Quality control of seeds for sowing. Manual of practical work - Plant growing

By tradition, the study of phyto (field crop) begins with a general part which inputs are addressed, including biological factors, which requires knowledge of specific problems of biological material (seed) used for crop establishment.
Importance of ensuring a quality seed material is uncertain. Not coincidentally, the FAO Conference on the seed (Nairobi, 1981) stated: "Seed is the foundation on which to build any vegetable production development strategy."
The notion of seed, plant growing in terms refers to all categories of material used for sowing, whether it's cariopsa grain or sunflower achenes (fruit in the botanical sense), bean seed (seed authentic ), potato tubers or mint runners (underground stems).
Seed sowing should be designed to meet a number of conditions, namely: to belong to a variety or hybrid allowed to be cultivated, to be obtained from a designated area for seed production (seed lot), which was strictly respected technology cultivation recommended for the seed to keep the purity of biological and health, also, the seed must be subjected to a mandatory control for checking quality indicators required by the rules in force.
Practitioners know too well that effective technological measures applied in crop production depends primarily on the quality of biological material with which to work - variety or hybrid. For this reason, the problem of biological material is very important for agricultural practice and also it is very current for Romanian agriculture.
In this sense, are very different vegetation factors valued by biological material grown. A given genotype (variety, hybrid) can not fully express the potential productive than if grown in suitable conditions, environmental and technological. Therefore, varieties and hybrids can ensure profitability and culture can be a brake on production growth, if their demands are not met related to soil, climate, phyto features of work, etc..
Of course, to use their best genetic potential production of valuable biological material, cultural practices should be as good as possible. As in situations when it can not ensure a very good technology, it is desirable to be used rustic varieties, but adapted to growing conditions less favorable (this recommendation may be of interest in subsistence agriculture or in some farms green, with limited resources for the control of harmful organisms or substances to fertilize crop insurance).
Prefaced the work that is part of the succession of plant growing practical manual work initiated several decades ago with the teaching staff of the Department of Plant growing in the Faculty of Agriculture of Bucharest, and which contributed to drafting well fitotehnisti known in agricultural higher education in Romania - Traian Popa Florentina Tacu, Dumitru Costache, Maria Negoescu, Ghent Mihailescu. This paper has the merit of being updated and complete information on seed quality control, by studying the latest regulations in the field, mostly due to the alignment to EU legislation. It can be seen easily - by the initiated - that in some ways, putting the problem is totally different from what they knew with 1-2 decades ago, and we think, for example, recommendations on the movement of seeds in Europe, or the protection of intellectual property rights on seeds, to
The work is dedicated to priority agricultural students in higher education. But the wealth of information and its timeliness, the work is of interest to those working in the real economy, the growing chains, conditioning, storage, quality control and marketing of seeds, but also for those involved, generally in crop production .

Prof. dr. Valentin Gheorghe Roman
Corresponding Member of
Academy of Agricultural Sciences and Forestry