SeedLinked is an online platform and app for connecting growers, seed sourcing, rating and comparing varieties and running trials. It was first launched in the USA in 2018 and is now available to download as an app, or to use on desktop in the UK and Ireland.
The Seed Sovereignty Programme has been working with SeedLinked to geo-localise their platform to the UK and Ireland. After a year of testing and trialling with our Seed Exchange participants, we would like to now invite everyone in our network to start using SeedLinked!
Our partnership aims to build and strengthen the seed network in the UK and Ireland, allowing farmers and gardeners to exchange knowledge and rate and compare the quality of seeds they are growing. SeedLinked provides a state-of-the-art platform for users to rate seeds based on their performance in the field, helping to identify the best varieties for specific growing conditions.
SeedLinked is available as an app for your smartphone or tablet from your app store. You can also sign up to Seedlinked on desktop here for UK users, or here for users in Ireland. One of the great advantages of using the app is that you can use it in the field to rate your crops and upload photos as they grow. The app also works without internet access. Just set your phone or tablet to Airplane mode so it stops searching for an internet connection and fill in your crop ratings as normal. Your ratings and photos will be saved and then uploaded once you are online again.
We are still in the early stages of rolling out SeedLinked in the UK and Ireland, so it is possible that the specific varieties you wish to grow and track might not yet be on the system. The Seed Sovereignty Programme is currently working with the seed companies in our network to get their full catalogues uploaded onto SeedLinked.
In the future, you will be able to link straight from SeedLinked to a seed seller who offers the seeds you wish to grow. In the meantime, if SeedLinked doesn’t have the variety you want to grow, you can request for it to be added by navigating to the support icon at the top of the desktop site, then clicking on “Request A Variety”.
Once you are signed up, you can start searching and comparing verities using the “Seed Explorer”. Go to the search bar and search for the crop you wish to grow. If you go to tomatoes for example, you can then select “cherry tomatoes” as the market class. You will then be shown all the cherry tomatoes which have been uploaded to seedlinked along with their user rating. If you are just looking for Organic seed, you can also choose to select this with the Organic slider button. You can also select Days to Maturity within a range that suits your growing conditions. You can then refine your search to look for varieties with traits that are important to you, be this earliness, disease resistance, cracking resistance etc, choose four stars or more and seedlinked will find the varieties on their database that fit your search criteria. You can then compare the varieties you have found and add them to your “Wishlist”. You can then make plantings from your Wishlist.
When registering your account you will be asked if you are a Trial manager, Farmer or Gardener. Choose the option that best describes you. The farmer and gardener accounts are very similar, though both types of accounts are tagged differently in the Feed and Results filters. However, a farmer account has the ability to add two addresses, as sometimes the farm’s trial location may be different from the mailing address where the seed is posted. A farmer can also identify themselves as an organic certified farm.
For Trial Managers, there is an additional tab called “Trial” where they can create various types of collaborative trials involving multiple people with all the corresponding features such as dashboards, reminders, data export, live result visualisation, network management, variety management, and the ability to send feed posts to all trial participants. Trial manager accounts are best suited for organisations or individuals who manage multiple collaborative trials and ship seeds to others, such as seed companies, breeders, non-profits, seed banks, or farmer/breeders.
You will also be asked for the address of your growing project. This will allow SeedLinked to know where you are based so you will be able to compare varieties best suited for your local area and climate and it will enable trial managers to post you seeds for trials you are involved in.
You can add sowing, transplanting and harvest dates for each planting, or trial. You can also add these details retrospectively for any crop you may want to track with SeedLinked, but have already sown or transplanted before you were using SeedLinked.
There are many more features to SeedLinked, especially if you want to run trials with multiple participants growing in multiple locations. More how-to videos and guides can be found on The SeedLinked Youtube channel.
You can hear about how some of our test trials with SeedLinked in 2022 from our Seed Gathering session “Trials and Tech, Reflections on our Training”.
