Important Please Read: COVID 19 related issues have made getting our very popular Black Oil Sunflower Seeds problematic. We have this variety available as an alternative. We have tested it out at 93% germination rate despite some other issues (scroll down for more detail). We expect our tried and true black oil sunflower to be available by mid-June, 2020.
Organic Sunflower Microgreens Seeds
This seed is available for immediate shipment, but we wanted to make sure you were aware of all the details before you purchase it.
- Certified Organic by Oregon Tilth
- 93% Germination Rate
Black Oil Sunflower Seeds are one of our most popular microgreens seeds and with good reason. As microgreens go… black oil sunflower is the bomb-dot-com. We source most of our Black Oil Sunflower from Italy and COVID 19 challenges both in harvesting, cleaning and shipping the seed caused our shipment (many tons) to be delayed. To further complicate matters, the shipment is delayed clearing customs and we won’t be surprised if it takes another month for it to arrive. As you know, black oil sunflower is a smallish seed with a pure black shell, and our Italian grower has consistently delivered outstanding quality seeds.
Because of the delay, we found two other suppliers offering what they billed as black oil sunflower. We bought everything available from these two suppliers only to find that they both shipped us seed clearly from the same original source that did not meet our standards, first it had a white stripe. (see the picture above) The seed is the same small size as Black Oil Sunflower, but we haven’t seen the stripe before on Black Oil, so we don’t feel comfortable billing it as Black Oil… so we are just calling it “sunflower”. Additionally, there are signs of minor insect activity (note the insect bore-holes in some of the seeds pictured above). The seed was successfully treated for insects before we received it (with diatomaceous earth, and likely cold, both treatments allowed for organic seed). We have carefully examined the seeds, and a very small % of the seeds show insect bore holes.
Normally we would reject this seed and send it back to the supplier. But because of the high demand and delay from our traditional source we are making this seed available. We have tested it at 93% germination rate which is very good all things considered.