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 Main subject - nov/dec 2005
Evolution of the Seed Analyses Laboratory
Fátima Zorato
fzorato@terra.com.br
The importance of a seed analyses laboratory has always been under unquestionable. However, the plant protection right law was its most important evolution landmark, which provided protection to intellectual property rights in the area of genetical improvement of plant varieties.
With the development of more productive and responsive cultivars in the field, the professionalization of the seed sector became crucial, aiming at quality, as well as the modernization of the seed industry, due to the competition established among the companies that fitted market behavioral changes, where marketing and client assistance were given fundamental importance.
The benefits from plant breeding have transformed seed into a carrier of the whole technology added and have required more intense quality measuring devices so that it is needed a more useful integrated laboratory support to the seed production system, providing technical support to product improvements and correction of failures of the production system.
Seeds have their quality evaluated by a set of indexes, the sum of quality features being physical, physiological, and health, which are ascribed by analyzing a representative sample from a lot. Seed analysis represents the technical procedures used for evaluating the quality and identity of a seed lot. It is a technical, updated activity developed in several countries, which provides information about the seed lot.
Seed laboratory, seen as a quality checking center, is a unit composed and certified specifically for performing analysis and issuing the respective bulletin. According to the pertinent legislation, it is based on the Rules for Seeds Analysis (RSA), based on procedures uniformity and specifying standards for different analysis methods applied, as well as the maximum seed lot sizes and the sample weight for the several kinds of tests and seeds.
The amount of seeds analyzed in a laboratory is very small when compared to the lot size which it represents. If the lot is not homogeneous or in case of sampling problems, the information will not be correct. This way, it is needed to proceed according to pre-established methods which must be strictly followed by those in charge of taking the seed samples.
Infrastructure
For the installation of a laboratory, it is needed an infrastructure suitable to the volume of analyzed seeds as well the observation of the specific rules:
1 - Reception / protocol - it must be large and provide the support needed for seeds storage;
2 - Homogenization room - for preparing the sample to work with. It must contain devices such as homogenizers, suitable to the different species, analytical scales, humidstats (optional), among other equipments;
3 - Analysis performing room (operational and technical) - it must use two rooms - one for operational installment of the tests, with tables and chairs with suitable height, according to ergonomic requirements for minimizing problems to the workers, besides equipments, consumption material (specific paper for germination, copy pencil, rubber bands), solutions, reactants, among others, used in the testing. The second room must be structured for the technical analysis itself, that is, checking seeds quality. It needs tables whose height suits the annalist, materials and equipment supporting the evaluations (purity tables, pincers, scales, luminaries and magnifying lens according to the requirements of the different testings, among others);
4 - Germinator rooms (chambers) - sized accordingly to laboratory demand, they must have enough germinators, maximum and minimum thermometers and air conditioners;
5 - Samples archives - it must be compatible to the volume of samples received for analysis, as well as have an air conditioner and functional air dehumidifiers (temperature between 10°C and 15°C and air relative humidity between 50% and 60%), being protected against bugs and rodents, in order to assure conservation status of the seed lot;
6 - Office - with equipments and consumption material needed for issuing analysis reports and bulletins.
Every equipment suitable to the analyses must be periodically gauged and the required maintenance procedures must be performed aiming at guarantying results accuracy.
The seed laboratory should not be responsible for seed deterioration during the analysis period. For that, all efforts must be done to start the analysis right after the reception, reducing the stand by to its minimum. In case it is necessary to the samples for some time before their analysis, it is essential to have them stored in a ventilated or air-conditioned room so that changes on seed quality, such as dormancy, moisture and germination levels, are as low as possible.
The professional
The professional staff must be qualified both technical and operationally. The qualification must occur through periodical trainings and recycling to the performance in the different functions. Besides internal trainings, there is the exchange among laboratories and the compulsory training for analysts at the supervising official laboratories.
The profile of the people involved in a seed laboratory determines its success since it is a cunning work requiring great responsibility, much visual accuracy and, mainly, patience because it is a routine work, and a given test may, sometimes, require hours of dedication for performing and finishing the analysis. Other relevant aspect taken into consideration is professional ethic, argument capability on the tests and team relationship since for executing the activities, people depend on each other.
The evaluation of the annalists work quality is usually performed by means of measuring tests, trainings, recyclings, at the baseline of the activities. When there are difficulties in executing the analyses for some test, a specific training is searched during the low activity period for that area, species, or cultivar, until the all necessary adaptation and staff achieve the same referential standard.
The object
Laboratory's main objective is the generation of detailed information about seeds performance potential through specific, standardized, adjuvant tests in identifying problems and their possible causes, minimizing risk at any production stage,that is, from pre-harvest until sowing time.
Service supply quotidian in a seed laboratory beholds a routine which is established through the reception of the seed sample, protocol, homogenization, preparation of the seed to be worked, analysis performance (specific tests) requested by the producer, issuing reports and bulletins, and releasing results.
The main tests performed are: purity analysis, species and cultivars checking, noxious weed seeds examination, germination, moisture content, 1,000-seeds weight of a, mechanical injury determination (cotton), tetrazollium, and accelerated aging.
Responsibility, discipline, and seriousness that must remain along a seed analysis process, are tools used for building the differential among the laboratories that receive, more or less, reliability.
Aprosmat seed laboratory
In this sense, the seed analysis laboratory of the Association of Seed Producers from Mato Grosso (Aprosmat) , founded in 1989, is playing a relevant role face to seed production, making it one of the largest in the region, in physical area, staff, and number of analyses per year. It has ended 2004 with 38,000 samples analyzed, what means more than 100,000 tests performed.
Following the State of Mato Grosso agricultural growth, which supplies to an increasing demand for more than five million hectars of soybean and aiming at continuously improving their services quality and satisfy their clients' needs, Aprosmat producers have invested in an infrastructure suitable to the magnitude of the existing demand. For the purpose, inaugurated on May 2004 the new facility of their seed laboratory - a building with almost 1,000 square meters, with a modern camera system, germinators, equipment specific to different types of tests, computers for each analyst, among other things.
page 2 ->> Evolution of the Seed Analyses Laboratory
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