SEED TESTING.

Waipa Post, Volume IV, Issue 158, 29 October 1912, Page 4

SEED TESTING.

A. AND P. SHOW TESTS. The various A. and P. Associations which offer prizes for grass and clover seeds will, in the near future, if they.so desire, be able to have more thorough tests of the seeds carried out. The secretary of the Agricultural Department (MrF. S. Pope) has already intimated to one or more .associations that the Department would be willing to undertake the testing of all seeds exhibited. With tests conducted by the Department, an accurate analysis of each sample could be supplied to the judges, and the information thus obtained would materially assist in the placing of exhibits. Such analysis could, if thought advisable, remain attached to their respective exhibits, and in this way the relative values would be clearly indicated. The Department proposed that each analysis should give the following particulars: — (i) Purity and the names of all impurities; (2) germination and germination energy; (3) real Vrtlue, equalling actual percentage of seed true to name and capable of germination; (4) weight of 1000 seeds; (5) the number of seeds per pound ; and (6) the number of living seeds true to name per pound. In order to practically apply the scheme it would of course be necessary for exhibits to be in the hands of the secretaries of the associations in time to permit samples being taken and analysis made —say, six weeks before judging day, but Mr Pope sees no reason why this should not be done. The adoption of the system would, it is considered, also materially help the endeavours that are being made to have all grass and clover seeds sold in the Dominion on a guarantee basis.”