• So far in this series, we’ve considered the grains and oilseeds supply chains.
  • We’ve discussed the role of the farmer and the end-user.
  • Now, we move on to consider and differently and much more complex situation: seed.

Seed Certification Schemes

Almost every country has some type of seed certification scheme. It can sometimes take many years for a plant breeder to develop a new variety and, although there are some possible shortcuts, the plant breeder will carry out extensive testing on a new variety through these multiplications to ensure maximum success when the variety enters the commercial certification process.

This is normally at the pre-basic level (Nucleus), with the highest level of genetic purity and quality, basic seed level (Breeder), followed by up to three subsequent generations, called C1, C2 and more rarely C3 (Foundation, Registered and Certified).

Label colours also assist in identification. For example, in the UK, the sequence from pre-basic to C2 is a white/violet stripe, white, blue, and red. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) also has a seed certification scheme with 61 member countries and a matching National Dedicated Authority (NDA) including several European ones such as France, Italy, Spain, and Ireland. The UK provides OECD inspections and certification for seed exports.

Not all basic seed will be commercially available as it’s designed for onward multiplication. Typically, seed companies and merchants prefer to place their production with established growers. Although there can be substantial premiums involved, great attention to detail from experienced farmers is needed both in field management but also in harvesting, as mechanical damage and incorrect drying of seed can affect germination (beans and oilseed rape need particular attention) leading to an expensive rejection of the seed crop.

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In most situations, farmers can also choose to save their own seed with some basic tests, and pay a royalty to the breeder, but the practice is not popular as there’s little redress if a problem occurs. GMO seeds are almost never farm-saved as these are normally grown under a royally and patent arrangement and the risk of pollen or other contamination to a neighbouring crop is too high.

Field Inspections

Inspections take place both in the field during the growing season for a seed crop and then in a laboratory. In most cases, a trial plot is set up to duplicate each seed lot, observe the matched field crop throughout the season, and look for any anomalies.

At the first stage, field inspections are undertaken by a qualified seed inspector (also normally a qualified agronomist). In the UK, this falls under the National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB), which also trains seed samplers, grain variety identification, seed analysis, and seed certification administration. It’s a major task with 550 field plots set aside for training and around 300 new inspectors are added annually. I have licences in peas, beans and cereals and it’s challenging and interesting work, especially when two varieties are similar and can only be identified under a microscope. Around 275k tonnes of cereal seed and 34k tonnes of other seed are certified by NIAB annually requiring over 1,200 inspections.

At the field stage, each species has its own peculiarities, but the inspector is typically trying to make an early assessment of varietal purity, plant health and potential contaminants (mostly weeds, such as wild oats, cleavers, and sterile brome). In some crops, deleterious diseases are identified at this stage.

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One of the most important issues is isolation distances, which are largely governed by cross pollination risks. These distances can vary from virtually zero in a wheat crop, a self-pollinator, to 1,000 metres for a seed crop of basic sugar beet.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong? 

The seed industry is robust because of the risk of multiplying a problem, but problems do sometimes occur.

1. Seed Contamination

Whatever you view of GMO, very few would countenance either the presence of globally unauthorized GMO’s or unapproved GMO crops in a particular region or country if GMO has been deemed undesirable. Seed is the primary source of such contamination. The way this occurs is poorly understood but open pollinating crops such as maize, even with recommended isolation distances, appear the most vulnerable.

In the worst-case scenario, a GMO contaminant in seed can remain undetected for years. In 2005, Syngenta (USA) admitted that it had been marketing maize with a GMO trait (Bt11), some of which would likely go to human consumption. Unfortunately, it was contaminated with an illegal (in the US and Europe) and unregistered trait (Bt10), but this was only discovered/revealed four years later. As a tester/certifier, you can’t test for something you don’t know is there.

2. Differences Between Lab and Field Behaviour

The main measurements for seed are the germination percentage and the thousand seed weight (to determine optimum sowing rate). For the former, the difference between laboratory germination and what happens in the field can be significant, especially if the seed is struggling to break dormancy. Although there are a variety of tests to assist (vigour, viability, tetrazolium, diagnostic germination, etc), these can be costly and lead to delays at a busy time of the year.

3. Unpredictable Events

In the 1980s, I was selling a new variety and turned up at one of my customer’s houses as the combine harvester was rolling. To my horror, the machine was rattling through the crop at extraordinary speed, and it turned out that yields were only about half of what was expected. That was in Yorkshire, but not all counties were similarly affected. It later transpired that this was caused by cloud shading during ear development, and yet in all the trials and multiplication on this variety, this had never occurred before.

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Mark Oulton

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