STANDARD SEEDS

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 133, 2 December 1922, Page 14

STANDARD SEEDS

SORTING AND TESTING,

Testing seeds, which, as a recent prosecution in Wales has shown, is now compulsory, is an interesting business (says a writer in the "Manchester Guardian"). The larger seeds such as peas, beans, or barley, are fed on to a big sieve, which retains those that are too large and lets the rest go through. These are then passed on to a sieve of smaller mesh, which discards those which are too small. Seeds of the correct size then pass into an opposing current of air, in which each remains suspended for a fraction of a second. The weight of those seeds which will germinate overcomes the air, and they fall into a bin below. The lighter seeds are blown upwards to another bin. Tares are sorted from oats by means of a broad canvas band inclined at an angle and moving upwards over rollers. The seeds are dropped on to this band from a height of about two feet. The tare seeds bounce, and consequently fall dowrtwards; the oat seeds he flat, and are carried upwards. Subsequently the select*! seeds are passed over a slowly moving belt, and misshapen or injured ones picked out by hand. Then comes the testing. About 200 of each variety are ''sown" on a circular piece of damp blotting-paper with narrow rings of paper round the edge to prevent' the seeds from falling off, and are then placed in an incubator kept at the proper temperature. In clue time—two or three days for mustard and two or three weeks for some of the grasses—-the seeds germinate. The number germinating are counted up, the proportion ascertained, and any lot which Tails below the stand--3r4 is rejected.