Cotton Seed Distributors - Web on Wednesday

Phil Steel, Manager Seed, Product and Quality Assurance, Cotton Seed Distributors, discusses seed quality for the 2004 planting.  

Phil could you give us an update on seed quality given all the seed has almost been delinted now. What is the quality looking like?

Yes sure Adam. We’ve had, as you say everything has been through the delinting process. We’ve got virtually all of our anticipated sales now in intermediate black seed form. The seed quality has been good to excellent, which was very pleasing. I think everybody would have been aware that there were a few rainfall events around in late summer and throughout the autumn but they tended to come and go and cleared pretty well. We saw no downgrade of seed quality as a result that and understand our growers have seen no problems with their lint quality either.

How would growers go about accessing some of this seed quality information now after they have made their seed orders?

What generally happens there is that the information regarding the seed quality should be provided through the distribution network with a certificate of testing. Alternatively that information is available on our website by Auslot, by seed lot or alternatively you can give us a ring here at CSD and we would be happy to respond to individual requests for information.

If someone is ringing or looking on the website they need that lot number?

Absolutely, yes the lot number is the key.

And what do the various parameters that they’re going to get on the website or on that certificate. What do they actually mean? Can you go through those parameters and just explain them to us?

Germination, I guess the standard germination counts are a very old measure of seed quality. It’s an oldie but a goodie. It’s still very relevant and it really reflects the overall capacity of the seed lot to germinate under ideal conditions, so it’s really telling growers about the potential germ ability of the seed lot that they can then manage in their own paddock situation. We also supplement that with a seed vigor index.

Now that’s also a germination test, well it’s a combination of germination tests incorporating the cool germination test, so it starts to look at how the seed could be expected to perform in slightly adverse conditions that maybe occurring in the field. So, by looking at the standard germ we’re looking at the potential overall performance and looking at the seed vigor index we’re looking at the potential performance under field conditions. Growers should be able to use that information, interpret it and apply it to their own positions when planting.

Some growers may have some seed from last year stored on farm. What should they do about that?

Well generally speaking seed quality over the last three or four years has been excellent, so it should have stored all right. It should keep very well; however if there’s any doubt or just a piece of mind we’d be happy to get samples of that seed if growers would like to send us samples of that seed. We’d be happy to run it through the germination cabinets and give them an update on the germination rate and also the seed vigor. Now when they’re sampling it’s obviously about one in every five bags we need a sample from and then cut that primary sample down to about a sample size of a kilo and then send that through to us here and we will run it through the cabinets, with the contacts details of course.

Some growers may also find that they’ve got a little bit of old INGARD® seed left on farm, now how should they go about handling that seed?

That's a pretty important issue. The issue of resistance or resistance to heliothis is one that has been a real problem for the industry over the years, planting that seed would do nothing other than promote resistance to heliothis. That seed should not be planted. The technology provided by Monsanto would also take a dim view of that, so we’d really ask growers not to plant Ingard seed at all. If they’ve had treated Ingard seed they should probably have a talk to their local council or their local EPA who maybe able to give them a steer in the right direction as to where they could appropriately dispose of that seed.

One of the other key parameters that growers are looking for at this time of year is seed size. Will that be provided on that certificate?

Yes my word. The seed size is provided on the certificate analysis. It’s also provided by Auslot on the website and we can tell you that whilst there has been a few ups and downs, generally speaking seed size has been larger this year.

Phil are there any other messages that growers should be aware of?

Very important to make sure you are planting the right seed in the right paddock, so again we’ve colored the seed to really help with the correct identification at planting time.

Conventional seed will be blue as it has been in the past, Bollgard® II seed will be green, Roundup Ready® seed will be violet and the stacked, that’s the Bollgard® II/Roundup Ready® varieties that we’re very keen on will be in the red color.

Further Information:  Robert Eveleigh, John Marshall,  Craig McDonald or David Kelly