Seed Health Management for Better Productivity - Govind Ballabh ...

(Seed Health Management for Better Productivity)Historical development of Seed Health TestingThe first seed testing station was established by Nobbe in Saxony in1869. Nobbe in his1876 publication Samenkunde mentions smut balls and sclerotia but does not describe anymethod for their detection except visual examination of the seed.The first seed health test toappear was developed by Hiltner working in Germany in 1917.The most notable of the earlypioneer in seed health testing was with out doubt Dr. L.C .Doyer .The most notable of the earlypioneer in seed health testing was with out doubt Dr. L.C .Doyer and Paul Neergarad, also knownas father of seed pathology, who coined the tem seed pathology as an important discipline in PlantPathology .In 1918, first seed health testing laboratory was established at the Government Seedtesting laboratory in Wageningen, The Netherlands. Doyer was the first official Seed pathologist .She was the first chairperson of the ISTA Plant Disease Committee, a position she held until herdeath in 1949.At sixth ISTA congress, at Wageningen, she presented her proposal for recordingSanitary conditions of Seed on the International rules of Seed Testing. Later Dorph-Petersen, thefirst ISTA president, presented a report in International Seed Testing Conference held in 1921 inCopenhagen, on Remarks on the Investigations of the Purity of Strain and Freedom fromDisease.At the 1924 congress held in Cambridge, Genter spoke on the subject Determination ofplant diseases transmitted by seed.The first International Rules for Seed Testing were published by ISTA in 1928. Thisdocument contained a special section on Sanitary Condition in which special attention wasrecommended for Claviceps purpurea, Fusarium, Tilletia, and Ustilago hordei on cereals;Ascochyta pisi on peas, Colletotrichum lindemuthianum on beans and Botrytis, Colletotrichumlinicola, and Aureobasidium lini on flax.Seed Health testingMethods for seed health testing such as, incubation methods, grow out test and otherconventional methods often vary from one laboratory to another which is inadequate forcomparative seed health testing.In 1957, the Plant Disease Committee established a comparative seed health testingprogramme aimed at standardizing techniques for the detection of seedborne pathogens.Subsequent symposia have focused on Seed Health Testing - Progress towards the 21stCentury (Cambridge, UK 1996) and most recently in August 2003, Disease thresholds and theirimplication in seed health testing (Ames, Iowa).Recent Advances in Seed Health Testing proceduresToday, seed health testing is routinely carried out in most countries for domestic seedcertification, quality assessment and plant quarantine. The first PDC Seed Health Symposium washeld in Ottawa, Canada in 1993 and focused on quality assurance in seed health testing. Thedemand for better seed quality of conventional varieties and transgenics, greater sensitivity in- 34 -