Manager Seed, Product and Quality Assurance - CSD, Phil Steel, discusses seed quality for the 2005 planting.

The delinting season for Cotton Seed Distributors is drawing to a conclusion. We have been fortunate enough to enjoy fantastic picking conditions earlier this year, a little bit dry for some of our friends in the dryland grazing cropping game but certainly a great picking season for cotton growers and that was reflected in the season we had for picking the seed as well. Seed quality this year has been excellent. We have seen seed coming through the germination cabinets probably averaging around 90% germination and vigours are excellent.

During that production process, stretching back right through the cotton season, last season, we have had a number of checks and balances in place from not only checking the quality of the planting seed but monitoring crop and plant and seed quality right through from picking, ginning and into the process here at ‘Shenstone’ and, as I say, we have had excellent conditions all through and that has been reflected in the seed quality this year. Seed dispatch this year will be meeting our normal specifications and minimum germ 80%, standard germination that is and vigour good to excellent of 140 at least, on the Seed Vigour Index.

No major dramas as I mentioned before. I would be a little bit concerned for growers who stored seed over from previous years. This is actually the fifth year in a row we have enjoyed really good picking conditions. Some of our growers from time to time are put in a position where they need to carry seed over from year to year.

Its perhaps been sitting in their shed on the farm. If they are concerned about the seed quality at all, given that sometimes those storage conditions on farm aren’t optimal, they should get a sample, shoot it down to us, we would probably need a composite sample, 1 in every 5 bags and then turn that into a composite sample of 1kg. We would be happy to run that through the germination cabinets and get the result back to the growers accordingly.

For growers purchasing seed this year, nothing much has changed in terms of the information that is about. What we can do is we will dispatch the seed quality data with each pallet of seed that is dispatched in to the distribution system. So the distributor should have that information. None the less, growers can check on an individual basis with us if they like. They can give us a call here at “Shenstone”, myself or anyone in the QA or the Lab team. They can check the web (Germination) of course. That information can all be got out to them in a timely manner. 

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.

That is probably about it for seed quality this year, so, on that basis, we will leave it at that and I just wish everybody a fruitful season.

Further Information: 
Dr Stephen Allen, Robert Eveleigh, John Marshall,  Craig McDonald, David Kelly or James Quinn