WSDA Seed Program It All Starts With A Seed
"It All Starts with a Seed, Seeds feed the world," says Washington State Department of Agriculture Seed Program Manager Victor Shaul. You go into a grocery store, Shaul explains, and nearly everything in there "starts with a seed." Shaul, who has been with the WSDA seed program for thirty years, says that the seed program is charged with three main areas: operation of the official state seed laboratory, seed certification for varietal identity and purity, and phytosanitary inspection and certification of seed crops to meet import requirements of foreign countries. Shaul started in the seed lab right out of college and "loved it" and has never left.
Paula Moore, Seed Inspection Supervisor for WSDA, says that phytosanitary inspection ensures that seeds aren't carrying disease or pests that might bore into the seed. Shaul adds that the seed program inspects approximately 70,000 acres for certification and 40-50,000 acres for phytosanitary conditions each year. Certified seed has a high market value, Moore says, and assures the consumer, be it a commercial seed company that supplies growers, or a home gardener, that the seed they purchase is the variety it's supposed to be and has the qualities they are stated as having. "It gives the commercial farmer information on the seed he's buying," Shaul adds.
The WSDA seed lab in Yakima has, according to Shaul, five main functions. The first is to test seeds for "mechanical purity." That is how much inert matter, weeds, or seeds for other plants are present. They also perform germination tests and noxious weed exams on seeds. The lab can test seeds to Canadian standards so that if the seed is exported to Canada, it doesn't need to be tested there. And finally they can test for phytosanitary conditions. Moore explains that if seeds are too small to be inspected in the field for phytosanitary conditions, samples will be sent to the lab.
The lab is ISO 9001:2008 certified. Shaul explains that this is important as a quality management system to provide "uniformity in processes." If two different people do the same test, Shaul says, they will do it the same way because of the quality management system. "We start hopping in February and don't stop until October," Moore says of the inspections, because seeds need inspection at different times, plus there are greenhouse operations that grow seeds. The inspectors are either looking to certify the seed, or inspect it for phytosanitary conditions so it can be exported. And they can overlap, Moore explains, as some seeds need to be both certified and checked for phytosanitary conditions. To be certified, seeds have to grow as the seed vendor claims and to be able to say "Yes, this is the variety that is being grown in this field," Moore says.
There are twelve field inspectors, including Moore, she explains. They work remotely out of their homes doing daily field work. "We get lots of windshield time," Moore says. They have rendezvous spots to have face-to-face meetings such as the Subway in the gas station in George. They also might need to get root and tissue samples for phytosanitary inspection to a lab and the samples need to be refrigerated. So they will meet two to three times a week to pass them off between inspectors. The samples can go to Yakima, Washington State University, or to a lab in Iowa. "Without all of the people out there we couldn't get it done," Moore says. "It's not a one-person job."
In the Columbia Basin there are many types of seeds grown, Moore says, including field corn, grasses such as timothy and blue grass, beans, carrots and onions. There is also reclamation grass and native flower seeds grown for the Bureau of Land Management's restoration projects. "Washington State has a very good and diverse seed industry," Shaul says. "It's an ideal place to grow seeds" he adds, saying there has been major investment in the state by seed companies. Shaul says there's an advantage to growing seeds in the Columbia Basin as there's "plenty heat and water." Because of irrigation, growers in the Basin don't have to worry about drought, Shaul says, unlike seed growers in the Midwest who might lose a crop due to weather. But "In the Columbia Basin you've got your circles and you're going to get a crop." He adds that seed is expensive to raise and the grower needs to know that he's going to get a crop. "It starts in the field," Shaul adds. "It's nice to be working for a state agency that the farmer and producer want us there," Moore says. "They need our help to get seed to market and exported."
Moore's grandparents were wheat farmers in North Dakota and moved west during the Depression. She was raised in Olympia but was always interested in agriculture, joining FFA and 4-H. "Outdoors was my niche," she says with a smile. Then she attended WSU and "just happened upon seeds and got hooked on it." At WSU she did seed germ plasma research and moved to the WSDA two years ago.
Moore says she likes giving companies and farmers a service to help them produce a product that adds to the agricultural economy of the state. And she gets paid to travel the entire state. "There's so much to the state," she says. And Moore gets to walk through beautiful seed production fields. "It's fun." she says. She talks about a time in the Skagit Valley just before the Tulip Festival. She was walking through a field surrounded by tulips and daffodils and they were so bright she had to put on her sun glasses. And there were also the Cascade Mountains visible in the distance, and she was thinking "somebody pinch me. I'm getting paid to do this?" "Nobody thinks about it all starts with a seed," Moore adds.