Germination Testing

[stormymater]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

No, b'c the only postal zip codes to be involved are those in the Washington DC area that service the White House and the Senate Building and other goverment buildings.

We had anthrax scare in Raleigh, NC, post office back then too (oddly also named Brentwood like the PO in SE DC). We had many very frightened postal workers after that poor guy died from anthrax (after being seen several times). A LOT of ciprofloxacin got prescribed then.
I found this to be interesting -
"Page 12 GAO-05-251 Anthrax Detection
Mail processing facilities use several types of high-speed machines to
process letters. At the facility that initially receives a letter for mailing, an
advanced facer-canceller system cancels the postage stamp. For
identification and sorting, other machines with optical character readers
apply bar codes and markings (that is, identification tags) to the
envelopes. The tags identify the time and date of processing, the machine
and facility that processed the envelope, and the delivery destination.
During fall 2001, USPS used this information to track the path of
contaminated envelopes through the mail system.
Delivery bar code sorter (DBCS) machines sort the mail. One machine
alone processes about 37,000 letters an hour, using pinch belts that
repeatedly squeeze the letters. During processing, paper dust accumulates,
particularly near pinch rollers that move the mail through the machine.
Since the rollers and optical readers are hard to access with vacuum nozzles, compressed air was typically used to blow debris out of the
machine. The compressed air was, however, banned in October 2001
because of concern about the potential for spreading anthrax in mail
processing facilities."
www.gao.gov/new.items/d05251.pdf

[amideutch]

"One machine alone processes about 37,000 letters an hour, using pinch belts repeatedly squeeze the letters".

Nice thing to know would be WHERE the pinch belts make contact with the letters. I'm assuming odd size envelopes and bubble envelopes are sorted by hand. Stormy thanks for the info.

"My sister in law works for the USPS".

Barbee, by all means and any information would be much appreciated especially if you can get answers to the my questions above.

Good stuff TVillans. We may get to the bottom of this yet. Ami

[amideutch]

Carolyn, had cataract operation done on both eyes. In at 0900 and out at 1200 same day for each procedure. I did have substantial improvement in vision to one eye just from the procedure. Worn corrective lenses (glasses) whole life. They can use corrective lenses in the procedure for far and near sightedness. I chose not to have the corrective lenses because you can't change your prescription if your vision gets worse like with glasses. I was also told if you do work where you need to see fine detail up close or far away it's better to stay away from the prescription lenses. For everyday stuff and putzin around the garden the corrective lenses work great. Ami

[Barbee]

OK, spoke with my sister in law this morning.

She said that the machines that are used are roller, as well as pinch type, and on some of the machines, the entire letter goes through the rollers.. and all letters get xray'd at all the major hubs now. All in all, a letter is going to get put through at the very least 3 machines of various pinch and roller type, and possibly 5 or more..depending on how many hubs it has to pass through to get to its destination.

She said you can write "hand sort" on the letter, and it will be hand sorted and stamped at your local PO (eliminating one pinch machine), but what happens at the distribution hub is not guaranteed. If you insure the letter, which costs extra, you have the best chance of it not going through a machine, but even that is iffy.

So, bottom line for her was to use either bubble wrap or variagated cardboard and don't stack your seed packets on top of each other. Always stay away from the middle to the far right side of the upper part of the envelope to avoid getting pinched. Check with your local post office or the website online to get weights/thicknesses that will cause the postage to increase.

The one thing I did specifically ask her is if anything had changed within the last 6 months to a year as far as the way mail was handled and she felt like the only thing that had changed was that more of the distribution hubs were xray'ing things now. Those of you with a microscope..have you looked at any seeds that you got from a seed company to see if they have cracks? I would think if the cracks were due to xray'ing, the seed company packets would be having problems with germination, too?

[ContainerTed]

Barbee, thanks for getting that info. It certainly seems to fit in to everything else that we've been seeing. I looked at one pack of seeds from Totally Tomatoes this morning and did not see any obvious damage. They were shipped to me in a box with the Tomato-Tone I bought.

Some years back, I participated in two projects which developed Computer Driven X-ray equipment for use in the inspection of High-Pitch soldering. The measured x-ray exposure for a 40 second sweep of 1024 pads slicing each solder joint into 32 levels was just less than what is normally emitted by the Picture Tube used in a standard 26 inch television (assuming a high voltage level of ~20000 Volts). The TV measurement was made within 3 inches of the bottom-front of the viewing screen. So, I don't think X-ray is our culprit, although heavy irradiation will certainly kill the seed.

It has to be the USPS rollers and the readers and whatever other crunching equipment they use. We may have seen less damage in the past, because some hubs didn't use the machinery until recently. My money is on mechanical damage.

So, it's bubble envelopes for me. That seems to be the simplest solution. I've thought about it and the peace of mind gained by eliminating the uncertaintly of whether or not the seeds "made it thru" is worth the extra postage. Again, not asking anyone else to do Bubble envelopes if they send to me. It's a personal choice.

