“Seed” analyses are comprised of: - activities developed for certifying and monitoring the accreditation of private laboratories and requests for organic status. Analyses cover germinative capacity, specific purity and varietal purity. - service provision business requiring GMO analyses, vigour tests and quantification of spores and pollen.
Germinative Capacity
Germinative capacity is the expression of the capacity of a seed to produce a seedling under optimal conditions. The analysis is conducted on the basis of ISTA international rules for seed testing. Germinative capacity tests are done on sand or blotting paper.
The standard required is for germinative capacity equal to or greater than 90%. The average in France is 96%.
Vigour Test
The different vigour tests conducted in the laboratory target only one single stress condition so as to assess the behaviour of the seed under more difficult conditions than the germinative capacity test. The difference between testing germinative capacity and vigour is one of the factors taken into account for the agronomic ranking of seed batches.
Varietal Purity
The parameter is used by seed producers for their own purposes, or by the official inspection & certification department (SOC). The analysis, done by electrophoresis, expresses the proportion of selfing and off-type plants in a given hybrid. Two techniques are used: enzyme systems, or the treatment of storage proteins on polyacrylamide gel. The second technique is faster and less expensive than the first and is used in the laboratory testing maize, sorghum, wheat and sunflower.
GMOs
Premises are specially equipped to work on the principle of “moving forward”, with analysis equipment to carry out GMO analyses in line with the standards set by the French standards association AFNOR. Special attention is focused on the pre-treatment of the sample before going through the key stage of breaking the grain, and a unit has been set up to package the full weight as recommended by AFNOR and ISTA.
Pollen Counting
As part of the technical action programme run by the French Federation of Seed Maize and Seed Sorghum Production (FNPSMS), and as part of private studies, samples are collected, usually in pollen traps, and assessed in the laboratory using either particle quantification equipment or simply a microscope to count the number of pollen grains.
Spore Identification
The laboratory has devised a method of analysis for identifying and quantifying sphacelotheca reiliana spores and this has been widely distributed to seed producers.
Dust Test
Emissions of fugitive dust from insecticide or other treatments of seed maize, sunflower, and also small grain must be covered by a tracking plan implemented by the seed producers. The regulatory threshold is set at a maximum of 4 grams per hundredweight. The FNPSMS laboratory conducts this analysis for all maize, sunflower and small grain seed. The analysis is done by testing one kilogram of treated seed and results are expressed directly as grams per hundredweight. In addition to supplying analytical work, the laboratory has devised a complementary procedure providing traceability of the sample along with the results of the analysis.
Germinative Capacity
