How to Collect Grass Seed

Collect grass seed from the flowering bulb.

Hand collecting seed from mature plants is a way to propagate a species of grass. Large scale operations on grass farms utilize complex heavy machinery to collect seed from entire fields of grass quickly, but that method isn't realistic or cost-effective for personal operations, where homeowners want a small amount of seed to share with friends or spread to other areas of the yard. The collection time for grass seed varies depending on the species of grass, but it should always occur late in the grass's yearly life cycle, after the plants have flowered.

Things You'll Need

• Paper bag
• Scissors

Instructions

1. Leave the grass unattended and allow it to grow tall. Watch for flowers to form.

2. Test the grass for seed ripeness 20 days after flowering; some varieties can take up to six weeks to ripen. Smack the flowers against one hand and watch for the seeds to shatter open, which indicates they are ready to harvest.

3. Grasp the grass just below the flowers. Pull upward and over the flowers to release the seed. Deposit the seed into a paper bag.

4. Snip the flowers off of grass whose seeds is ripened, but does not respond to hand-stripping. Remove the seeds manually later.

References

• National Resources Conservation Service: General Guidelines for Collecting Native Grass Seed
• U.S. Forest Service: Collecting Native Seed
• Government of Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development: Harvesting Grass Seed