I DO love brainstorming in groups. You know, if we can figure out the rules of this mailing game, we just might find a way to win once in a while.

Ted

[bcday]

If I don't have a bubble envelope handy, I often just tape the pack(s) of seeds to a piece of bubble wrap and slip that into an ordinary envelope -- seems to work OK. And I've received seeds cushioned with a piece of thin foam inside the envelope and that also works well.

Originally Posted by Barbee

use either bubble wrap or variagated cardboard

What's variagated cardboard? Corrugated, like from a cardboard box?

I did once send seeds with a piece of corrugated cardboard in the envelope and the clerk at the post office made me pay extra postage to mail it at the package rate instead of the letter rate -- he said it was because the cardboard made the envelope too stiff to go through the machines...

[Polar_Lace]

I think I'll be using the small CD/DVD boxes again, with bubble wrap enclosed. I bought one at the P.O. for $0.90 and used it as a pattern to make other ones.

Am I right that Magnetic Media does not get xrayed at the P.O. when you state that? Worth the postage!

~* Robin

[amideutch]

I've got rigid cardboard envelopes lined on the inside with thin bubble wrap that were used to mail the old 5 1/4" floppy disks that will work perfectly but only have about 15 of them left. I will go with the mailers lined on the inside with bubble wrap and come in many sizes.
Southern Exposure Seed Exchange carries the standard size seed envelopes that are line on the inside with foil. So those with concerns of irradiation that might be the ticket. A lot of good information and investigative work people. We know there is a problem with the postal system and can take precautions to minimize these problems in the future. Ami

[Polar_Lace]

Originally Posted by amideutch

I will go with the mailers lined on the inside with bubble wrap and come in many sizes. Ami

How much do they cost in your country?

I can get 4 bubble mailers (size #000) for One American dollar at my local 'Dollar Tree Store.' Maybe I may use them instead.

~* Robin

[Barbee]

bcday,
Yes, corrugated cardboard! LoL, my fingers don't always type the way my head tells them
I bought a humongous roll of the corrugated cardboard, it's 3 inches wide and about 1000 ft long. I use it to wrap my barley straw mini bales and attach a sticker on there. I will experiment around with that I think and see how much extra it would cost to mail.

[bcday]

Barbee, as I recall the extra postage wasn't very much, but maybe the rates have changed since then (and might change again when the rates go up in May). And mailing the envelope with a cardboard insert at the package rate should certainly work if you don't want the envelope to go through the machines!

[amideutch]

Here's the envelopes I was talking about. The two brown mailers with bubble wrap on the inside and the white mailer for the old 5 1/4" floppy's. I'll have to check the prices next time I'm at the store. Ami

[ContainerTed]

Okay, this post is to let folks see what can happen to a letter. I received this envelope yesterday from a T'ville member, and while I asked and received permission to say who sent it, I don't think that is relevant. Here is a few pictures to show why I'm going to bubble envelopes.

Pix1 shows the fold that was on one end. The folded envelope then traveled (folded) thru some of the machines. Pix2, Pix3, and Pix4 show how the envelope looked "worn". Note in Pix5 how the edge of the envelope is creased and appears to have gotten those creases while also trying to move along thru the machinery. Pix6 shows how the envelope surface was "burnished" by the friction. All this tells me that the envelope had a lot of difficulty moving thru the machines smoothly.

Pix7 shows the seed packs as they were covered in a paper towel. They were scotch taped at the tops to hold them in place and they had not moved.

Pix8 shows a NEW unused ziplock like the ones sent. The sender used new zips. Pix9 shows two points of damage to the plastic ziplock bag. Also note that there is a lot of general light damage causing hazing of the plastic surface. Pix10, Pix11, and Pix12 also show this rippled-looking hazing and also show debris from some of the broken and crunched seeds.

This kind of handling by the postal systems is a legitimate nightmare for those of us who trade seeds. However, we can use Bubble envelopes and it is only a bad dream (I think they'll find a way of messing that up, too ).

Ted

[Tania]

That mail damage thing is truly interesting.

Yesterday I got an unsolicited pack of melon seeds. It was wrapped in thin plastic and had at least 2 layers of melon seeds stacked up, and it was send in a regular envelope with no padding.

The amazing thing is the envelope arrived all wrinkled and creased and even torn at one side, but only a very few seeds were cracked and damaged (~5 or so). Even in the cracked seeds the embrio looked healthy. As there were at least 50-60+ seeds in the pack, I think I will have a large enough number of seedlings, so I am totally happy to have received this surprise.

Tania

[amideutch]

I checked the price of the small brown mailers with the bubble wrap on the inside and they run around 80 cents apiece. It's worth the peace of mind that my seeds will make it in one piece. Almost forgot, got a SSE request a month ago from the states and the end of the envelope had been torn open exposing the payment of dollar bills. The German postal folks put it in a clear plastic pouch sealed at one end and thats how I got it. The 4 bucks was all there. Ami