An officer told me to replace my seed regularly instead of using the same saved seed every year. What is seed replacement rate and how often should I buy new seed?
Seed replacement rate (SRR) is the share of your sown area where you use fresh certified seed instead of your own saved seed. The idea is that even good open pollinated seed slowly loses purity and vigour when saved year after year, so yields drop and disease can build up. The general advice is to replace open pollinated and self-pollinated crop seed with fresh certified seed every few years (commonly every 3 to 4 years for such crops), and to buy fresh hybrid seed every single season because saved hybrid seed gives poor mixed crops. If you do save seed, keep selecting healthy true-to-type plants, store it well and test germination, but plan to refresh from certified stock periodically. The exact replacement interval differs by crop, so confirm the recommended seed replacement period for your specific crop with your KVK or agriculture department.
I used to save wheat seed for many years and yield kept falling. After bringing fresh certified seed the crop looked much better.
For anything hybrid, fresh every year, no question. Saved hybrid was a disaster for me once.
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