A Beginner’s Guide to Seed Cleaning Sieves

Established in 2020, the Wales Seed Hub is a seed-selling cooperative made up of growers and seed producers who have completed our Year-Long Seed Production Training.

In 2025, Wales Seed Hub were one of five grantees to receive a share of £20,000 from the inaugural round of our micropot funding initiative, generously supported by the Kreitman Foundation. The money they received was used to create bespoke sets of cleaning sieves and screens for distribution across the Welsh network and beyond.

Sieves are a simple but essential tool for cleaning seed after harvest, sorting the chaff – bits of stalk, seed pod and other debris – from the seed. This new equipment has increased the quality of the seed available across Wales Seed Hub’s catalogue and the country, and the accompanying open-source research has benefitted the wider movement; saving time, resources and doubling up on work.

For other groups and cooperatives in the UK who may wish to replicate this project, Wales Seed Hub have produced a comprehensive seed sieve video guide, including how to build your own bespoke set for a variety of seed types, accompanied by written instructions and diagrams. We are pleased to share these resources below.

With gratitude to the Kreitman Foundation for making this work possible.