Talking About Mystery Seeds from China
Mystery seeds from China began showing up in some Texans’ mailboxes over the past week. Fayette County Agrilife Extension Agent Scott Willey said he has heard no reports of the seeds arriving in Fayette County. However, he warned residents not to plant the seeds if they do receive an unsolicited package.
Folks around the country began receiving these strange seeds in the mail over the past few weeks. Some commentators have offered wild theories about the seeds’ origins. An “insidious invasion of America by the People’s Republic of China,” as one put it.
“I try not to get caught up in all the conspiracy stuff,” Willey said in a phone call Tuesday afternoon. “If you see something that doesn’t seem right, you probably don’t need to mess with it. What I am concerned about is bringing something in by accident that could be detrimental to a crop or industry.”
Willey said plants from other regions can take over the environment when introduced to a new place where there are no natural predators or competitive species. Take for example the Chinese Tallow Tree, introduced to Texas in the early 1900s. This tree produces spectacular fall color – part of the reason so many of our ancestors planted them. But they also produce millions of seeds that readily sprout in the climate of Central Texas. I have one that shades the south side of my house, and I love the fall color. It’s one of the few trees that grows in this area and produces striking orange and red foliage during the fall. But it has become almost a weekly routine to pull all of the saplings growing in the flower beds near this tree.
“The biggest concern is no one knows what the mystery Chinese seeds are and what they are about,” Willey said.
According to news reports, the seeds arrive in packaging with Chinese writing and enclosed in a plastic envelope. The United States Department of Agriculture asks citizens to report any unrequested deliveries of seeds to the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) by sending an email to Carol Motloch, USDA-APHIS Texas PPQ state operations coordinator, at carol.m.motloch@ usda.gov. The email should include a contact email and phone number as well as a description of package information. Sending a photo of the label and material would also be helpful.
“First, if you didn’t order it, we don’t want anyone planting these seeds or even opening the packages,” said Dr. Larry Stein, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service horticulturist from Uvalde. “It could be a scam, or it very well could be dangerous.
“We recommend anyone receiving the seeds send an email to USDA and then wait to see if they are asked to send them in,” Stein said. “We would not advise throwing them away until more information is known because they might contaminate the landfill.”
So far, packages containing these mystery seeds have also been received in Washington, Virginia, Utah, Kansas, Louisiana and Arizona.
Some reports surfaced this week that the mystery seeds may be part of a “brushing” scheme designed to benefit some retailer or distributor in China. Such schemes involve a company creating fake customer accounts and shipping some cheap product to real-world addresses. The business magazine “Fast Company” described the process thusly: “The online customer accounts might be fake, but the addresses are real, and the sellers can then use those accounts to register real deliveries, post glowing reviews of the products, and improve their rankings on e-commerce sites like Amazon or eBay.”
I don’t have a problem with sharing heirloom seeds with friends and neighbors. I think this is one of the best tools we have as a society to ensure food security in our communities. Selecting seeds from the best and most productive plants year after year improves the crop and better adapts to plant to our area. It makes us less dependent on others for food. Of course, this only works with open-pollinated varieties. Hybrid plants will not produce seed that is true-to-type.
But I definitely wouldn’t plant any of these mystery seeds from China.