Guidelines

Certified Seed

Certified Seed is used by many agricultural producers and land managers to ensure the success of the crop being grown. Certified Seed is available for all crops released as varieties, this seed is known as "Blue Tag Certified". Wildland collected seed known as Source Identified Seed is another part of seed certification.

Certified seed ensures the seed buyer of genetic purity and identity thus preserving the characteristics of the variety being planted. Certified Seed also meets high standards for seed germination and minimal amounts of inert matter, weed seed and diseases.

Source Identified Seed

Wild land collected seed known as "Source Identified Seed" is another part of seed certification. The Association of Official Seed Certifying Agencies has an approved seed certification class for wild land seed collections called the "Source Identified Class" which enables a certification agency to verify the origin and ecotype of a given wild land seed harvest.

Seed Testing & Labeling

All of our seed is tested for purity and germination by independent state certified seed labs. These results and the date of the test are reported on your seed tag. Your seed tag will show the purity (percentage of the labeled species by weight), the percentage of other crop, weed, inert material, dormant or hard seed and will show the percentage of seed that will germinate.

Pure Live Seed

Pure Live Seed (PLS) is a measure used by the seed industry to describe the percentage of a quantity of seed that will germinate. PLS is obtained by multiplying the purity percentage by the percentage of total viable seed, then dividing by 100.

Purity is the percentage of seed by weight that is the labeled species; the rest of the material is inert, weed seed or other crop seed. Total viable seed is the percentage of seed that will germinate (germination plus dormant). By multiplying these two factors one can determine the percentage of material that is actually pure live seed versus the percentage of materials that is essentially worthless.

PLS is a way to standardize quality so that the consumer can compare the quality and value of different seed lots of the same species.

PLS and Planting Rates

Knowing the PLS percentage allows you to determine with great accuracy how many seeds you are putting in an area, and can make your seed order more precise. Our experienced sales people can calculate the exact number of pounds you need based on the PLS percentage taking into consideration the method of planting.