'Mystery Seeds' being delivered to Hoosier homes could be a scam, hurt environment

'Mystery Seeds' are being sent to Hoosiers, unsolicited.

The sending of seeds, mostly coming from China could be part of a scam, If planted, the seeds could have negative impacts on other plants, crop yields, and wildlife.

It may sound strange, but people in indiana and across the united states have been receiving mystery seeds in the mail from china and other countries.

The problem is bigger than initially thought.

Fox caleb saylor explains what the seeds are about and how you should handle them if you receive them.

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It a problem growing like a weed.

Don robinson with the office of the indiana state chemist sayse received more than 300 calls and emails from indianae esidents who received mystery seeds ... and that just in the first 36 hours since they first heard abou more t widespread than we thought.

The mystery seeds have become such a concern, indiana congressman jim banks sent a letter to us attorney general william barr to investigate whether the seeds are part of a brushing scam, which is when vendors send inexpensive products to a randomly selected address in exchange for fake positive reviews just by looking at pictures, robison and others were able to determine some of the seeds were wheat, cucumber, and a mix of seeds, but others were unidentifiable.

One of the problems know ey don what comes along with those seeds.

Take cucumber seeds for example y counterpart in pennsylvania has alerted us across the country that cucumbers have a disease in asia tha have here and it would be a devastating disease for the truck crop farmers and for gardeners.

The second problem, some of the seeds could be mixed with an invasive species, something james wolff with the purdue extension office in allen county says is possible really that big potential that it could be an invasive species that could cause problems in the envie nment because they really hard to control, they outcompete other plants that are native, especially since theye coming from another country, they have a large potential for that.

Means the seeds could compete with things like corn, killing off some of the crops if they end up in a corn field.

Urdue has done studies on some of these weeds that if not controlled well, they could reduce yield by 80 to 90 percent.

These se ds in the mail, don open the seed package, don plant th seeds, and don throw them away.

Instead, you e encouraged to mail the seed animal and a plant health inspection service office here in indiana so they can see what the seeds are to help keep hoosier and the environment safe in fort wayne, caleb saylor, fox 55 news once again, e received mystery seeds in the mail or have already planted them, contact the usda, indiana d- n-r, or the allen county extension office.

All of their contact information can be found on our website, w-f-f-t dot