The reason I went to using the smaller plates is because I ran out of room with the larger ones.
One year, I sat a few plates of seeds out in one of our barns. I checked on them a couple days later and found that mice love to eat tomato seeds...
Then I took our onion cage/table that has 1/4" rabbit fencing on it and tried drying tomato seeds in it. The mice couldn't get to the seeds, but the ants did. That's when I started using the smaller plates. I built a shelf inside our home just for drying tomato seeds. Now the shelf is covered in kids games and clothes.
