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 Essay - july/aug 2005
Thoughts and reflections on seed storage II
James C. Delouche
Professor Emeritus Mississippi State University
Very rational and relatively simple insights or perceptions can transform seemingly intractable problems into challenging but resolvable ones. The complex and difficult seed storage problems of the mid-1900s were unraveled and simplified and the concept of seed vigor was forged from very loose and illusive ideas by several relatively simple insights regarding the storage period and the process of deterioration in seeds.
The Storage Period
The storage period for seed begins in the field as seeds dry down from physiological maturity to harvest maturity and continues until planted seeds germinate. Recognition that the time seeds are in bulk storage bins and in packages in the storehouse are only segments of the total storage period was a crucial insight for resolving or reducing many of the serious losses in seed quality usually blamed on "poor" storage facilities and conditions. It caused the persons responsible for maintenance of seed quality, i.e., the quality assurance and control (QAC) specialists, to extend their attention, resources and plans into areas and operations that had been off-limits or left to the care of others. The support of management and the cooperation of the other operational units were, of course, critical for the extension of the QAC system from the testing laboratory and storehouse, where it was usually confined, to all operational areas of a seed business from production through distribution and marketing.
Most seed companies were, and still are, organized along major operational lines, i.e., production, drying and conditioning, packaging, warehousing and distribution, marketing, etc. Typically, there was little or no cooperation and coordination among the operational units as the seeds moved from the production field through drying and conditioning to packaging and warehousing, and into distribution and marketing channels.
Most losses in seed quality are caused by conditions or traumas to which the seeds are subjected during the storage period, poor storability inheritance, and/or lack of knowledge and expertise. Major causes are: weathering and field deterioration, mechanical abuse including damage associated with treatments to improve performance such as hulling, scarification, and acid delinting, inadequate drying and aeration, storage period too long, inherently short-lived seed kinds, e.g., onion, soybean, unfavorable conditions, i.e., warm temperature, high relative humidity, storage insects, in the storehouse, and during distribution and marketing. It is usually not difficult to identify the causes of quality losses when the records of the operational units are adequate and accessible.
3Cs
The implementation of corrective actions for seed quality problems, of course, requires close cooperation, collaboration and coordination (the 3Cs) between QAC and the relevant operational units that often took a frustratingly long time to achieve. QAC specialists from many companies described to us in detail the numerous difficulties, obstacles and even hostility they encountered trying to enlist the cooperation of operational units such as production, conditioning and marketing to identify potential problems, determine the source or cause of quality losses, and define and implement corrective actions.
Management became a proponent of QAC rather than a very operationally partisan referee between QAC and the operational units, especially marketing. It took QAC under its wing, provided it with adequate resources, infused it with authority, and imposed the 3Cs company-wide. Fully accepted and infused with ample authority the QAC system evolved into a powerful mechanism employed by management to maintain and increase its customer base, reduce costs, meet targets, maintain the company's reputation and stay out of lawsuits filed by clever lawyers for unhappy customers.
A Happy Ending
At this point in the essay I am reminded of a little episode from the 1970s involving the 3Cs that had a surprisingly happy ending. I learned about the episode when a close friend who handled quality matters for one of the participants in the episode asked me to make some seed "storability" tests for him. The participants characters in the episode were a seed producer, a seed wholesaler and a transport company. They were in a serious and heated dispute over some costly seed quality problems that were breaking up a long time business relationship and seemed to be leading to litigation. For more than 10 years the producer had produced quite large quantities of relatively high value seeds in a west coast state for sale and shipment by truck to the wholesaler in the southeast for marketing in that region. The shipments had been handled by the same transport company, the trucker, from the beginning. The business had operated very smoothly and profitably until the last 2 years when stop-sale orders began to be issued in several states on many of the seed lots because seed inspection tests showed that germination had decreased to levels out of tolerance with the germination % on the seed label, very low in some cases. The consequences of the stop-sale orders were costly: the stop-sales orders were at the peak of the marketing season.
My friend who worked for the wholesaler was charged with "doing something" which was difficult since the dispute had reached the stage where the participants only communicated through their lawyers. Deciding that a good measure of the 3Cs was the only hope of settling matters in a way that preserved relationships, my friend sought and gained the support of his counterpart with the producer and the complaint specialist with the trucker. Meanwhile, we had made some tests for him that indicated that while germination was still very high shortly after the seeds arrived in the southeast, there was already a substantial reduction in storability (vigor) of the lots. Information provided by the trucker representative revealed that two years earlier when the problems began the producer had agreed to a change in shipping along a more southerly (and warmer) route and the old trailers had been replaced with new ones that were more secure and very tightly enclosed. When the three problem solvers began to speculate that unfavorable conditions in the trailer during shipment might have caused a reduction in storability of the seeds, the trucker immediately ordered placement of temperature monitors in periodic shipments of fertilizer over the same route in the same type of trailer. The monitors revealed that temperatures in the trailer rose to as high as 50°C. and averaged about 42° during the nearly 5 days the seeds were in the trailer. On the producer side it was found that the seeds were packaged in moisture vapor resistant packages at a relatively high moisture content for "sealed" storage, while on the wholesaler side it was learned that the seeds were unloaded and stacked tightly in a unventilated "receiving" shed for up to a week before they were moved to the main storage facilities.
The consensus conclusion of the problem solvers was that the high temperatures developed during shipment and maintained for several additional days in the wholesaler's receiving shed combined with the relatively high seed moisture content for moisture vapor resistant packages to initiate or accelerate deteriorative processes that were not reflected in reduced germination until several months later during the marketing season. The three parties readily agreed with the conclusion and to the corrective actions proposed, i.e., return to the more northerly and cooler shipping route and the old, less tightly enclosed trailers, reduce seed moisture content about 1% before packaging, and immediate movement of the seeds on receipt to the ventilated warehouse. The good business relationship of the three parties was restored, their reputations were preserved, my friend was promoted and everyone was happy. And, I too was all smiles to have had a small part in an episode. But, this is not the end of my essay on seed storage and deterioration. It will continue in the next essay.
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