Annuals: zinnia problem, 1 by Zen_Man

Zen_Man wrote:
Hi Al,

lycodad wrote:Is there an easy way to separate the seeds from the chaff? Is it even necessary to separate it?

A few years ago, when I was faced with the problem of processing a lot of my "patch run" zinnia seeds, I asked myself the same question. I was pretty sure the seed companies must have winnowing machines that take brown seed heads in at a feed hopper and spit out cleaned separated zinnia seeds. I thought of several designs for a "home brew" winnowing machine, but all of them were too hard to make, and not guaranteed to work.

I wound up using a big pan to catch the seeds in, an electric fan to create a small wind, and I slowly dribbled the broken seed heads into the pan but through the fan's wind. The fan's wind did a fair job of blowing the chaff out of the stream of shredded seed heads and a lot of seeds and some heavier flower parts fell in the pan. But a lot of the lighter floret seeds were carried away with the fan's wind. I gave up on that approach, and switched to picking the seeds out of the chaff one-at-a-time. With a little practice, that goes fairly fast.

If you do try something like this, do it outside on the deck or patio, because the chaff goes everywhere. I think your techniques of planting the chaff and seeds still mixed are practical and justified in your case.

ZM