They are just getting smarter. You understand don't you, that the seed may all ready be several years old.
Kenny

Thought comes to me that with the big demand for seed this year, that they ran out and had to go to the back room for NEXT YEARS seed.
Kenny

IT seems that there was a little conflict between regulators and the industry . . . so industry won.

Does that sound like a sentence that could have been written for every industry in recent years?

Anywhooo - state governments wanted a germination test date on all seed packets. That seems like it would make sense. It probably makes no difference to the grower what age the seed is - as long as it germinates and grows!

This "packed for/sell by" malarky . . . uh, I mean hard thought out compromise replaced that germination test date - I think, even before it became required.

The catalog/distribution companies probably grow somewhere close to 0% of the seed they sell. So, they are buying from a wholesale outfit.

Now to play the devil's advocate . . . Rogers/Syngenta seed company claims it employs over 21,000 people in over 90 countries. One of those 90 countries is Sri Lanka in the southern hemisphere where the harvest season has come and gone, I suppose. There are plenty of these examples. Okay, that's the best I can do advocating for the devil . . .

Steve's digits
". . . If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed . . ."