Why is seed testing important?
Testing is often focused on ingredients and the food they create: flour, milk, bread, and the like. However, there’s a crucial stage of testing in agriculture and food production that comes even earlier.
Seeds are pretty straightforward—you plant them, give them water and access to sunlight, and they grow— but seed testing should be carried out using accurate equipment that can gauge their quality and ensure that you’re getting your money’s worth.
What is seed testing?
Seed testing is the process of measuring seeds to try and ascertain their overall quality as a consolidation of values such as specific weight, Hagberg Falling Number, and other qualities. Seed testing is similar to testing other food products and animal produce, in that regard, as many organic products need to be tested for some overlapping qualities like moisture and oil content.
The methods of testing vary depending on what is actually being tested for, and the purposes intended for the seeds themselves.
It’s important to understand the difference between hobbyist seed testing and the more serious applications of the art, the latter being what we are discussing and what the equipment supplied by Calibre Control helps to focus on.
In order to be most convenient and effective for growers, seed testing should be possible on-site and with the capacity to deliver quick results. Accordingly, the equipment used for testing often gives quick and easy-to-read results that can be tested in the field.
What should you test seeds for?
Seeds can’t just be tested for an overall ‘good’ or ‘bad’ rating. There are multiple factors that dictate how healthy a batch of seeds may be, and ultimately how suitable they are for growing.
Some of these qualities include:
Moisture
Moisture is a crucial component of testing seeds. Not only does it affect weight, but water—being an essential building block of life—introduces one of the components to allow growth of moulds and therefore the production of harmful mycotoxins.
Too much moisture can also cause seeds to rot, can affect the germination process, and can attract insect infestations. Managing the hydration of seeds in storage is key to their longevity, and measuring moisture content is, in turn, key to keeping things balanced.
Mycotoxins
Following on from moisture, we’ve already mentioned how moisture can stoke fungal growth. Moulds thrive on organic material like seeds and grains, and their growth produces poisonous by-products known as mycotoxins.
Mycotoxins are thought to be produced for a number of reasons that include aiding the mould’s digestion of its substrate (the thing it’s growing on) or to help defend it. In any case, the presence of mycotoxins on seeds can’t simply be abided or ignored.
Mycotoxins are capable of travelling through the food chain, meaning that even if they or the plants they grow into are consumed by livestock rather than humans, there is still ultimately a risk to human health.
Specific weight
Specific weight is simply the weight per unit volume. Seeds want to have a high specific weight, as there is a generally accepted positive correlation between the size and weight of seeds and their ability to germinate.
High specific weight is an industry standard that proves decent size and weight, and proves that the seeds are well filled.
Testing specific weight is less about checking the physical health of the seeds such as with moisture and mycotoxin tests, and more about the value and quality of your crop as a product. Nevertheless, it’s very important to have a good specific weight to boast.
Hagberg Falling Number
The Hagberg Falling Number is an international standard for determining levels of the alpha amylase enzyme. It’s commonly used to measure flour quality through the quality of the seeds themselves, helping to identify their starch content.
A high HFN means a low amount of enzyme activity, which therefore means less breakdown happening to the starches that will be turned into sugars. Since sprouting triggers starch breakdown within the seed, the HFN test can determine how much sprouting damage has occurred in products like wheat seeds.
HFN tests require grinding a sample and mixing thoroughly with water, then dropping a stirrer into the mixture. With the correct apparatus, this process is much simpler.
Why is seed testing important?
Seed testing ensures that standards are upheld and that good quality is always striven for. By measuring multiple facets of the quality of seeds, it becomes impossible for good qualities in one aspect to be easily covered up by another.
If seed quality were to be condensed and homogenised into a single value based on mixed factors, then it would theoretically be possible to let major issues with some batches slide by. For instance, giving one batch a ‘good’ rating based on specific weight and moisture content, despite a low HFN or potential mycotoxin presence.
Seed testing as a complex, multi-layered process is essential to ensuring that all aspects of good and healthy crop growth are being satisfied. By ensuring that the price of crops reflects their value, merchants and buyers are able to protect an honest market wherein money changes hands based on trustworthy produce.
Not only do the results of rigorous testing protect the profits of the market, but they also protect the health of consumers at the other end. Seeds exposed to rot and crops infested by insects and mycotoxins risk the health of consumers, and poor quality flour affected by sprout damage affects the quality of the baked goods they produce.
These things, in turn, can affect the reputation of manufacturers and suppliers. While this can circle back to profits if health violations result in fines, it is the reputation damage that often presents a much greater threat to a business. Healthy profits can weather a fine, but becoming synonymous with poor quality or threat to health is something that may never be recovered from.
Duly following seed testing best practice can avoid these pitfalls and more by establishing the good produce from the bad.
What are the different types of seed testing?
There are many types of seed tests available. Many of the most rigorous and involved tests on seeds, such as germination and viability tests, are conducted under laboratory conditions and can take several days to complete.
Germination tests take around 7-10 days. These tests show the percentage of seeds in a sample that will potentially germinate when brought out of dormancy. More in-depth versions of germination tests can reveal different kinds of damage to the seeds.
Viability tests don’t take as long as germination tests and can reveal the same basic information regarding potential germination, but they also lack the depth of information that germination tests reveal. A chemical called tetrazolium stains the living tissue to reveal viable seeds, but the test won’t unveil factors like disease or damage, making it a quicker but shallower solution.
For fast, on-site seed testing, methods like lateral flow tests and near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy are suitable for ascertaining qualities like mycotoxin presence and amino acid levels.
What equipment is available to support seed testing?
Fortunately, there is a wealth of seed testing equipment to cover all kinds of potential issues.
The GrainSense handheld moisture meter is a device often described as ‘revolutionary’, and for good reason. This fully portable device can measure moisture, protein, nitrogen, and oil levels in real time, delivering fast results directly in the palm of your hand. Back up your readings to the cloud so storage never becomes an issue.
When analysing for the toxic compounds left by moulds, the Charm EZ-M Mycotoxin Reader uses lateral flow strips to determine the presence of mycotoxins in samples. The machine automatically incubates test strips for the correct time, then analyses them for signs of the most common and hazardous toxin types.
For undertaking more specific testing methods like those used to determine Hagberg Falling Number, the Perten Falling Number 1310 system features a single stirrer for quick and easy operation. This machine takes a specific, standardised test and makes it easy to conduct and repeat again and again with accurate results.
Seed testing with Calibre Control
We understand the need for accurate and repeatable seed testing, which is why we strive to provide the most curated range of convenient, trustworthy equipment for determining the quality of seeds and grains, baked products, and much more.
Whether you need to test for mycotoxins, measure moisture, or determine specific weight, we have an answer that will save you time and money. To find out more about our services and products, contact us today.