnnys
Seeds but they won't ship an order under $200 out of the USA and also
require phytosanitary certificates. The quality of their seeds is also
very good - high germination rates and all true to type.
Dave Williams in Cape Town recommended Hygrotech (a local seed
supplier). We have purchased seed from them in past years and won't be
doing so again for the following reasons - we had less than 50%
germination of 6 different chile and coloured pepper varieties and they
weren't in the least bit interested in our problems when we complained.
Their seed was sourced from Peto seeds and Hygrotech said that they
weren't responsible for germination rates. We were trying to farm a
variety of peppers and couldn't really afford the waste. Their seed was
incredibly expensive - as I recall, we paid something like R200 for 1000
seeds - that's 20c per seed and when farming fresh produce, your margins
are very small - you can't afford to lose projected production because
of these sorts of problems.
So... I'm a South African who has never met Dave Anderson (or the guys
at Johhnys) and I also vouch for the quality of service and products
supplied by Tough Love (and Johhnys). My experience with a big local
seed supplier bears out all the other Tough Love customers' endorsements
- Big isn't always better (in fact sometimes it's a whole lot worse!)
Cheers from Sue in Sunny SA