132 / SEEDWORLD.COM DECEMBER 2017 sharing about how things are happening in the field - what are the positives and negatives people are seeing in the field?” Ideally, three core groups of participants come together to develop standards. The first group is industry. The equipment industry is very active in developing standards for machines. “We also encourage folks from plant protection and seed treatment companies to participate in those committees as well because they can share keen insights about the equipment. We are seeing good participation to make sure we have well- rounded industry views in those standards.” The second group is academia, including research institutions and universities to share their findings and information. The last group is the general public, government agencies and non-gov- ernment organizations that want to participate and share their information as well. Industry Partnership “This is a nice opportunity to highlight the industry partnership between planting equipment manufacturers, seed applied tech- nology providers and other adjacent technology (like polymers and seed lubricants) providers,” sys Ravi Ramachandra, head of the North America Seedcare Institute for Syngenta. “Through such cross-industry collaboration, we plan on devel- oping new innovative approaches to efficient planting technology for treated seeds.” Ramachandra says participants are looking at it from a gen- eral “everybody benefits” point of view. That is one of the unique things in standards development; everyone wears white hats. He says their objective is to talk about the data, the facts and what they are experiencing so they can move the industry forward as a whole. He explains that the work that is created out of the standards body becomes published standards available to everyone. “There is really a sense that by sharing the best information, we can benefit the industry as a whole. It allows any manufac- turer regardless of scale to look at the standards and apply those standards to their products,” Bursiek concludes. SW Wanderson Oliveira, a Seedcare platform specialist at the Syngenta Seedcare Institute in Stanton, Minnesota, evaluates planter performance of treated seeds.