Five months, or twenty-four

The default window

No more than five calendar months shall have elapsed between the last day of the month in which the germination test was completed and the date of transportation or delivery for transportation in interstate commerce. The month of the test itself does not count against you.

The sealed window

Except for seed in hermetically sealed containers, in which case no more than twenty-four calendar months shall have elapsed, measured from the last day of the month in which the test was completed prior to packaging.

Read "prior to packaging" carefully

For the long window the test has to have been completed before the seed was sealed in. Sealing first and testing afterwards does not buy the twenty-four months, which makes this a sequencing requirement on your own process.

What the difference is worth

Five months is less than one selling season, so unsealed seed is tested, packed and shipped against a clock. Twenty-four months covers two seasons from one test, which changes the economics of testing and of batch size together.

The statute explains the logic

A longer period is available for seed packaged in such container materials and under such other conditions as the Secretary finds will maintain the viability of the seed under ordinary conditions of handling. The package earns the extension by preserving the seed.

The clock runs to shipment, not to sale

The date that matters is transportation or delivery for transportation in interstate commerce. Seed can sit in your own warehouse; it cannot be shipped across a state line once the window has closed.

Which makes it an inventory rule in disguise

How much you pack at once, and when, is governed by a date on a laboratory report. Packing a year of stock makes sense under one window and not under the other.

References