Many individuals and companies (seed collectors, breeders, foundation seed managers) work with small quantities of very high value seeds. Such seeds may be naturally or accidentally contaminated with crops or weed seeds that are similar to the crop of interest. The contaminants cannot be separated with any machine, yet, they need a pure and clean original seeds as the basis of expensive commercial seed increase programs. The lab uses constant flow inspection stations and analytic skills to identify and separate any/all undesirable contaminants. This service delivers information plus a clean (selected) product to the customer. Depending on the amount of seed that needs to be cleaned and the difficult nature of the contaminant, this selection may require extensive time, in which case it can be scheduled for the weeks/months when the demand for standard testing is low.

Examples of recent tests include:

  • A grower from Nevada suspected presence of dodder in his alfalfa seeds. He brought two 50 lb bags of alfalfa for dodder search. The entire lot (100 lbs) was tested in the dodder mill and followed up with a visual examination under microscope.
  • The lab seperated all contaminant seeds out of 50 lbs of foundation wheat seeds from a university. The seeds were the only source of original seeds for an increase program. Selected seeds were returned to the customer.
  • Searched and cleaned all seed contaminants out of a 15 lb lot of blue wildrye collected for a USDA project. The sample was debearded, screened, blown, and seed contaminants were removed to achieve a clean and pure lot for planting.
  • Cleaned hand-harvested native grass seeds and separated pure seeds of the desired species, which were returned to the customer.

Testing fees based on hourly charges.