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GEVES-SNES, Angers, France, 8-12 October, 2007
By Sylvie Ducournau, Maria Rosaria Mannino, Joël Léchappé
GEVES - Station Nationale d'Essais des Semences, rue Georges Morel, BP 90024, 49071 Beaucouzé Cedex (France)
The ISTA Moisture, Purity and Germination Workshop was held at the French National Seed Testing Station (SNES) in Angers, France, and was attended by 33 seed analysts from 20 different countries: Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, South Africa, Scotland, Spain, Switzerland and Tanzania.
The first day was dedicated to Moisture, the two following days to Purity and the two final days to Germination.
Six lecturers were involved in the preparation of the sessions: Jette Nydam (Vice-Chair of the Moisture Committee), Elizabeth Jane Taylor (Vice-Chair of the Purity Committee), Ronald Don (Chair of the Germination Committee), Maria Rosaria Mannino (Chair of the Purity Committee), Joël Léchappé (Member of the Executive Committee) and Sylvie Ducournau (Vice-Chair of the Germination Committee). The practical organization of the Workshop, including preparation of documents, equipment for the practical, samples and tests, was done by the Seed Testing Station analysts. Overall coordination was managed by Bénédicte Brangeon.
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Moisture
The Moisture programme included lectures by Jette Nydam, and demonstration sessions that saw the staff of the moisture laboratory of the SNES very actively involved. One of the theoretical presentations concerned a general presentation of seed moisture and the various methods of moisture determination. In a special session, particular attention was given to the principles of the oven moisture test: items such as equipment, the process step by step and calculation of results were illustrated and discussed. Another session was dedicated to moisture determination by moisture meters; this session included a practical demonstration on the use of a moisture meter by FOSS France, and also some examples of moisture meter calibration. An important item presented by Jette Nydam concerned quality assurance.
The demonstrations covered three subjects, also presented during the theoretical sessions, but with practical examples of the procedure to follow: oven moisture determination and grinding with examples of the process, and quality assurance in moisture with exercises in internal quality control. The participants were split into three groups in order to promote the contribution of everyone and a fruitful discussion.
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Purity
The two-day Purity workshop was run by Maria Rosaria Mannino and Jane Taylor. Jette Nydam also participated very actively in the meeting, presenting one session on blowing and contributing to the discussion. The purity programme was prepared with the aim of covering the whole process of a purity analysis by theoretical presentations, followed by practical exercises on pure seed definitions, identification of inert matter and other seed, calculation of results and reporting. With regard to pure seed definitions, PSD 33 was covered by an exercise on Triticum spelta, PSD 36 by anexercise and a discussion of the referee test results obtained on Panicum maximum, PSDs 1 and 2 with a discussion on the most appropriate PSD for Spinacia, and PSD 25 for Valerianella. We also spoke about the purity analysis of coated seeds and the difficulties of interpretation of the relevant ISTA Rule chapter.
Two sessions covered the assessment of pure, broken and empty seeds and the distinction between pure seeds and inert matter for small or immature seeds (e.g. Avena spp., Papaver spp., Malva spp. and Juncus spp.).
A presentation on the development of the Universal List of Species opened the part of the workshop dedicated to identification of other seed. We prepared and distributed samples and documents with seed descriptions and pictures of genera and species included in the Universal List, in particular Echinochloa spp., Setaria spp., Panicum spp. and Avena spp. As with the moisture workshop, one session during the purity workshop was dedicated to quality assurance, a very important subject for laboratory management.
This purity workshop allowed the participants to enlarge their knowledge on purity analysis, and also to have an interesting exchange of experiences between laboratories in different regions of the world. The discussion we had also helped to put forward the work that the Purity Committee was carrying out for the preparation of the Rules Proposal 2008.
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Germination
The programme of the Germination part of the Workshop was a mix of lectures and practical sessions. Lectures were given on the use of the new Handbook on Seedling Evaluation, on some principals for seedling evaluation (evaluation of the coleoptile of maize, evaluation of the root system of Lolium, evaluation of cotyledons) and on the Growing Media Specification Checks. Practical sessions were related to the lectures, and participants had working sessions on maize coleoptile evaluation, Lolium root system evaluation, and sunflower, cucumber and lettuce cotyledon evaluation, and during the last day demonstrations were made on how to apply the standard operating procedures for checking pH, conductivity, water retention capacity and the innocuity of various media used in germination tests. A lot of work was done by the analysts of the laboratory in co-ordination with Ronald Don, Joël Léchappé and Sylvie Ducournau.
These five days of the Workshop were very rich in exchange and very formative, since explanations and demonstrations of a lot of new documents and rules were given during the sessions. It was a very busy and intense workshop, and very little free time was available for social events. Nevertheless, we took the time for a guided and wet walk in the old city centre of Angers, before a friendly dinner near the Museum of Art. |
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