34 GERMINATION.CA JANUARY 2018 SALES COACHING DON’T LET FEAR DESTROY YOUR FUTURE Rod Osthus President, RC Thomas @RodOsthus • rod@rcthomas.com • rcthomas.com MY MOTHER PASSED away from cancer in 1988. Back then, they didn’t know as much about treatments for her type of illness, so the doctors used every technique they knew. Every day they would come into her room with a new treatment plan, a new test to perform, another experi- mental strategy. And every time they told her about their ideas, she got excited and became happy and more ener- getic, and her fear of dying rapidly subsided. I watched as those actions temporarily “healed” my mother because they made her focus on the present instead of the future that she couldn’t control. The minute she felt the present was more in her control, her fears went away and her motivation to succeed increased. Throughout my mother’s fight, I learned that action equals healing because the fear that interferes with the ability to heal goes away. Fear controls many people in the ag industry. Wherever I go, I’m asked the same questions. Where is this market- place going? What’s the future of our industry? Everyone is asking those questions because they think more about the future than they think about the present. They don’t have a plan for the present and thinking about the future, with no plan for the present, creates a lot of fear. The problem with fear is that it’s about the future, not the present. Fear is a total waste of time and energy. As you’ve heard many times, fear is “false evidence appear- ing real.” Most fears are never realized. The best way to ensure fears never arise is to bring them into the present and act on them. Fear goes away once that fear is brought into the present and addressed. If you worry only about achieving your goals and don’t work the process to achieve those goals, all your fears about the future will come true. But if you stop worrying, and take action and do what it takes to achieve those goals, those fears go away. Stop worrying about the future and start doing the things that put you in control of your business. Live and work in the present and the future will take care of itself. Take action, because action equals healing, and that takes away all your fears. SEED HEALTH & TESTING A PRESCRIPTION FOR KNOWING YOUR SEED QUALITY Sarah Foster President and Senior Seed Analyst, 20/20 Seed Labs @Sarah2020labs • sarah@2020seedlabs.ca • 2020seedlabs.ca DUE TO VERY favourable weather conditions in many parts of Canada, the 2017 seed crops are showing higher germi- nation and lower disease profiles. A good year, it would seem. Sadly, a lot of seed hasn’t made it into the labora- tory for testing because it’s often thought that in a good year, seed doesn’t need to be tested until later — or even not at all. The general consensus is that we had a reasonably good harvest and many are thinking, “I’ll put my seed in the bin and I’ll just test in the spring before I need to plant it.” This is not a recommended practice no matter how experienced you think you are at determining your seed quality. True, your seeds may not have disease infection, but there are numerous other factors that come into consid- eration with producing a healthy crop for 2018. Let’s use the germination test as a measure of quality. The results are more than a number — it’s a complete quality diagnostic of your seed. To start with, it tells you what condition the seed is in. How does it look? Plump and fully formed with good colour and no odour? Good sound seed will perform well and often has very little hidden in the background. On the other hand, there have been cases this year already of unexpected, extremely poor performance. A diagnostic profile lists, along with your normal seed- lings, everything else that makes up the total germination. You will also see abnormal, fresh, dormant or dead seeds. This profile should always accompany your germination test results. This profile outlines symptoms noted in the seed lot like frost, chemical toxicity or injury, heating or mechanical damage, dormancy and the presence of pathogens. This is the start for building a prescription or plan for managing the outcome. Most of what a grower deals with on any given day is beyond his or her control. Markets, commodity prices, weather — you name it, there’s really nothing you can do about it. But you can, however, control what you know about your seed. Don’t back off on testing — your seed may not have pathogens present, but your soil will. Take steps to ensure you protect your biggest asset at all levels.