CERTIFIED SEED

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLI, Issue 20340, 12 February 1936, Page 5

CERTIFIED SEED

DEPARTMENT’S GOOD WORK TESTIMONY FROM AUSTRALIA At present officers of the Agricultural Department are busy inspecting and certifying grain and grass-seed crops. The importance of being able to procure seed with a warranty of quality and breed is worth many times the value of the small premium the grower pays for the privilege of being able to get something he can depend upon. As there is no Seed Act in New Zealand to protect the buyer of seeds, it is advisable that the seed should be standardised at as high a level as possible in order that the farmer may be able to demand and obtain high quality when purchasing his requirements. Tire certification scheme which has been so ably designed and applied in this country ensures that at a very quality seeds, seeds of lines specially slight premium, good, reliable, high selected after exhaustive tests for their productive ability, in fact the best seeds of their kind in the country are available to anyone desirous of using them. This in itself is a tremendous step forward from the time when seed purchasing was more or less a gamble. Their value has been fully realised by outside countries (Australia in particular) and large consignments are shipped annually for the production of better pastures. Australian agricultural literature is

loud in its praise of the type that is being certified in New Zealand; more particularly does this apply to the perennial ryegrass and cocksfoot seed. Since the inauguration of certification in the 1929-30 season, well over half a million bushels of perennial ryegrass seed has been sealed and tagged as certified seed. In the past two seasons almost one-third of the total perennial ryegrass seed production has been certified, while it is probable that a certain proportion of the uncertified seed can be traced back to a certified origin. In the case of white clover, overseas buyers have found that ordinary commercial lots are very variable in type, some being good, others poor. The application of certification to this crop has resulted in the overseas purchaser being willing to pay a much higher price for what he knows to be the better seed. Reports recently received in New Zealand from numerous institutions overseas all indicate that New Zealand certified mother seed is superior in production to practically all other strains of white clover tested. Certification in cocksfoot, too, has stimulated the demand for the improved seed by Australia. Now there is practically five tons of certified seed exported to Australia for every one ton of uncertified seed.