CERTIFIED SEEDS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 March 1940, Page 9

CERTIFIED SEEDS

ADVANTAGES OF GUARANTEED LINES. PRECAUTIONS TO BE OBSERVED. (Issued by Masterton Primary Production Council.) One factor which may completely nullify the effect of preparing an ideal seed bed. sowing the seed at the correct time and sowing suitable fertilisers, is the use of poor quality seeds. Today there should be little excuse for the failure of a pasture from this cause. The main grass and clover seeds — perennial ryegrass. Italian ryegrass, cocksfoot, brown top, white clover, and red clover —are commercially available as seed certified by the Department of Agriculture. Nevertheless, there is still a considerable quantity of uncertified seed sold. Although some of this seed is quite suitable for many purposes, there are many so-called “cheap" lines and “cheap" mixtures which contain not only low grade pasture seeds but also harmful weed seeds. Buyers of Government certified seed are given a guarantee in respect of quality and strain of seed which must also reach a specified standard of analytical purity. There is no guarantee in respect of germination, but the purity and germination certificates which accompany certified lines and which should be made available on request, give the required information to buyers.

Buyers of farmers’ dressed seed generally receive no guarantee in respect of purity or germination. Considerable quantities of inert matter and weed seeds are also bought and paid for in such lines. Provided the purchaser knows personally the history of areas from which such seed is obtained, there is not so much guess work in buying. Such lines are especially suitable for bush or secondary growth burns. Generally, however, there is no such know-: lodge and the risk in purchase is much greater. “Cheap" seed mixtures arc particularly dangerous for. in addition to suffering from Ihe other disadvantages of uncertified seed, their constituents are unknown and they may be unbalanced and quite unsuitable for the purposes for which they are required. Advice to intending purchasers of seed therefore is “know what you are buying." The knowledge of any line of seed is incomplete if it does not include exact information of the purity, germination capacity, and often also the strain.