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The aims and goals of the Flower Seed Testing Committee are
1. To clarify laboratory seed testing methods listed in the ISTA Rules in Table 5A Part 3 by issuing an ISTA Handbook on Flower Seed Testing.
2. To provide and introduce laboratory seed testing methods for new species which are tested in the laboratories but not included in the ISTA Rules yet.
3. To give practical information about flower seed testing for interested analysts by organizing workshops or just by being available in the everyday work.
The main work of the ISTA Flower Seed Committee (FSC) from 1998 is to prepare material for an ISTA flower seed testing handbook. It is a challenge since no similar handbook was issued before. Hopefully the future handbook will be a very useful guide for laboratories testing flower seeds.
In the beginning of the work 6 genera were picked as the first task. These are: Calendula, Gaillardia, Tagetes Dianthus, Impatiens and Viola. The work had a uniform pattern:
1. Determine if the present method is correct
2. Detect points where changes are needed
3. Proposal for changes in the present method
4. Draft text of the work sheet
5. Issue of handbook work sheet
After the first 6 work sheets we continued with Cyclamen and Petunia in the same way.
Then it was decided to finish Asteraceae family and finished more 12 work sheets: Ageratum houstonianum, Aster spp., Bellis perennis, Callistephus chinensis, Centaurea spp. , Coreopsis spp. , Cosmos spp., Dahlia pinnata, Gazania rigens, Helichrysum bracteatum, Rudbeckia spp., Zinnia spp.
The latest 5 work sheets finished are of species from different plant families: Thunbergia alata, Celosia argentea, Salvia spp, Antirrhinum majus, Verbena spp. and the same goes for the next 7: Begonia, Delphinium, Dimorphoteca, Limonium, Matthiola, Pelargonium and Primula
For these last work sheets preliminary questionnaires were the basis of the work sheets where no difficulty or wish to change the present method was expected. This way we could quicken up the preparation of work sheets. Comparative tests will be carried out only for genera or species where some changes are needed and for new species.
As a result of the data collecting work within the committee we have got that there are two species –Catharanthus roseus and Eustoma grandifllorum- that were tested quite a lot in some laboratories but there is no official ISTA method for them.
Also there are some species that have AOSA test method but not included in the ISTA Rules. Indication arrived from a United States commercial laboratory that AOSA guidelines includes the following 9 species and ISTA Rules does not:
Crossandra infundibuliformis, Eustoma grandiflorum (Lysianthus), Fuchsia x hybrida, Hypoestes phyllostachya, Plumbago auriculata, Veronica x hybrida, Zinnia angustifolia
And the following species are not listed in either ISTA or AOSA:
Agastache urticifolia, Alstromeria x hybrida, Impatiens hawkerii, Pentas lanceolata, Trachelium coeruleum
We get only to detect these problems but to make steps forward new ISTA methods will be postponed to the next period of our work.
We organized the first Flower Seed Testing Workshop 12-16 May, 2003, Budapest-Hungary and the second 5-8 June, 2007, Tavazzano-Italy.
The written material about the proceedings of the workshops for those interested analysts who were not able to participate are available at the ISTA Secretariat.
We organized the first ISTA proficiency test round in 2005: Zinnia germination and will organize the next in 2008: Portulaca grandiflora purity, other seed testing and germination.
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